Flog a Pro: Would You Turn the First Pages of these Bestsellers?
By Ray Rhamey | May 19, 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.
Two things make today’s post different. First, it falls on my birthday. It’s good to have another one. Secondly, there’s this . . .
It’s a Twofer Today. Today we’re looking at two very different books from the New York Times bestseller lists, one from the trade paperback list and the other from hardcover fiction.
And, as it so happens, both feature protagonists from the WU world, one a writer and the other a literary agent. Two openings, two polls. See what you think.
How strong is the opening page of this novel—would it, all on its own, hook an agent if it was submitted by an unpublished writer?
Opening page, chapter 1
Cindy Thomas was working at the dining table she’d bought at a tag sale down the block. It was cherrywood, round, with a hinged leaf and the letters SN etched near the hinge. She traced the initials with her finger, imagining that the person who’d left that mark was also a journalist suffering from writer’s block—and Cindy was as blocked as a writer could be.
Her full-time job was as senior crime reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle. She’d been covering the violent murders of a killer unknown. And then, at the end of his crime spree, caught by the police, this unrepentant serial monster had asked her to write the story of his life. And that’s what she was doing—trying to do—now. It would be easy for her agent to sell this idea for a true-crime thriller about Evan Burke. He was a savage and highly successful at getting away with his kills. According to him, he was the most prolific killer of the century, and Cindy didn’t doubt him.
She had no shortage of quotable and illustrated research.
Because Burke wanted Cindy’s book to secure his place in criminal history, he had provided her with notebooks, as well as photos of his victims, alive and dead. He’d given her his maps to his victims’ graves, which, when opened by homicide cops, had turned up bones, clothing, and other evidence of Burke’s crimes. He’d been convicted of six murders, which in his mind was insufficient, but the prosecution was plenty happy.
Loading ...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 opening page of the prologue:
When books are your life—or in my case, your job— you get pretty good at guessing where a story is going. The tropes, the archetypes, the common plot twists all start to organize themselves into a catalogue inside your brain, divided by category and genre.
The husband is the killer.
The nerd gets a makeover, and without her glasses, she’s smoking hot.
The guy gets the girl—or the other girl does.
Someone explains a complicated scientific concept, and someone else says, “Um, in English, please?”
The details may change from book to book, but there’s nothing truly new under the sun.
Take, for example, the small-town love story.
The kind where a cynical hotshot from New York or Los Angeles gets shipped off to Smalltown, USA—to, like, run a family-owned Christmas tree farm out of business to make room for a soulless corporation.
But while said City Person is in town, things don’t go to plan. Because, of course, the Christmas tree farm—or bakery, or whatever the hero’s been sent to destroy—is owned and operated by someone ridiculously attractive and suitably available for wooing.
Back in the city, the lead has a romantic partner. Someone ruthless who encourages him (snip)
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I thought it would be fun to contrast the opening strength of a novel that is meant be a thriller to one that is clearly not a thriller.
22 Seconds was the number one hardback fiction bestseller and Book Lovers was the number one trade paperback fiction bestseller for May 22, 2022. Were their opening pages compelling?
You can turn the page of 22 Seconds and read more here, and check out more of Book Lovers 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.
My votes: 22 Seconds, NO. Book Lover, YES.
22 Seconds, which received 4.5 stars on Amazon, failed to create any tension in me, and it didn’t raise a story question other than whether or not this person would break her writer’s block, which is not a high-stakes problem, IMO. Leading with the totally irrelevant detail that she was working at a round table signaled more unneeded words ahead. And there was this sentence:
She’d been covering the violent murders of a killer unknown.
Does that make any sense to you? “Murders” is plural and somehow refers to a single killer. And why would she be covering the murder of a killer? Oh, I understand what the author was trying to say, but where was the copyeditor? Or a content editor? None, apparently, had their hands on this story.
On the other hand, Book Lovers, which earned 4.6 stars on Amazon, opens with an enticing voice and a take on cliched fiction tropes that both writers and readers will recognize with a grin. While no story question is raised here, the voice and writing were appealing enough to get me to want to taste more. And a good story question is raised just a paragraph or so later. Had I been the editor, it might have appeared on the first page.
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 was a no on both, but more emphatically on the first one. It was just uninteresting—not only because I don’t particularly care if this character conquers her writer’s block, but because it starts with such a boring detail about her table. A killer asking a writer to cover the story of his life could be great material for a novel, but why start with a mark on a table?
