Flog a Pro: would you pay to turn the first page of this bestseller?
By Ray Rhamey | August 16, 2018 |
Trained by reading hundreds of submissions, editors and agents often make their read/not-read decision on the first page. In a customarily formatted book manuscript with chapters starting about 1/3 of the way down the page (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type), there are 16 or 17 lines on the first page.
Here’s the question:
Would you pay good money to read the rest of the chapter? With 50 chapters in a book that costs $15, each chapter would be “worth” 30 cents.
So, before you read the excerpt, take 30 cents from your pocket or purse. When you’re done, decide what to do with those three dimes or the quarter and a nickel. It’s not much, but think of paying 30 cents for the rest of the chapter every time you sample a book’s first page. In a sense, time is money for a literary agent working her way through a raft of submissions, and she is spending that resource whenever she turns a page.
Please judge by storytelling quality, not by genre or content—some reject an opening page immediately because of genre, but that’s not a good enough reason when the point is to analyze for storytelling strength.
This novel was number three on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list for August 18, 2018. How strong is the opening page of the prologue—would this narrative, all on its own, hook an agent if it came in from an unpublished writer? Following are what would be the first 17 manuscript lines of the first chapter.
It was an unmarked car, just some nondescript American sedan a few years old, but the blackwall tires and the three men inside gave it away for what it was. The two in front were wearing blue uniforms. The one in back was wearing a suit, and he was as big as a house. A pair of black boys standing on the sidewalk, one with a foot on a scuffed orange skateboard, the other with a lime-colored board under his arm, watched it turn into the parking lot of the Estelle Barga Recreational Park, then looked at each other.
One said, “That’s Five-O.”
The other said, “No shit.”
They headed off with no further conversation, pumping their boards. The rule was simple: when Five-O shows up, it’s time to go. Black lives matter, their parents had instructed them, but not always to Five-O. At the baseball field, the crowd began to cheer and clap rhythmically as the Flint City Golden Dragons came to bat in the bottom of the ninth, one run down. The boys didn’t look back.
2
Statement of Mr. Jonathan Ritz [July 10th, 9:30 PM, interviewed by Detective Ralph Anderson]
Detective Anderson: I know you’re upset, Mr. Ritz, it’s understandable, but I need to know exactly what you saw earlier this evening.
You can turn the page and read more here.
This is The Outsider by Stephen King. Was this opening page compelling?
My vote: Yes.
This book received an average of 4.5 stars out of 5 on Amazon. I’m a big fan of Stephen King, so I just had to check it out. Mr. King sometimes steps outside of the standard opening to a novel as he does here, which is fine as long as it works. The first chapter was just 13 manuscript pages long, so I included more from the opening of chapter two to give you 17 lines of narrative.
The first brief chapter basically serves to set the scene in a left-handed kind of way. For this reader, I think it was a waste of narrative—I read through several more chapters in the sample and the black boys didn’t reappear. I’ll wager that they never do, and they sure didn’t have any impact on the story in the part I read. I don’t see a purpose for this bit, but Mr. King did. I wonder what it was. Let me add that I wasn’t happy with the “big as a house” cliché.
The opening of the second chapter, though, does do what I like to see—raise a story question. I can assume the detective is asking about a crime, so “what happened” is a logical story question. Because of the opening paragraph, we might assume the police made an arrest at the ball game—but that could have been done quickly and efficiently elsewhere without using up 13 lines of narrative that don’t otherwise touch the story. Still, the detective’s interview was enough to generate a page-turn from me (although I wonder if it would have if I hadn’t known this was a Stephen King novel). What did you think?
You’re invited to a flogging—your own You see the insights fresh eyes bring to the performance of bestseller first pages, so why not do the same with the opening of your WIP? Submit your prologue/first chapter to my blog, Flogging the Quill and I’ll give you my thoughts and even a little line editing if I see a need. And the readers of FtQ are good at offering constructive notes, too. Hope to see you there.
To submit, email your first chapter or prologue (or both) as an attachment to me, and let me know if it’s okay to use your first page and to post the complete chapter.
