Flog a Pro: Would You Turn the First Page of this Pro’s Novel?
By Ray Rhamey | April 21, 2022 |
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How strong is the opening page of this novel—would it, all on its own, hook an agent if it was submitted by an unpublished writer?
The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards. From the towns in its high valleys and the ports on its dark narrow bays many a Gontishman has gone forth to serve the Lords of the Archipelago in their cities as wizard or mage, or, looking for adventure, to wander working magic from isle to isle of all Earthsea. Of these some say the greatest, and surely the greatest voyager, was the man called Sparrowhawk, who in his day became both dragonlord and Archmage. His life is told of in the Deed of Ged and in many songs, but this is a tale of the time before his fame, before the songs were made.
He was born in a lonely village called Ten Alders, high on the mountain at the head of the Northward Vale. Below the village the pastures and plowlands of the Vale slope downward level below level towards the sea, and other towns lie on the bends of the River Ar; above the village only forest rises ridge behind ridge to the stone and snow of the heights.
The name he bore as a child, Duny, was given him by his mother, and that and his life were all she could give him, for she died before he was a year old. His father, the bronze-smith of the village, was a grim unspeaking man, and since Duny’s six brothers were older than he by many years and went one by one from home to farm the land or sail the sea or work as smith in other towns of the Northward Vale, there was no one to bring the child up in tenderness. He grew (snip)
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You can turn the page and read more here. Kindle users can request a sample sent to their devices, and I’ve found this to be a great way to evaluate a narrative that is borderline on the first page and see if it’s worth my coin.
This novel didn’t make the bestseller lists in 1968 when it was published. But it was a breakout book for Ursula K Le Guin, who became one of science fiction and fantasy’s giants. Today, 54 years later, it is number 10 in Amazon’s Teen & Young Adult Classic Books category. Are the opening pages of A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin compelling enough to earn a turn of the page?
My vote: Yes.
This book received 4.4 out of 5 stars on Amazon. Perhaps I was seduced by knowing the author ahead of time, many of whose books I read as a youth and young adult. And loved. But then, there is the writing, which I see as high caliber. In a leisurely, graceful way, Le Guin enveloped me and had me wondering what happened to this child who was not brought up in tenderness, who became a great man. I wanted to know his story. But I’m sure it was also that I knew that this author had, over and over, created magical and wonderful stories such as The Left Hand of Darkness. 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.
Full disclosure- you had me at “Gont” because of course any fan would recognize that name. I struggled to maintain my objectivity as I read it over (for probably the twelfth time) but I had to give up. I just love the series, and there was no way to separate the threads this book has woven into my soul over the four decades since I first read it.
I do THINK, however, that it probably conveys that sense of the sure hand on the tiller, the unhurried way the information spools out that lets you know it’s going to be worth it. And that’s particularly important in a fantasy book, where you do have to clue the reader into the fact that not all is going to be as you expect. She sets the hook with the end of the first sentence (“wizards”) and then moves on to further inform that you will be reading of one of the land’s great heroes. Maybe you don’t like fantasy, fine, but you’re already a layer in, trusting that she knows what she’s telling you.
One of the all-time greats. Thanks for a not-here-and-now entry!
It was hard not to give this page a turn because I immediately recognized the story and its author, which bought a lot of trust. Absent of that, I might have held back, but I did enjoy the somewhat cozy start that was established through the narrator’s voice and the description of the setting.
I recognized the text from the first paragraph, so I had to vote yes.
I was thrown by the name “Duny”, which in Australian slang means toilet, albeit spelled with two n’s.
I’m not a fan of the genre, so didn’t recognise the work. I found I was frustrated by the long sentence structure. Shorter sentences can be punchier.
For example…
The island of Gont is a land famous for wizards. The peak of its single mountain lifts a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea.
I understand it’s a stylistic choice. As is mine :-)
I also immediately recognized the story and LeGuin’s style, long before the word “Earthsea” completely gave it away so it was hard to imagine reading it for the first time only toady. I love this story! But I do think it has a slow opening when compared with what is being published in the young adult fantasy space right now. In fact, the tone set feels almost middle grade I think that’s because LeGuin’s language is easy on the ear and lends itself so well to reading aloud.
This is one of my favorite books of all time, so I recognized the story and voted yes, of course. The panoramic view from the narrator, slowly pulling the focus deeper and deeper into the story tells any reader to relax, and let a master tell them a story…
It lost me with the word “wizards” I’m afraid! I dislike the fantasy genre.
Set up openings don’t work in 99.99% of manuscripts so why does that work here? I think it’s because the promise of adventure is so strong. There was magic. There was a hero. This is his tale. That’s so hard to resist!
Oh, dear. I tried hard—I really did—to read this passage as though I had never before encountered the great LeGuin and the world of Earthsea. And I succeeded just enough to pull back and note that this opening has at least two of the ingredients that make for a compelling start: beautifully crafted storytelling language and the “once-upon-a-time” flavor that can intrigue a reader even in the absence of an obvious conflict or clash. So, yes.
Let us hope that when young people read this series today, the pace of this opening gets lodged in their minds as an acceptable way to begin a book!
As I started reading, I thought about a book I read several years ago all about magic and faeries — I really hoped to have faeries, but however the story unwinds is good enough for me — the description had a flow to it, and a vision formed in my mind. I’ve never read Ursula LeGuin — perhaps now I will.
Hello Ray. I understand what’s behind your admonition to judge on general merit, and to not dismiss something written in a genre the reader never goes near. But in the case of wizards, magicians, wielders of wands, or blonds who ride dragons, I can’t oblige. When the too made-up names start, even in a story written by someone as capable as Ursula LeGuin, I lose my ability to suspend disbelief. With the occasional exception, I stick to work that doesn’t violate the known laws of physics. Yes, anything written violates those laws, but I think you know what I mean.
