Flog a Pro: Would You Turn the First Page of this Bestseller?
By Ray Rhamey | December 16, 2021 |
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.
How strong is the opening page of this novel—would it, all on its own, hook an agent if it was submitted by an unpublished writer?
He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees. The mountainside sloped gently where he lay; but below it was steep and he could see the dark of the oiled road winding through the pass. There was a stream alongside the road and far down the pass he saw a mill beside the stream and the falling water of the dam, white in the summer sunlight.
“Is that the mill?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I do not remember it.”
“It was built since you were here. The old mill is farther down; much below the pass.”
He spread the photostated military map out on the forest floor and looked at it carefully. The old man looked over his shoulder. He was a short and solid old man in a black peasant’s smock and gray iron-stiff trousers and he wore rope-soled shoes. He was breathing heavily from the climb and his hand rested on one of the two heavy packs they had been carrying.
“Then you cannot see the bridge from here.”
“No,” the old man said. “This is the easy country of the pass where the stream flows gently. Below, where the road turns out of sight in the trees, it drops suddenly and there is a steep gorge—”
Loading ...You can turn the page and read more here. This novel was number one on the New York Times fiction bestseller list for November 11, 1940. Were the opening pages of the first chapter of For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemmingway compelling?
My vote: Yes.
This book received 4.75 out of 5 stars on Amazon. I recently watched the movie version of For Whom the Bell Tolls (it was good) and wondered how the actual text holds up in today’s world, thus this post featuring the opening page.
For me, there were just enough story questions raised by two things—a military map and the focus on a bridge—to suggest action ahead focused on the bridge. The voice is strong, and the scene well set, and we see the place and the supporting character, whose manner of dress signals a world that we’re unused to ready to be explored. Maybe knowing this is Hemingway influenced me, but I still feel that there’s enough here for me to want to taste a little more, though the narrative will have to deliver more in the following pages. 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.
Yeah, I thought Hemingway right away—or maybe imitation Hemingway until that dated word “photostat” came along—and then, yes, it was EH himself. (My late beloved aunt, a retired office worker, always pronounced it “photostaht.” That’s how I know the word.) As for the story, I responded right away to the vivid sense of place, the use of important details, the intriguing “foreignness” of the old peasant’s attire, and the introduction of menace and war—all this with an economy of words. We can still learn from the Old Man.
And what DO we learn from the old man? One thing is that extreme narrative distance can work, but if it is attempted then something other than narrative voice must operate to engage and intrigue us.
Here, I would call it mystery. Hemingway is withholding a lot of information about a situation that starts off pastoral but turns potentially dangerous. There is enormous confidence in that strategy.
As Barbara was writing here yesterday, the reader doesn’t need to be told everything. Hemingway certainly knew that. I wonder how many authors in our hear-me age would be willing to leave so much voice off the page? food for thought and a great exercise, Ray, thanks.
Two things strike me especially in your comment, Don. One is the word “confidence.” When Hemingway published For Whom the Bell Tolls in 1940, he was far from a new writer. Though his signature style was there from the beginning, perhaps that willingness to trust, omit, and wait can grow in all of us over time, as we become more confident. The other is your point about our “hear-me age” and the emphasis on endless “sharing” that pervades our culture nowadays. In fact, if an author did what Hemingway did—now, in 2021—she’d be told that her opening lacked a “dramatic hook” and would never snare an agent, editor, or reader. So we’re faced with a contradiction. Hmm … I feel another WU post a-brewing.
Don, Precisely! Hemingway is my go-to as a master class. I have read or re-read 4 Hemingway this year. And I will do my annual read of The Old Man and the Sea on the train during Christmas. The subtly, the clarity, the questions. The consequences and the choices that define us. There is no one better to learn from. I have learned a great deal from the master.
Stunned, of course, to hear it’s Hemingway, but I was a solid No on this one (I’ve never read him). Implied future action is hardly the point- we assume that, and we also assume getting at least a tiny tickle of sympathy for our narrator. Here, nothing- if I had to guess, since it’s a military map I’d be slightly nervous about this guy. Who has beneficent designs on a mill or a bridge?
The thing that really flipped me was the head-fake toward the fantasy genre. The old man’s clothes could have been straight from the Middle Ages, but the rather clumsy way he detailed his outfit seemed pretty unsubtle to me: why give me the entire roster of what the old man looks like unless you’re trying to signal genre? And if I had read on, to discover this was actually just a remote region of the 20th century, I doubt I’d have been gratified.
This is convincing proof that being famous, or at least being an author long ago, was a very different game than it is today.
I guess there aren’t too many Hemingway fans here. No wonder he shot himself in the head. I knew this book because I’ve read it, as he’s always been one of my favorites. I even have an old copy wrapped in Saran wrap to keep it as pristine as I can after reading it so many times.
I voted yes. I recognized the writing as Hemingway-esque and wasn’t terribly surprised to learn it was actually him, but I would have kept reading anyway. I wanted to know who these men were and why they are here, observing this village. I liked the contrast between the bucolic description that opened and the photostatted map, and between what sounded like a quaint mountain village and the introduction of the military.
I voted a firm No. I didnt think I was getting any story questions, just a boring description that reused the same words over and over. Too many “roads”, “pass”, and “mills”. And the complete description of the old man’s clothing screamed amateur writer.
I’ve never read Hemingway (surprising since I have an English degree ) but my husband always raves about him. Now that I’ve had a taste I suspect I never will
I’ve never read this book, and I too voted No in this case, but A FAREWELL TO ARMS and THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA are both lovely and worthwhile, in fairness to Hemingway haha.
