Flog a Pro: would you pay to turn the first page of this bestseller?
By Ray Rhamey | April 18, 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 two on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list for April 21, 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 How strong is the prologue—would this narrative, all on its own, hook an agent if it came in from an unpublished writer?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 KNOW within thirty-three seconds of entering the front door that my home is empty and my husband and daughter are missing.
As a US Army captain, assigned to the Military Intelligence Command, I have years of training and battlefield experience in Iraq and Afghanistan in evaluating patterns, scraps of information, and bits of communication.
This experience comes in handy when I enter our nice little suburban home in Kingstowne, Virginia, about eight miles from my current duty station at Fort Belvoir. Our light-blue Honda CR-V is parked in the driveway, school has been out for hours, and when I take my first two steps into our house, there’s no television on, no smell of dinner cooking—which my husband, Tom, said would be ready when I got home, since I am late once again—and, most puzzling, no ambient noise or presence from our ten-year-old, Denise, who is usually singing, chatting on her phone, or tap-dancing in the front hallway. Hard to explain, but the moment after I open the door, I know the place is empty and my loved ones are in trouble.
I gently put my black leather purse and soft leather briefcase on the floor. I don’t bother calling out. Instead I go to the near wall, where there’s a framed photo of a Maine lighthouse, and I tug the photo free, revealing a small metal safe built into the wall and a combination keypad next to a handle. I punch in 9999 (in an emergency like this, trying to remember a (snip)
You can turn the page and read more here.
This is The Cornwalls Are Gone by James Patterson and Brendan Dubois. Was this opening page compelling?
My vote: No.
This book received 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon. Amazing. This is the clunkiest writing I’ve seen in more than six years of doing the Flog a Pro post. I get submissions on my blog from rank amateurs that are far better than this.
There is a good, strong story question raised at the outset and, if it weren’t for the writing, I’d have been willing to turn the page. But to volunteer to continue to trudge through overwriting and clumsy narrative? Not this reader. Below is my editorial take on this piece of “writing.”
NOTE: I apologize in advance for touches of snark here and there in the following—I would never deal with an editing client or a writer on my blog this way, but this level of expletive irritates me.
I KNOW within thirty-three seconds of entering the front door that my home is empty and my husband and daughter are missing. What’s with “thirty-three” seconds? The shorthand for a brief period of time is “seconds.” We don’t expect the length of time down to the nanosecond. This unlikely and excess detail briefly took me out of the story.
As a US Army captain, assigned to the Military Intelligence Command, I have years of training and battlefield experience in Iraq and Afghanistan in evaluating patterns, scraps of information, and bits of communication. ARGH! Backstory and setup! Don’t do this, I was at least interested in the missing family. Would anyone, upon realizing that their loved ones are missing, be thinking this ham-handed author intrusion?
This experience comes in handy when I enter our nice little suburban home in Kingstowne, Virginia, about eight miles from my current duty station at Fort Belvoir. Our light-blue Honda CR-V is parked in the driveway, school has been out for hours, and when I take my first two steps into our house, there’s no television on, no smell of dinner cooking—which my husband, Tom, said would be ready when I got home, since I am late once again—and, most puzzling, no ambient noise or presence from our ten-year-old, Denise, who is usually singing, chatting on her phone, or tap-dancing in the front hallway. Hard to explain, but the moment after I open the door, I know the place is empty and my loved ones are in trouble. ”comes in handy?” Seriously? You have just determined that your family is missing and you are so blasé about it that, rather than anxiety and fear coming on, you reflect on how “handy” your experience is? Really? And then there’s the overwriting, the excessive detail. It doesn’t matter that the house is eight miles from Fort Belvoir, at least not to dealing with a missing husband and daughter. Does it matter that their car is a light-blue Honda CR-V? Not a whit. She finds the absence of her daughter’s happy noise “most puzzling.” Puzzling? How about scary, or ominous, or something other than that? Then there’s repetition—we’re told that within moments of opening the door that she knows the place is empty and her loved ones are in trouble. The first paragraph already TOLD US THAT! Sorry for shouting, but this is truly aggravating.
I gently put ease my black leather purse and soft leather briefcase I on to the floor. I don’t bother calling out. Instead I go to the near wall, where there’s a framed photo of a Maine lighthouse, and I tug the photo it from the wall free, revealing a small metal safe built into the wall and a combination keypad next to a handle. I punch in 9999 (in an emergency like this, trying to remember a (snip) ”gently put” is weak adverbial description, use a strong, clear verb instead. And thinking of one’s “black leather” purse and “soft leather” briefcase is clearly an amateurish break in POV—no one, especially when dealing with a missing family, is going to have the color and fabric of the items in their thoughts. The description of the action around the safe is complicated and verbose and overwritten.I feel compelled to share with you that, in keeping with the “style” of this narrative, the next page reveals that she tugs (echo of tug) free from the safe “a loaded stainless-steel Ruger .357 hammerless revolver. Wow, that’s some taut action writing there! The suspense is darn near unbearable here, so thank goodness for this vital and clearly significant detail about the gun to give the tension a rest.
