Flog a Pro: Would You Turn the First Page of this Bestseller?
By Ray Rhamey | May 16, 2024 |
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is the opening page of this novel (from the prologue)—would it, all on its own, hook an agent if it was submitted by an unpublished writer?
Summer Five Years Ago
I cupped my hands over my eyes so I could gulp down the view. A sun-drenched bay. Water glittering like sapphires beneath rust-colored cliffs. Seaweed lying in knotty nests on a strip of sandy shoreline. A wood-sided restaurant. Stacks of lobster traps. A man in hip waders.
Sea brine filled my nose and the putt-putt of a fishing boat my ears. A salt-kissed breeze sent the skirt of my dress flapping against my calves, and I smiled. It was everything I imagined my first Prince Edward Island vacation would be, minus one crucial detail. Bridget may have missed her flight, but I was here. And I was hungry.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust when I stepped inside Shack Malpeque. My attention went straight to the girl wearing fake red pigtails and a straw hat. She sat at a table by the window, and while her older brother watched the mussel farmers on the water, she plucked a thick French fry from his plate. She popped it into her mouth as she caught me staring, and I gave her a thumbs-up.
“Your problems will seem smaller once we get to the island,” Bridget had promised yesterday. I was slumped at the kitchen counter in our apartment, forehead on the granite. She rubbed my back. “Don’t listen to your parents. You’ve got this, Bee.”
Bridget never used my given name. I was Lucy Ashby to most everyone in my life except my best friend. To Bridget, I was Bee.
Loading ...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 was number one on the New York Timestrade paperback fiction bestseller list for May 26, 2024 Were the opening pages of This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune compelling?
My vote: No.
This book received 4.3 out of 5 stars on Amazon. All I want is one little tension-inducing story question. Oh, there’s a question or two. What are the anonymous troubles (why not name them now!) I might be interested if I knew what they were and the stakes they brought to her life.
What are her parents telling her? What is it that Bee has “got?” Questions, yes, and they might propel me with more immersion in the character—rather than spending two introductory paragraphs on description. And what is that with brine filling her nose? “Brine” is basically sea water. How/where/why did she get a noseful of seawater?
For this reader, no real tension, nothing to seriously worry about, and glitches like the sea brine in her nose earned a pass from me.
What about you? Your thoughts?
[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.
It’s SO EASY to say no when you pot up a first page like this- target in a shooting gallery- but for me it wasn’t genre (not my usual read I admit), but the time-lap confusion. Many people shout that Prologues should never be used- I’m not one of them- but if you go back five years, DON’T GO BACK AGAIN, even to “yesterday”. A woman (assumed, wearing a dress) comes to PEI for the first time and Bridget isn’t “here”, I assumed (again) that she wasn’t in the country, not just here on the shore. Oh, but yesterday she was, forget it.
The author painted a nice picture, no problem there, but I don’t know “when” I am and it’s already a Prologue, so… yikes.
How could Bee possibly know the man at the window was the older brother to the lady in the straw hat & red pig tales?
Yes because it’s meant to be nothing more than a bland, brine-in-the-nose escapist beach read. At that, it succeeds.
An easy “no” for me. The first line is a clunker and I thought the descriptive prose was almost as bad. Just wasn’t a strong enough start for me to keep on with it.
This is one of those cases where the ask is different. A reader picking this up should get a blurb and the rest saying that the book’s slow or moody, and they’d be tolerant of an opening that took its time if it worked for them; this isn’t bad at that. It would still do more good than harm to drop a better tease or two into these first lines (or not take too much longer to get moving), but some genres suffer more from the standard Flog-sized glimpse than others.
let’s not talk about the first page. Let’s talk about the cover, the title, and the author’s name. After all, those are the actual first things a potential reader encounters. For me, the cover is useful. Maybe it’s the color of the graphic that’s off-putting, or the script font. The title doesn’t seem to go with the breezy image, and I’m also put off by the author’s name. Carly Fortune? Really? Everything I see and then read is meant to appeal to young women readers, so I will move on.