I recognized it because I had read the book decades ago. When I started that the story so long ago, it seemed to start slow, but it was a great story once I got into it. Then, publishers didn’t expect you to have a hook in the first 100 words. Novels were allowed to unroll and I was willing to give them 30 pages or so to catch my attention. Such is publishing nowadays. Everything has to be immediate. Our attention span is overly short.
I recognized it because I had read the book in high school. Also, then, I remember thinking that it started slow but quickly gained my interest. That’s the difference between then and now. Everything now has to immediately grab attention and excite. I used to give a book 30 pages, but those days are gone.
I knew almost immediately it was Hemingway, mostly by the small repetitions in the text (and also I last read this book within the past 5-7 years, so I kind of remembered) and I did not vote because I knew. :) With Hemingway, I will always power through (sometimes slog through) because there is always a literary and emotional payoff. This one was a slog in the middle, but the last 30-50 pages (and especially where he decides to end it) make it all worth it. This is one of the few books where I own a first edition hardcover.
I voted no, because the writing felt stiff, and then was shocked to learn this was Hemingway, since I consider myself a fan. But then I figured out why: this was a book I’d tried and soon given up on. His use of language in this book was unusual, in that he often made it appear as if it were directly translated from Spanish, complete with some unusual verb forms and a smattering of “thees and thous” to simulate the formal words Spanish has for “you.”
For those who haven’t read Hemingway, please don’t let this sample turn you off. Try Islands in the Stream, or his short stories. Normally I freaking LOVE the bold, simple style he uses, but for me, this one was a miss. (Clearly its status as a “classic” novel shows that my tastes are not necessarily in line with the rest of humanity.)
At first I thought it was stiff as well, old man; but there was a familiar peel to it and I kept reading down the paragraph past the shining water splashing from the mill and could not stop just as I cannot stop writing this reply to you even if the good Lord Almighty were to sever my thumbs and wither my fingers to the delicate nature of dove feathers.
It is a fact.
I only wish I would have read the post before promoting it because I am accustomed to Flog a Pro being recent fiction and that is what I had written in my Facebook and Twitter promos and although I could change the Facebook posts I could not change the Twitter tweet and was going to create a new one; but alas, it had already been liked by several tweeters.
It was an otherwise short and solid tweet of fewer than two-hundred-forty characters dressed in a blue bird’s smock and letters of gray iron-stiff font and it wore woven-rope hashtags calling out to the writing community and they had come running one-by-one as if they were troops filing down the gorge to the old mill and into battle.
I was thrown with the clear labeling of a mill in one sentence, and then in the next, him asking if it was a mill. Honestly, would any of us get away with both the word and concept repetition these days? That said, within one page I had a good sense of voice and the type of conflict the story would deal with.
He didn’t ask if was A mill. He asked if it was THE mill.
A fair point! On the other hand, I’m a reasonable reader, I think, and I didn’t catch the emphasis. I wonder how many others would be similarly oblivious.
I voted no because I don’t care about military maneuvers and whatnots but wasn’t surprised it was Hemingway. I loved Farewell to Arms and some of his short stories. But now I’m curious about the movie. Thanks Ray.
Mine was a qualified yes. I truly hate pronouns with no antecedent. The anonymity of the men is a little off-putting. But the story line hinted here could be interesting. I’d give it another page before scrapping it.
We’ll, we’re gettin’ off in the weeds, here. The question to be voted on is always, “Could an unknown writer get away with this?” I voted No. And even when he wrote this, I’ll bet an unknown Hemingway would have had trouble selling it. It is good to lie in the forest and to avoid contractions.
Judging from the votes both pro and con it appears that the majority here have learned nothing – from the lessons of this site, the lessons of literature or the lessons of life. Commenters object to twenty-four words of character description (plus, peasant garb is “middle-ages” and the description is “amateur”), can’t remember what they read (it’s not A mill, it’s THE mill) are put off because the characters haven’t been fully fleshed out on the first page, EH uses “unusual language”, and clutch their pearls because EH uses the word “road” three times, “mill” three times (once to affirm that the mill is observed, again to ask if that mill is the one in question, and third, an affirmation that yes, that is the correct mill) and “pass” four times in 230 words of page one. EH also uses the words “he” and “his” eleven times, “stream” twice, and I haven’t even started counting “a” “and” or “the”. I get it. Hemingway. You either love him or you don’t. But this level of criticism is both a head-scratcher and a forehead slapper. Sheesh…and double sheesh. If I was a contributor to this site I’d be asking myself “WTF? Life is short. Why bother?”
I voted Yes just because I felt drawn into the scene. Didn’t know it was Hemingway. I do have a Hemingway connection though — I was a finalist in the PEN-sponsored Bad Hemingway contest back in the 90s where you’d win a trip to Harry’s Bar in Venice. I did a takeoff on the short story “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” in which I cast NJ Governor Christine Whitman as the great white hunter out on the trail of an escaped tiger until she’s laid low by a burst appendix — both actual events of the time.
For the first time in a long time, I voted yes. And I did not recognize the author or the book, but clearly this is a confident author who knows how to write (though not how to use a semi-colon). It was not gimmicky or overwrought and not stuck in a rut of self-reflection.
Yes and yes and yes. The opening page immediately resonated as “in the style of Hemingway,” though it’s been decades since I read For Whom the Bell Tolls, so I couldn’t say it was the actual book. But the clean, beautiful evocation of place (“the dark of the oiled road winding through the pass”; “the falling water of the dam, white in the summer sunlight”) transported me and raised the requisite questions that needed to be answered: who are these men and what are they planning? And yes, the movie holds up!