The second certainly had a more interesting voice, but I felt that the ol’ run down a bunch of tropes or cliches felt a bit hacky to me. It’s possible that the next paragraph or page would convince me otherwise, but based on the words in this post, I’m a no.
First, Happy Birthday, Ray!
I like the concept of the 1st book, and the voice of the 2nd, but I’m not sure I’d turn the page on either.
Possibly the first book is interesting, but opening at someone sitting at a table followed by a description of said table didn’t entice me. The second book’s opening is definitely more intriguing because it suggests that the all the expected things are going to be twisted in some fashion.
For me, no to both. For the first, “He was a savage and highly successful at getting away with his kills” would have been a much better opening. Everything prior could be revealed as needed. For the second, a laundry list placed in a prologue is an immediate red flag for me.
Happy birthday, Ray! W00T!
I voted NO on the first. It didn’t intrigue me, and I kept waiting for Clarice Starling to pop out of the woodwork to warn Cindy against eating the liver and fava beans. A glass of Chianti might’ve enticed me to read further, though.
I voted YES on the second merely because I liked the voice. Nothing grabbed me right away, but it was a voice worth hearing out for a few pages to see if something eventually piqued my interest.
There’s no place to cast a vote! If I had the chance, I’d have voted no to both. They’re both uninspiring. That these books got published is probably a result of agents thinking that they can size up a book based on 17 lines. Even then, I can’t see why either would be in print.
Sorry the voting buttons weren’t visible for you. Each was at the end of its excerpt. Maybe try refreshing the page? If that doesn’t work, at least you were able to voice your votes down here in the comments.
Thanks for getting back to me. I tried again and this time, the vote feature was there – so I voted.
I agree. And yet both these books were NYT bestsellers. Of course writers by nature are more particular than consumers who just grab a book to pass a few relaxing hours reading. James Patterson is an established name; he’s a producer of reliable thrillers. “Book Lovers” has a cute cover that appealed to me (more than the writing) when I saw it in the supermarket. Sorry to say that’s what attracts a lot of readers. Two of my best friends, who (not incidentally) have PhD’s, choose their recreational reading this way, so it’s not something we can blame on lack of education or intelligence. I think that sensitivity to language and story construction — the writer’s craft — is something like a musical ear or an eye for color and design; people have it to a greater or lesser degree. Teaching and practice can improve a person’s sensitivity to these arts but we all start with an innate foundation. On top of that, publishers tend to publish what sells, and what sells is what’s available, so it’s a feedback loop that encourage mediocrity.
I couldn’t find the polling place. Clicked here, clicked there. Nothing. Voter suppression, Ray? Voting here instead.
22 Seconds: No. Too many irrelevant details (yard sale table? really?) and unbelievably stodgy writing, correct sentence structure and all, tailor-made for an unimaginative English teacher to give top marks for accuracy.
Book Lovers: Yes for now. Sprightly, amusing, intriguing.
Sorry about your voting issue! Read what I told Michael above, which might work for you, too.
Thanks. Mike. I have now officially voted, after delivering my opinions earlier.
The mark on the table would probably be significant later. She bought it at a tag sale. It’s either a red herring or important to remember and because it’s so much a bore to read about it, the reader would remember later.
I think I would have read on. Although, how can a writer get a block when she has all the research in front of her.
The prologue one? The whole time I’m reading is I’m wondering this story is about nothing.
I voted yes on 22 Seconds, despite the lackluster writing. I think the mark on the table will certainly mean something big down the line, so I was ok with that. I almost voted no, purely because it wasn’t great writing (felt like notes for a first draft), but the premise was intriguing enough to make me curious as to what happens next.
As a bookseller, I knew what the second book was, and I’ve heard it’s a fun read. From that first page, though, I voted no. There was just nothing there to hold my interest.
No on both, I thought, but was then intrigued by Ray’s remark after reading more. So I did. Read on a few paragraphs. Great setup for twisting the trope.
No to both. On the first, same reasons as everyone else. On the second, I liked the voice and the quick-takes on tropes. However, after the first few short lines of those, I didn’t need the longer one to be all drawn out. I wanted to get on with things. But maybe the longer one is the one this particular story is about? I don’t know. It just felt like I was going to feel impatient with the pace (which is odd, since I like slow books…but this one was seeming to establish a quick pace that then stalled?) so I voted no. I feel like after the line about nothing truly being new under the sun, it was time to move on and show me a little hint of how *this* story would be different somehow.
Nope and nope.
I actually guessed the first one was Patterson, because of the simplistic (ok, just plain lame) writing. Not an ounce of poetry in that prose. Hard pass.