The challenge here is the first page and how it might fare with a literary agent if it comes as a submission. There is no cover with submissions, only the words.
My bad, Ray. Sorry.
I couldn’t get past the first line.
Red flag: when the narrator states that fake-red-pigtails is sitting with her “brother.” No way she can know their relationship, right?
I assumed “cupped her eyes” meant covering her eyes, yet she “gulps down” the sea view anyway? Yikes.
Yes, the entire first sentence is a clanker. And the second one isn’t a sentence, but it is a cliche. And the third one had me thinking about sapphires, rather than water. I don’t think we’re being mean.
She meant cupping your hands around your eyes, kind of like horse blinders, to narrow the view. I didn’t have a problem with that, but the gulping of the view was … a choice she made. 🤣
Thanks, Ray, for putting together another one of these. The work feels draft, including in word choice and intention. Bridget is not there? A “detail,” not “element”? What follows next would have a correction in an SAT prep manual as well, and I’m not referring to artistic style.
I’m a nature lover and I rather liked her full description of what she was seeing—especially if the character stays true to that cleanness. But overall I’d have loved to help edit it. No reason for a book not to be great!
The first line took me out. And a lot of the pretty description that followed was cliched. I did love the setting, and the Anne nod, but immediately I could tell this was Romance, and not for me. In general, readers can expect clunky and/or shallow writing in romances, which is fine if you just want a speedy, feel-good read. These writers tend to publish many books very fast, and they aren’t in it to be literary or deep, which is fine. It’s just not my speed.
I am also a no. There are types of novels that shout out: come with me, you are familiar with this kind of story and I won’t disappoint. But for me, you will, so it’s a no for me.
I liked it okay, would read on. Have been re-reading many of Mary Stewart’s books (with the filters of technique, plot, suspense, etc). She’s a bit flowery for today, but was a superstar in the 60’s and 70’s…just finished David Putnam’s new release “The Blind Devotion of Imogene” which starts out with a bang and never lets up. He, Putnam, blends mystery, murder, humor, suspense, romance, devotion, thriller (there is a plot to kill the sitting President of the US)– (Putnam, a former lawman, writes the Bruno Johnson and Bone Detective thriller series’ and now this new “Imogene” trilogy–set in 1974, set somewhat in the past, partly in the Chino prison–) but it starts out with: “Twelve years ago, time became Imogene’s enemy…the way it reached into her soul and squeezed the life out of her…” Couldn’t put it down. But back to the question, yes, I’d read this book, just because I enjoy reading all genres. Will be purchasing a copy of Ray Rhamey’s “Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling! Thanks!
Hey, many thanks. I hope you find it helpful. And enjoyable. Happy writing. You can get an autographed copy through my website, rayrhamey.com.
“Fake pigtails.”
That threw me. Up to that point, the promise words suggested a seaside summer romance, as indeed this on-again-off-again romance novel actually is.
Slow. Lazy. Sun-drenched. But hold on…”fake”? For a moment I was excited, thinking we might be in for a Mary Stewart style romantic suspense tale, just subbing PEI for a Greek Island. But no.
This story evidently follows the pattern of the author’s two prior titles Every Summer After and Meet Me at the Lake. Go back to the water, re-meet the man you should have been with all along. Fair enough. What I’m detecting, though, is an almost mechanical rendering of the summer atmosphere, though the details specific to PEI aren’t bad.
I approach this one with caution. It could be heart-felt and affecting, or it could be formulaic and…well, fake. Not sure. I didn’t vote. Have to read a bit more.
When you arrive on PEI there are fake red pigtails for sale everywhere, courtesy of Lucie Maud Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’. They’re considered a souvenir and tourists are encouraged to have their pictures taken with them.
The requirement to know about fake red pigtails as a homage to Anne of Green Gables is not common knowledge.
