Flog a Pro: Would You Pay to Turn the Page of This Bestseller?
By Ray Rhamey | February 21, 2019 |
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 one on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list for February 24, 2019. How strong is the prologue—would this narrative, all on its own, hook an agent if it came in from an unpublished writer?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 don’t know why I’m writing this.
That’s not true. Maybe I do know and just don’t want to admit it to myself.
I don’t even know what to call it—this thing I’m writing. It feels a little pretentious to call it a diary. It’s not like I have anything to say. Anne Frank kept a diary—not someone like me. Calling it a “journal” sounds too academic, somehow. As if I should write in it every day, and I don’t want to—if it becomes a chore, I’ll never keep it up.
Maybe I’ll call it nothing. An unnamed something that I occasionally write in. I like that better. Once you name something, it stops you seeing the whole of it, or why it matters. You focus on the word, which is just the tiniest part, really, the tip of an iceberg. I’ve never been that comfortable with words—I always think in pictures, express myself with images—so I’d never have started writing this if it weren’t for Gabriel.
I’ve been feeling depressed lately, about a few things. I thought I was doing a good job of hiding it, but he noticed—of course he did, he notices everything. He asked how the painting was going—I said it wasn’t. He got me a glass of wine, and I sat at the kitchen table while he cooked.
I like watching Gabriel move around the kitchen. He’s a graceful cook—elegant, balletic, organized. Unlike me. I just make a mess.
“Talk to me,” he said.
You can turn the page and read more here.
This is The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides. Was this opening page compelling?
My vote: No.
This book received 4.3 out of 5 stars on Amazon. If all I get to make me read on is this prologue, I’ll never see page two, much less the rest of the novel. First reason: it begins with musing. More than that, musing by a self-absorbed, it’s-all-about-me character. My level of interest in that? Sub-zero. I just didn’t care for the woman (the prologue title includes “Alicia Berenson’s Diary”.) doing the musing. Then we slide into something happening . . . watching another person cook. Wow! And then back to “me”—”I just make a mess.” Second reason: I saw no evidence of a story here.
Perhaps this prologue is an example of why I’ve seen so many literary agents say they skip the prologue in submissions because they know the story begins with chapter one. (Don Maass and other agents reading this, how do you feel about prologues?) If this book had started with Chapter 1, I’ve have turned the page. Here’s one reason why, the opening paragraph on the first page of the first chapter:
Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband.
That raises a strong story question from the get-go, and I want more of this. If you read on, you’ll see what I mean. Your thoughts?
You’re invited to a flogging—your own You see here 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 have no beef with prologues. I don’t mind that this character is self-absorbed. I was immediately turned off by “‘I don’t know why I’m writing this. That’s not true. Maybe I do know…'”
And then it continues to ramble and meander. There aren’t any anchors, just floating thoughts. No conflicts. The prose is lacking, stylistically. The first chapter’s opening line is so sensationalist, it disrupts the tone. Is this book meant to be navel-gazing or shocking?
I rarely put a book down and never finish. But this one hasn’t captured my interest.
What do I think of prologues? They don’t work…until they do. When they work it’s for the same reasons that any opening works: engagement and intrigue.
Engagement means meeting someone we care about or at least are drawn to. Intriguing means something interesting or puzzling or anticipatory happening to that person.
In this instance, I’m curious about the author’s strategy. The POV character is not the novel’s protagonist. She is a famous painter who will shoot her husband in the face five times, then go silent. The protagonist is the psychologist who ties to get her to talk, to explain her motive.
Given that the painter will be silent for most of the novel, why give her voice now? Miserable main characters are a staple, these days, of psychological thrillers. These days we ought to be used to narrators who are self-loathing and unreliable.
There is, however, a trick. “Awful” narrators aren’t entirely awful. If we continue to read about them, it’s not because they’re utterly and irredeemably horrible. It’s because there’s something redeeming about them, or at least the promise of something.
Even villain-narrated novels work this trick: We may despise the narrator but there is something to like and the hope that the narrator might change. A good example is Caroline Kepness’s novel YOU.
In any event, this prologue didn’t work for me. I voted no, though if the author had begun with his protagonist Theo Faber my vote would have been yes.
I agree. If a prologue has the same storytelling tension and movement as a scene in a chapter, it can and should succeed.
And I agree about “awful” narrators as long as there is just a smidgen of something that makes a connection possible.
I had a “cold” narrator in one of my novels that left readers equally cold–so I added a little flavor of caring for another person to her and it worked. Thanks, Don.
Nope. Rambly. And knowing more about it afterward (what the story is actually about) I think this prologue seems superfluous. Thanks, Ray and Don, for your thoughts on it. I’d have to concur. Perhaps the first page of Lolita is a good model. You immediately feel put off by this narrator, who has clearly committed a crime, and it even feels a little rambling, but it’s so full of tension and questions that you read on, even if you feel like maybe you don’t want to know what he did.
