Flog a Pro: would you pay to turn the first page of this bestseller?
By Ray Rhamey | September 20, 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 five on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list for September 23, 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strong is the opening page of the prologue—would this narrative, all on its own, hook an agent if it came in from an unpublished writer?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.
I turned my water glass in the slick circle of condensation on the smooth, red lacquer of the table between us and studied the man across from me. I was afraid that if I didn’t pay attention, he might disappear. The Seer was like that; it was as if he simply drifted away, giving him access to places without appearing to be there, making other people’s secrets his own.
“You should take in some of the culture while you are here south of the border—go to the bullfights.” Adjusting his straw porkpie hat to a jauntier angle, the hunchback smiled. “You might enjoy it.”
I said nothing.
He looked in my general direction, the smile slowly fading. “My friend, Miguel Guerra, says you are highly motivated, but that if I can talk you out of this, I should.”
I still said nothing.
He stared at me. “Do you speak Spanish?”
I wiped the sweat from under my eyes with a thumb and forefinger—I had a hard time convincing myself it was coming up on November. “Very little.”
He had taken his cheap sunglasses off and placed them next to his drink. His eyes were opaque, and they wandered past me, toward the knobby hills to the south that rose from the desert like a bony hand, the fingers spreading to make peaks and battlements, as if the mountains (snip)
You can turn the page and read more here.
This is Depth of Winter: A Longmire Mystery by Craig Johnson. Was this opening page compelling?
My vote: No.
This book received an average of 3.6 out of 5 stars on Amazon. That lower-scale rating made me wonder how this could be a bestseller. In looking through the reviews, though, I saw a couple of one-star reviews in which fans of the series were very disappointed that familiar characters weren’t included and that the story is more suspense than mystery. Perhaps Craig is trying something new, and three cheers for that. But what about this opening?
For me, zero tension. No story question raised. Still, in my role as a critic, I read on a little. And immediately discovered issues that say to me that this work needed a good edit. One glaring error is that the narrative has the Seer looking and staring at the narrator—“look” means to “ascertain by the use of the eyes” and “to exercise the power of vision upon,” and “stare” means “to look fixedly often with wide-open eyes.” The problem is that the Seer is blind. He can neither look nor stare. In this sense, the opening misleads the reader about what is actually happening.
But wait, there’s more—the amateur use of “eyes” doing things that eyes cannot do.
He had taken his cheap sunglasses off and placed them next to his drink.He took off his cheap sunglasses. His eyes were opaque, andtheyhis focus wandered past me, toward the knobby hills to the south that rose from the desert like a bony hand, the fingers spreading to make peaks and battlements, as if the mountains (snip) The first bit of description about taking off the sunglasses should not be retroactive. Keep it in the moment. And his eyes cannot leave their sockets and wander anywhere.
I know, it is frequently understood that this usage of “eyes” means “gaze,” but it bugs me every time I see it ‘cause it just ain’t so. And, in this case, does a blind man even have a gaze? Now that I think of it, I don’t think so.
There was one other indicator of something I don’t want to read: overwriting. The deleted phrase below is totally not necessary:
I wiped the sweat from under my eyes
with a thumb and forefinger
It does not matter with which digits he wipes away sweat. Finally, for me, there wasn’t enough mystery in this opening to compel a page-turn. 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.
Wow, so little time, so many metaphors. What did me in was the POV slip.The Seer’s eyes wandered past the narrator to the bony (etc., etc.) hills that he couldn’t see because he wasn’t facing them. Unless he has eyes in the back of his head and we find that out on page two…
I clicked on yes (with resentment, because you made me choose to say it’s “hot”) for two reasons. One was simply the reference to Seer, which raised the possibility of a fantasy or a magical realism piece. I knew it wasn’t likely but I wanted to know more. The second reason leaves me out of the previous comment: I don’t mind cliches very much, but I did like the sense the author gave that he knew precisely what was going on here. Hearing that it was a mystery helped cement my certainty that he was going to roll out the world-building in good time, and that there would be another world here (even if set in the Alleged Real World to start with).
Not to pick a fight but I do not see in the first page where the Seer is sitting with his back to the hills. I got a sense of over the author’s shoulder and maybe she even turns to look back at that point.
Just a note, William–by “hot” I was referring to the scene, wherein the temperature is high enough to cause sweating that needs to be wiped away with a thumb and forefinger.
Nope, for many of the same reasons you outlined.
It’s not bad, it just isn’t going anywhere, and the author is giving the impression that there is likely to be more hurry-up-and-wait in store for the reader, punctuated by lots of “hey, look at me writing description” filler.
I’ll pass.
Are the Seer and the hunchback the same person? Sounds like it, but maybe not. Confusion.
Wiping sweat is usually done a single motion, using a Nike-type or Amazon-type swish. Finger and thumb? Under-eye pinching of skin? Why this novel technique? Confusion.
I’m not available for any more confusion.
My flogging arm has gone numb.
I love those posts. I’ve been paying a lot of attention to opening lines in the last months. “I turned my water glass in the slick circle of condensation on the smooth, red lacquer of the table between us and studied the man across from me” is…not exciting. But I wouldn’t have noticed the Seer looking and staring if you didn’t point it out.
I would have probably tried the first 10-20 pages based on the first one, but my expectations would be low. *glances at to-read pile* Or perhaps I wouldn’t…
Like you, I’ve been paying a lot of attention to opening lines lately too, and this one fell flat for me as well. Aside from not being exciting, it seems to contradict itself. If he was afraid that the Seer would disappear if he stopped paying attention, then why is he focusing on fidgeting with the water glass? These posts are great, they really make us think about tension.
Like Bjørn Larssen says, the first sentence didn’t grab me. I thought it was over-written. I liked the seer and would have read on, because seers interest me.
I wanted to keep reading because I liked the setting and was intrigued by the ‘Seer’. But I abstained from voting because I wasn’t ‘hot to read more.’ Hot… really? I disagree with your editing of this piece. Wiping away sweat with finger and thumb gave me a certain image I thought was appropriate. A delicate flower type, or someone who didn’t want to smear their make-up would do it differently, say with the tip of their pinkie. That being said I’ve tried to read the Longmire mysteries because I like the show and the genre so much. But the books are a bit slow for me. Obviously though, the pace is perfect for Longmire fans. To me the writing is just kind of languid and even cinematic. With all due respect, I think you’re missing the point. ;)
Thanks for your comments, Alice. As I noted earlier, the “hot” reference was to it being hot in the story, what with people sweating and all, and had no sexual intent.
i voted yes. I agree that there isn’t much action, but I saw tension in the question about Mexico. “Go to the bullfights” could have been a coded message. The weak attempt to talk him out of going. Maybe I’ve got too much imagination.
I do enjoy those moments just before the action explodes, when you feel like holding your breath. Those moments before the inevitable happens. I wanted to see if I was right.
I have watched all six seasons of Longmire and purchased ten of Craig Johnsons’ Longmire series books. His sentences are becoming loose and ineffectual, as though he is simply filling up the pages with words. This is an example of that very thing. I am not a big fan of Seers and such but the mention of bull fights would cause me to read further because I am a fan of Hemingway
Absolutely no. The first sentence confused me (might be a non-native-speaker-thing though), I had to read it twice. I felt bombarded with pictures, but without any reason. I felt no connection to the any of the characters so far. What I did like was the idea of the Seer drifting away when you did not concentrate on looking at him. If not for that sentence, I would have stopped reading before coming to the end of the sample.