The second one has a pleasant voice, but opening with a page full of clichés is not something that hooks me.
But if what Facebook is saying about you is correct, I also want to say: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Nope and nope. But HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RAY!!!
Happy Birthday! I just had one too. I voted no on both because I’m picky about what I spend my time reading. But this was fun and I like the exercise.
Happy happy Ray. Yes, another birthday is definitely better than the alternative.
The first sample — no. The tone is off. First paragraph suggests a vastly different story than the second paragraph does.
I’m usually willing to suspend disbelief, but I need to know upfront how and why this writer was chosen to write the serial killer’s book. She feels green, and if so, there must be a story about how she got the gig. Which must be more interesting that her table.
Second sample — great voice. Slightly cynical works, and I trust the author is well-versed in cliched stories and isn’t about to tell on here.
Nope and nope. But Happy Birthday, Ray!!
Thanks to all for the birthday wishes! Wouldn’t happen on any other website, I’m thinking.
Happy Birthday, Ray! Always good to have another one. :)
I voted NO on 22 Seconds. Lackluster, amateurish writing, all telling and who cares about any of it–it was dead on the page from the first sentence.
I voted YES to Book Lovers, because the writing was good, it had a voice, and I did want to turn the page to see where it was going.
Unfortunately, it took far too long to get there, and by the time it did, I was impatiently skimming and lost interest. So ultimatelyit did not hook me.
Happy birthday, Ray. Fun to get a twofer, and it was a nope and nope for me.
Happy birthday, Ray, and many more!!! I voted No and Yes for many of the same reasons you mentioned. Plus, I enjoy stories about book people.
Two no’s from me, the first easier than the second. The first excerpt was boring and uninspiring, both in writing and premise. The second was mildly intriguing, but not compelling. Not enough to displace my TBR pile.
First of all, happy birthday!
Second, I voted a reluctant Yes to both.
For the first one, I sensed that there was a “but” coming. Writing that killer’s story should have been a slam-dunk for the protagonist, but she was struggling in some way. That “why?” would have gotten me to give this at least another page. Also, the opening line about the dining table with the initials carved into it was charming to me.
For the second, I felt the opening was less fresh (which might be a touch ironic, given that it was discussing cliches) but again I sensed a “but” coming, and I was curious enough about it to read another page or so.
But like I said, both those Yeses were reluctant, because if the next page or two didn’t deliver something, I was ready to move on.
Happy Birthday, Ray! And congrats on reaching another one. I always read your Would You Turn the Pages but seldom comment. All I’m going to say today – and my vote is with yours – is that it’s outcomes like these that make me want to give up writing. Sad face.
Happy Birthday, Ray!
I voted no to both. The first because it was poorly written, the second because I was bored.
Happy annual uterine expulsion day, Ray!
I was a no for the first. Besides the comments about the writing and lack of discernable plot, I can’t sympathize with someone writing the biography of a serial killer for cash, even if they’re blocked. I’d need a lot more to want to follow their journey.
Snarky humor had me saying yes to the second. I’m expecting a romance full of hubris and irony when someone, who considers themselves to be sophisticated and chic, succumbs to a commonly known romantic trope. Plus, there’s the book-people angle, which is my crack.
Happy happy Birthday!!!
I was team no and team yes.
Happy birthday, Ray! :-) My votes are the same as yours, and for the same reasons. The first one, apart from its poor writing and obvious lack of editing, was banal. Book Lovers had an interesting voice despite listing a plethora of tropes (!). That said, it wasn’t compelling, and I wasn’t particularly curious, but I would have turned the page.
I knew the first had to be big name, because no newbie would get published with such a boring and irrelevant first line. But . . . I clicked yes, because I probably would have turned the page, but not bought the book. As my hero, Mona Lisa Vito says, “It was a trick question.”
Had to do a hard pass on the second, because the last book I read that started off explaining tropes to the reader was a badly written, boring, well-heralded cozy, the likes of which I could have gotten for free for joining a mailing list. I wasn’t falling for that again.
Writing about a table and writer’s block when there is a notebook full of crime scenes is missing the point big time. Would have been much more interesting to have a few lines about some cringe-worthy details of a crime scene.
As for the second offering, though grammatically intact, it was pointless and boring. The writer’s point was made numerous times (beating a dead horse comes to mind). One or two examples were enough to convince me that he knew where a story was going – anymore was just him loving the sound of his voice and didn’t move the plot along – that is if there even was a plot.