Ray, I voted yes. I liked the descriptive setting, the family history, the character Duny! It has the promise of adventure and mystery. “There was no one to bring up the child in tenderness.” What was his life going to be like? I don’t know the author, but I liked his writing style! 📚🎶Christine
“There was no one to bring up the child in tenderness.”
That slays me. Such beautiful writing. And a promise of a story. I know I’m in the hands of a master storyteller.
I would read it only because/if I knew it was written by Ursula LeGuin. I’ll read, or at least try, anything she writes. But just as an opening, I find it too dull and expository. And I really am not interested in stories about magic, wizards, etc. — I started the Harry Potter books only because I couldn’t bear to disappoint a dear friend who loved them. (Of course I got hooked! But what I really loved about HP was the depth of characterization and Rowling’s seemingly endless inventiveness with details, not the wizardry itself.) You just can’t discount genre if you’re asking someone whether they would read more than the first page or not.
That first page has to be extra extra compelling to overcome a reader’s individual aversion to the genre.
As always, I protest that my comrades here aren’t really thinking about what Ray wants from us. The question is not “Do you like dragons in your stories?” The question is, “If you’re an agent who reps writers who DO like dragons, would you be inclined to take a closer look at this book?” And in the case of Ursula LeGuin (yes, of course I knew) the answer is almost certain to be, “Yes.” Even though my peak fantasy years are long behind me, I think of her as a national treasure.
I should have said, “…the answer is almost certain to be, ‘Yes,’ even if you don’t KNOW that it’s her….” Etc.
When I read “Earthsea,” I knew it was a famous story by a famous author, but I’m not familiar with it, so I think I was able to judge this page on its own merits? And though I high fantasy is not my most common genre, I am open to it, and I was definitely pulled in by this. As Donald Maass commented, The promise of adventure, and the lure of a hero’s tale, is strong.
I didn’t recognize this either as I don’t.read fantasy, but I wondered when the story would start the whole beginning is backstory.
Thank you, alicemfleury. I recognized it as LeGuin because I have read so much by and about her, although not the Earthsea series. You said just what I meant, and a lot more succinctly. And I would think, though I’m not an agent or editor, that LeGuin’s agent or editor would certainly accept the work, perhaps with some non-binding suggestions about making the opening livelier, exactly because LeGuin is LeGuin, and she’s known for the quality and salability of her work. So this is not really a fair test. If the point of this exercise is to begin a discussion on how well an opening page “works,” how well it draws readers into the story, it would be more useful to look at something less recognizable.
A Wizard of Earths was written before her famous works, though, so I think it’s fair to say the opening stood on its own merits.
I rarely read fantasy, but I found the rhythm in this opening soothing and inviting. One of the irritations I find in many fantasies are archaic spellings of multisyllabic nouns. Gont, Gontishman, and River Ar are clearly otherworldly, but they don’t drag me away from the story. Thank you for an introduction to a writer I’ve only known by reputation!
I’m not enamored of fantasy and almost never read it so I did not, as some have, recognize the author. It’s a good background and character study that is something of a prologue, which the savants say you should never do. But in building a world out of wholecloth, that must be done. Perhaps introducing the character and the action could lead into the background without looking too much like an infodump. I kept thinking “what does this person want more than anything? What is he willing to do to get it? Is he a desperate man?”
I know LeGuin from adaptations and readings rather than myself reading her work.
But, onto the task …
The opening paragraphs were generic to me.
If in a bookstore (and, if I did not know the author or genre) I would have already read the blurb and “admired” the cover.
If it was recommended by ANYONE (That Happens to me!) I’d give anything at least one chapter worth of careful reading.
NOW, (not being a professional,) I can tell you, and you alone, personally, (come closer, this is going to be good …) that if asked to proofread such text as this I would ask, “Do you really want to do Fantasy? Even if it is good?”
The hard•wet•wiring of my brain allows me to do the job of preserving the coherency of what I’m asked to proofread, and appreciate the good writing but I can never tell what people like.
Here, I would just assume yet another white wizard with an inconvenience in his backstory coming-of-age tale (judging from the textract).
I think we all know specific people can do specific tasks better than others.
I enjoyed it as a read but would not have recommended it.
One of the amazing aspects of the Earthsea series is that its hero Ged is dark-skinned, quite specifically (I just reread one of the books, and yep, there it is). In fact, most of the characters of Earthsea have dark skin, except for the barbarians of the far northeast islands. It’s subtle in the prose, you have to pay attention — no one fusses about it. It was a quiet revolution in a novel of 1968. Unfortunately, the protagonist’s actual skin color was missed by the covers in a number editions, which showed the hero as a white guy, presumably because the marketing depts thought a dark-skinned hero wouldn’t sell. Only the cover art by Rebecca Guay got it right. Ursula Le Guin discussed the implications of all this at some length in her essays — worth a look. She made many of her primary characters people of color in her other novels, as well.
It’s been forever since I read A Wizard of Earthsea, but I recognized the work even before Earthsea was mentioned, just from the voice. Yes, this opening is old-fashioned by modern standards, but it was old-fashioned even when it was written. It opens like a fairy-tale, with a confident omniscient voice–a storyteller’s voice–leading us into the setting and the story with fluid, cadenced prose, and then introducing the hero as a child brought up without tenderness. It encapsulates Ged’s childhood in a single line. THAT is a sign you’re in the hands of a very good writer.
Maybe this style isn’t for everyone, but there’s no doubt it came from the pen of someone who was a master writer from the very start.
And I think a writer today could get away with this type of opening–if they can write as well as she can.