You ask me, James Patterson should be embarrassed to have his name on this. And should hire an editor. 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.
Your editorial comments are spot on. I wanted to be right in the narrator’s head, feeling the situation with her, but the clunkiness of the writing meant I was never engaged by the story. Wasted opportunity for a compelling opening scene, as the concept is good.
Oh my goodness, you are so right. Yet because of those details about what the husband and daughter would be doing and where that paragraph cut off, I’d turn the page. Now, I wouldn’t buy the book, because reading that writing for a few hours would make me angry, but I’d turn the page.
I voted no, for all the reasons given. If leaner, this could have been a compelling opening. Should we lay the blame on Patterson’s co-author, who perhaps has swallowed whole the common advice to show specific details, but without learning how to select details and where to plant them? (Perhaps he was very brave and excised from the first draft a head-to-toe description of the narrator’s appearance and clothing, complete with designer suit and chic haircut, leaving only the leather purse and briefcase, and then considered the job done.)
If I was in a library, I would likely pick up the book because of James Patterson’s name. But the opening did not “hook” me and I would return it unread. I would definitely not purchase it. Thanks for sharing your critique. It is a good reminder for me as a writer that I need to have a compelling opening, something that will make the reader turn the page, and keep turning the pages.
As an editor, I know that if the story question is good, the book can be. So I would have gone on. Yes, I agree with all the ham-handedness of the writing, but the book is salvageable. Let me have it for 30 days, and we’ll get it trimmed down.
I have to admit to identifying with the woman. In moments of emergency, my emotional side switches off, letting my rational side come to the fore. Therefore her almost blase attitude did not turn me off. In fact, the prosaic details are what keep me grounded in an emergency.
The first paragraph drew me in and the second kicked me back out. Running through the narrators resume at this crucial point is intrusive and it undercuts the tension created in the first paragraph.
I think that could be a very interesting approach–writing this from the perspective of someone who shuts down in stressful situations.
However, the challenge there is using voice to make it very clear to readers that’s what’s happening. This passage doesn’t say to me, “Ah, this character is treating this personal crisis like a military engagement as a defense mechanism.” It says to me, “Ah, James Patterson is pulling random people off the streets to write his books these days.”
For the POV of an emotionally repressed narrator to be successful, readers must be able to see the emotions the character is suppressing between the lines.
For example, the narrator repeatedly emphasizes this is nothing. She was known for having the coolest head in her company. So cool, they called her Clint Eastwood to her face and Mr. Spock behind her back. She was the only one who stayed calm when that IED killed Sam. Okay, so it’s quiet. It’s not supposed to be quiet. Her family is supposed to be here, and they’re not. But she was cool even when Sam died, so she’s not going to get upset about a little unexpected change in plans. Really. She simply would have preferred it if Tom had told her he was taking Denise out for pizza, that’s all…and then she reaches for the gun.
My initial reaction was exactly the same—would have thought this the work of a neophyte fiction writer had you not described the work at the outset.
Phenomenally amateurish and tedious in the extreme to read even this excerpt, so no page-turn here.
What drives readers and continued interest? Plot, character, language. Patterson has never pretended to the last, and #2 is muddy at best, but he is fabulous at coming up with plots and story questions, and so he continues to have millions of readers.
Yes, I think this could have been tightened noticeably, and could use a crisp editorial pass, but he’s highly successful because he nails the plot/story question thing every time. And readers rely on that. If the story question is compelling, they don’t really notice the clunky writing. (Can you say, Dan Brown?)
Don’t disagree with any of your editorial carps, but overall I would have read on. It was close, but a yes from me. I liked that it was a woman (kind of flips the “Taken” script, nice). TOTALLY agree about the 33 seconds though, and I suspected from the start that was bait.
Of course it’s all unforgiveable but this is an old tale by now. Authors like Patterson ARE the brand- he even has a ghostwriter now, and doesn’t matter, his tribe is all-in. They know that eventually the tale will come and they’ll love it.
I chose no because the lack of emotion was totally a turn off. Your comments pretty much summed up everything I was thinking, and are why I just can’t get into James Patterson novels. I tried once, made it through a few chapters and quit. Never tried again.
Ray, I love this feature, and this one made me laugh aloud. I couldn’t agree with you more thoroughly! I think it’s so misleading for writers striving to learn their craft and get published to judge their efforts against bestsellers’ efforts like this–at a certain point some authors develop the reputation and power to eschew having a set of objective eyes on their work. The hubris of high sales can create a sense of infallibility that often exacts a toll on the quality of the work, IMO. Love your (justified) attempts to keep Patterson humble.
100% agree with everything you said. I truly do not know why James Patterson books sell so much. It’s always some of the worst stuff that ends up on Flog a Pro.
As soon as I read the first line I thought it reeked of Patterson. So no page turning for me.
It’s a potentially good premise, but if the rest of the book is this clunky it will need a great deal of editing.
This is a rare instance where the drama and danger of the situation got me past the klunkiness (how DO you spell that?) of the writing.