Ho-hum. I really do not need to read the musings of still another depressed person. Reminds me of that much-quoted example of a bad beginning (sorry; can’t remember the source):
“Here I stand, looking out the window, and I am important.”
Nope.
I have no issue with prologues, but this is nothing more than throat-clearing. No conflict, no reason to care about the character.
I’ve written stuff like this – and then cut it when it was time to revise. It’s warm-up writing, and doesn’t belong in the finished product.
I was intrigued by the voice in the first two paragraphs, but then expected some story to illuminate the problem. Its absence, there and on the rest of the page, inspired a no.
I agree with Kathryn Craft (above) – I was interested by the voice in the first few lines, then went off it. Then I thought “Who is Gabriel?” but ended up put off again, why would I want to share 80000 words with someone messy and disorganized?
Generally I strongly dislike prologues, and would either stop reading or skip it. Most seem to be a self-indulgence on the part of the writer. The worst pick out the most interesting bit of the first half of the novel and put it at the beginning as a spoiler!
I was interested. “Chatty” doesn’t attract me in real life. But I would have turned the page to read what happened next.
No. I have no quarrel with prologues as long as they work. Honestly, I don’t care if she keeps a journal or not or whether she watches the other person cook (unless they’re making something extraordinary), but this meandered too much for me.
For once, I actually would have turned the page on this one. I liked the voice and was curious as to the “why” of the writing and where it was going. It was interesting enough I looked the book up on Amazon and read some more.
Reading on, I stopped at Chapter 2. The actual narrator of the main story sounded far more self-absorbed and with an inflated sense of importance. His presumably being her “doctor” yet being obsessed with her for years, and now telling “her story” just smacks of a level of creepy unprofessionalism whose head space I did not want to dive into.
“I don’t know why I’m writing this.
That’s not true. Maybe I do know and just don’t want to admit it to myself.
I don’t even know what to call it—this thing I’m writing.”
Yeah, okay, bye. I only read the further paragraphs because it’s your post, Ray, and I wanted to see how you feel. If I picked this book at a bookstore, those four sentences would be enough to put it back down and wonder why anybody would want to buy it. My attention span is longer than five seconds, it’s more that I have over 200 books in my TBR e-pile. This beginning not only doesn’t make me curious, it actively puts me off.
This is probably why my books will never become bestsellers ;)
“I don’t know why I’m writing this.”
We’re even, I don’t know why I’m reading it.
Amen, Brian!
The beginning of this Prologue reminds me of the number one No-No I learned in a high school English class – or maybe a required Speech/Diction class: Never ever begin your writing, or speech, with “I don’t know why I’m writing/talking about this.” It’s the same as saying “This story is probably not very good.” Like Brain, I’m already saying to myself, “Yea, it’s already not good, so who cares?
I actually love prologues in Memoirs, provided they intrigue or move me in some way. (I’m thinking of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild.) But in fiction, I’ve never been impressed with a prologue. Get on with the story already.
I Feel quite strangely about this one. It meandered, and it didn’t say a lot, but the voice is perfect. Were this in a genre I read (which would have been apparent in a good prologue in my genre) I’d keep reading. The sole reason I’m not is the entire genre is boring to me. Prologues are good to set the stage for what comes after. Quite possibly, this does set the stage for that murder.
I can see what the author’s trying to do: give the reader a little extra insight into the central mystery. But the chapter 1 opening line is so strong I have to wonder if the prologue was added *after* the book was picked up. Selling a book to an agent is not the same as selling to the public. The public sees the flashy cover, the blurb, the marketing – how many will read the first page of the prologue in the bookstore and put it down?
I disagree that there’s no story question here. The narrator admits that she’ may be trying to hide something from herself and that she’s been depressed, which makes me want to find out why. Her rambling reinforces the impression she’s avoiding thinking/writing about something. Her reference to the tip of the iceberg implies there’s a lot going on beneath the surface.
Depressed people are often self-absorbed, so I didn’t hold this against her. A lot of readers enjoys this inward focus so I don’t think this is a good reason to dismiss it.
It’s not a great opening but there was enough here for me to give it at least a few more pages.
I won’t give prologues the time of day.
If I open a book and see “prologue”, I close it and move on. I don’t care how good the story is, there are plenty of other books out there. I move on.
This is the perfect example of why I’d move on. Just not my cup of tea. But I understand it might be someone’s cup of tea and that’s the beauty of writing.
I thought this was a YA and would have turned the page to read a bit more, though that urge fell short of compulsion. Interesting that the rest of the book is written in such a different voice. I agree it would have been much stronger to begin with Chapter 1.
I suspect the sales are based upon the premise, which is high concept, IMHO.