[coffee]
Ray Rhamey is the author of five novels and one writing craft book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. He’s also an editor of book-length fiction and designs book covers and interiors for Indie authors and small presses. His website, crrreative.com, offers an a la carte menu of creative services for writers and publishers. Learn more about Ray’s books at rayrhamey.com.
I would have voted no if a vote counter had shown up on my screen. Launching a narrative with “It was” bothered me, as did “big as a house.” Also, “…gave it away for what it was” is redundant; “gave it away” would have been sufficient. As for the quality of the narrative so far: I’m only moderately intrigued. Now that I know the author, I might-maybe give the book a chance, but only might-maybe.
Yes with reservations. Was first stopped by the clunky & unneeded attributions to dialogue, i.e. ‘one said’, ‘the other said’, and then even more put off by what looked like an overt attempt at social/political baiting with the ‘black lives matter’ stuff. But there was something about the first lines that did convey “Read on.”
Everything about the writing in this opening succeeds, but it doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t read on, because the subject matter strikes me as overworked, as one more story “ripped from the headlines,” but without the visual appeal of “Law and Order.”
But I would take issue with Ray’s comment on the two black kids with skateboards. In a way, it’s the best thing here, a point of view toward cops in unmarked cars, and the kids’ parents’ warnings. I see what they see, and think it works.
I would have voted yes because of the lines that appeared from chapter 2, even though the first 13 lines didn’t feel particularly fresh or skillful–it felt very much like an adult writing two boys. But now knowing that those boys never show up again? I’m a little annoyed by that. But I do think he needed to set the scene before the idea of a witness to a crime is introduced.
Your rule is to ‘judge by the storytelling quality’… so I had to vote NO. Stephen King is a master storyteller, but if any of us unknowns wrote that opening paragraph, we’d be in the slush pile before the reader got to the “that’s 5-0” line, which I liked. Starting with the two lines of dialogue would have been enough for a yes vote.
It intrigued me. I vote yes. I wasn’t bothered by the “big as a house” cliche because we all use cliches in daily language. As long as cliches aren’t over used throughout the novel, I see nothing wrong with using it in dialogue because that’s what makes it sound real.
When I have quibbles with King’s novels, it’s usually the endings that bother me rather than the beginnings. His name on the cover is a pretty strong selling point, regardless.
No vote counter as others said. I was leaning far toward “no” before I saw that it was King: after that I pretty much fell over from surprise. Now it’s “no, and I think he should be arrested”. Wasted words, unclear direction, honestly a lack of tension (boys fearing discrimination observe the better part of valor, wow, let me sit down a moment).
And now you’re telling me they NEVER come back? Oy, what a clumsy waste of my energy. I’m honestly very surprised and disappointed here.
I vote yes, mainly for the two lines of dialog that end with “No shit.” I like what it promises about the two boys. That we don’t see them again would seem bizarre–aren’t they the hook?
I agree that the reference to Black Lives Matter seems clumsy. It could have been referenced some other way that doesn’t feel so buzz-wordy.
I am reading this book now and I am really intrigued. I would have voted yes because it does ask a question. I am a big Stephen King fan but I like some of his books more than others, however. It gets better, believe me.
I would vote no. The characters were bland and thinly drawn, the writing prosaic. The dialogue, such as it was, sounded stale, standard cop-show stuff. If the opening scene is meant to grip the reader, this one failed.
No, I wouldn’t. The first lines were bland description. Honestly, it looked lazy to me. I was very surprised with the author reveal, as I love his books. So yes, I’ll probably read it.
After having read King’s book on writing, I had a hard time believing he settled for this as an opening. My vote “no.” It’s not about who wrote it or what comes after. The question Ray asks is: did it grab me in the few lines that will print on a first page. I’m surprised Ray had to take some lines from the SECOND chapter to get it to work at all.
As I read this, I sensed deja vu. Even as I thought, “Nope, no way” I realized I had read this before and had, in fact, read the whole thing.
I thought the first paragraph was way too descriptive, not especially interesting, and wondered why the men “were wearing” certain types of clothes, and didn’t simply wear them.
As for the rest of the book? It’s King. I love King. Even at his worst, he entertains me, though I found this and “Sleeping Beauties” (which he wrote with his son, Owen) to be far too long and to have too many details in the wrong places.