I voted yes, being intrigued by both the clear sense of danger, and the protagonist’s apparent familiarity and skill in dealing with that sort of danger. This makes me think some interesting stuff is likely to happen, and that the apparently-not-so-average protagonist might make some exciting moves in response.
PS – the one thing that threatened to take me out of the story was the fact that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a light blue CR-V. I’ve driven them for 20 years, and can’t remember seeing them in that color, but I could well be wrong.
They do come in that color and have since at least 2009 :-) (would totally have been the color I got if I’d ended up getting a CR-V)
I stand corrected!
Okay, actually I’m sitting, but that doesn’t sound as good.
:)
Wow. I wasn’t expecting that author name.
The 33 seconds didn’t bother me, it was the résumé that followed. As soon as I saw “33 seconds”, I knew she must be someone who has keen attention to detail, maybe even obsessively so, and probably has a job that suits this trait. Showing vs. telling. Then I was guided through an interview and, as Ray says, astonishingly clunky narrative I would have expected from a novice. I skimmed the second I read the first sentence of the second paragraph. Not good.
And the last line already presented a blooper for me: the character is a US Army captain, assigned to the Military Intelligence Command, and her security code is 9999? Because stress?
I don’t find the story question to be a strong one; I wonder if it’s there at all. If it’s “what happened to the family”, it’s been done a thousand times, and feels neutral.
This really depresses me as a writer. Storytelling is more than a hook. And this is not a very strong one.
Completely agree, Ray.
Clearly, the main goal of the Patterson Book Factory is production rather than quality. Too bad, he was once a good author.
I couldn’t help rolling my eyes when I read the opening lines. You did a great edit and terrific, funny commentary. Thanks!
Totally agree with Ray. This started with too much info (thirty-three seconds), descended into an info dump and then finally arose to what should have been the beginning of the novel.
And it if STARTS with an info dump, you can bet those will frequently occur in the rest of the novel.
Lynn, you just hammered a nail I keep pounding on in my blog: what’s on the first page foreshadows the nature and quality of the narrative that follows. What you see is what you’re gonna get. In this case, not only info-dumpy stuff but clunky writing as well. That’s the reason literary agents will tell you that they can and do reject submissions on the basis of the first page. Editors, too. Thanks.
Two things stuck with me after reading this and reading your edits. 1) I actually wasn’t sure it was a woman till the purse hit the floor. I was actually thinking gay male coming home to his husband and daughter. 2) Looking at your edits, I wondered if this was originally third person flipped to first person. If you think about much of the description you would chop out, if this wasn’t told from a first person point of view, the description might make more sense in “setting the stage”. But it totally gets in the way and felt, as you pointed out, disconnected from what should have been the character’s emotional state in a first person POV.
Love the snark, Ray. I would’ve read further had it been published with your edits.
I wouldn’t read any further for two reasons. One, the narrator is handling this situation as if it was just another day at the office, which it most definitely is not, and two, if you know upon arriving home that your husband and daughter are in danger, I would think you would immediately spring into action, not think about what color the car is.
By coincidence, Patterson’s co-author, well-known short story writer Brendan DuBois, wrote this piece in the blog for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine just yesterday, about the stages of his career, touching on his work with Patterson. DuBois wrote a 2015 short story, “The Lake Tenant” (Ellery Queen) about a series of fires in a small New England town, one of the best short stories I’ve read in years. https://somethingisgoingtohappen.net/2019/04/17/a-writing-career-what-does-it-mean-by-brendan-dubois/
Sounds like a nice, hard-working, deserving writer. But he/they still should have included an editor (of fiction) in this project, IMO.
Thanks for the link, Leslie.
I would have read on. I was intrigued by the story question. I realized after you edited that I had skipped those clunky unnecessary parts. So, while the writing and language aren’t up to par, I still would have read on for the story.
I thought 33 seconds was intriguing because it’s so specific. Something is supposed to happen in the first 30 seconds but it doesn’t so three seconds later she knows something is wrong. But her observations aren’t time-specific, and then she says she knew “moments” after opening the door. 33 seconds is a lot of moments. Specific can be good, but not if it’s random and meaningless.
Great job on the edits, and I agree with most of your notes. I’d like to add that I do not like present tense POV for an entire book, though I enjoy reading it (and even writing this way) in flashbacks, prologue, or epilogue. Personal preference, of course.
I choose not to comment on the writing specifics as much as Patterson’s “factory.” Another member mentioned this in a comment above. Isn’t it true that Patterson no longer writes his own books? I have heard that he has a “team” of writers, and he hands them an outline only. If this is true, then we aren’t really debating Patterson’s writing, but his sell-out tactics as an “author.”
I would never ever pick up a Patterson book anyway, whether he writes them himself or not. I read one back in the 80s, and it was so disgustingly violent against women that I could not finish it. Many of his earlier books used this “horrific crimes against women” device as the central plot line.
Really there are too many other great works to be read. This writer (or factory of writers) is not worth my hard-earned money.
Thanks for the flogging. Keep them coming!