They’re on PEI. Even if a reader doesn’t know about the pigtails you can buy, it was clearly an Anne reference.
The fake pigtails definitely hinted at a girl enacting an Anne of Green Gables fantasy; very fitting to the location.
–For a moment I was excited, thinking we might be in for a Mary Stewart style romantic suspense tale, just subbing PEI for a Greek Island. But no.–
Ha, me, too. But MS would have had me from the first sentence and this one…didn’t.
Count me as one thrown out by “fake pigtails,” “sitting at a table”, and “brother.” How do we know about the brother? Why the fake pigtails, and why is the woman with fake pigtails sitting at a table and not behind the counter (I assumed she was a worker)? This didn’t work for me.
The fake red pigtails refer to Anne of Green Gables. When you arrive in PEI fake red pigtails are for sale everywhere and are considered a souvenir courtesy of Lucie Maud Montgomery.
I felt the first page showed an abundance of metaphors and description, some like brine, didn’t work. I didn’t have a sense of who Bee was and the other characters, all slipped in rather hastily after a mountain of pretty summer words. Don’t like beaches or beach reading much, but a plot point or hint of story might have reeled me in.
I voted No. The description was both cliched (sun-drenched, glittering water, sandy shoreline) and awkwardly phrased (brine in the nose, cupping hands over the eyes (huh?) to gulp down the view). And then diving into a flashback on the first page (in a prologue that’s already a flashback). And for the story question, there’s only a vague reference to Lucy having some sort of disagreement with her parents. Unless we know what it’s about (and it needs to be something unusual/compelling), that’s just boring. I would not bother to turn the page.
The first two paragraphs were so sticky sweet that it made me sick. Couldn’t read beyond that.
I forgave the clutsy intro and gave this a very tentative yes. The intrigue picked up just enough for me to turn the page — one page, unless the pace and quality of writing improved.
Oh my goodness! A reader might not pick up a book due to the author’s NAME??!! I have never heard this before. Cover yes, title yes, but name?? Thank you Veronica Knox – yes, all Canadians know about Anne of Green Gables & fake red pigtails, and I would think may overseas visitors as well (the Green Gables Visitors’ Center welcomes 125,000 visitors each year, 10,000 of those Japanese), so I would argue that it is common knowledge, particularly for readers. Even if one hasn’t read classic novels, surely one is aware of them (and in Anne’s case, there are also movies and TV series aplenty). Would someone who hasn’t read the Harry Potter series be surprised to see a small boy with fake round glasses and a wand near California’s Wizarding World? I suppose I assumed – as this was a flashback – that the present day narrator now knows the relationship between the sister & brother, and that “the scent” of brine was understood.
Such interesting comments – thank you all.
Um, no, the knowledge about fake red pigtails and Prince Edward Island is simply not as universal as Harry Potter, I fear to inform you. I was never an Anne fan and have never read the books or watched the show. I’m on the West Coast and sorry, it’s just not a thing here.
Do yourself a favor and read the Anne books! They are perfection.
One person’s yum is another person’s yuck. I’ve heard enough about them to know they aren’t my groove.
Well, fwiw, I didn’t understand the fake pigtails reference (I’m not Canadian, and I somehow missed reading Anne of Green Gables in my childhood). Had I wanted to keep reading this story, I would have hoped the author would find some way to add context for that. And yes, of course the author meant the smell of brine, but by saying “sea brine filled my nose,” I had to mentally correct the odd image that presented. It was an unnecessary stumbling block. So was “cupped my hands over my eyes.” To me that suggested she blocked her vision entirely, the way you cup your hand over one eye so you can test the vision out of the other. She likely meant the character shaded her eyes, so why not say that? That much carelessness with the prose, this early in the story, was a red flag for me.
I read cozy mysteries. So this was an easy peasy read as you guessed. Cozy mysteries, often use cliché and tropes. So not literary fiction which Im guessing you look for as an editor.