Posts by Ray Rhamey
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How strong is the opening of this novel—would it, all on its own, hook an agent if it was submitted by an unpublished writer?
Where in Malek’s name is he going? I hurry through the tunnels beneath the quadrant, trying to follow, but night is the ultimate shadow and Xaden blends seamlessly into the darkness. If it wasn’t for our dragons’ bond leading me in his general direction and the sporadic disappearance of mage lights, I’d never think that he’s masked somewhere ahead of me.
Fear holds me with an icy fist, and my footing grows unsteady. He kept his head down this evening, guarded by Bodhi and Garrick while we waited for news about Sawyer’s injury after the battle that nearly cost us Basgiath, but there’s no telling what he’s doing now. If anyone spots the faint, strawberry-red circles around his irises, he’ll be arrested—and likely executed. According to the texts I’ve read, they’ll fade at this phase, but until they do, what could possibly be important enough for him to risk being seen?
The only logical answer sends a chill up my spine that has nothing to do with the cold stone of the corridor seeping in through my socks. There hadn’t been time for boots or even my armor after the click of the closing door woke me from a restless sleep.
“Neither of them will answer,” Andarna says, and I yank open the door to the enclosed bridge as its counterpart on the far end snicks shut. Was that him? “Sgaeyl is still…incensed, and Tairn smells of both rage and sorrow.”
Understandable for all the reasons I can’t allow myself to dwell on yet, but inconvenient.
Were you moved to want more?
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 of this novel—would it, all on its own, hook an agent if it was submitted by an unpublished writer?
I come to town de udder night,
I hear de noise, den saw de sight,
De watchmen dey be runnin’ roun’
Cryin’ Ole Dan Tucker come to town.
Git outen de way, Git outen de way,
Git outen de way, Ole Dan Tucker,
You’s too late to come yo supper.
Sheep an’ hog a walkin’ in de pasture,
Sheep says, “Hog can’t you go no faster?”
Hush! Hush! Honey de wolf growlin’,
Ah, ah, de Lawd, bull dog growlin’,
Git outen de way, Git outen de way,
Git outen de way, Ole Dan Tucker,
You’s too late to come yo supper.
Here’s my razor in good order,
Magnum bonum-jis hab bought ’er, (snip)
Were you moved to want more?
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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 of this novel in its storytelling—would it, all on its own, hook an agent if it was submitted by an unpublished writer?
“Y’know, there’s really no need for all this violence.”
It was common knowledge in Zilvaren City that to lie to a guardian meant death. I knew this in a first-hand, painful way that most other Zilvarens did not. Almost a year ago to the day, I’d watched one of the queen’s men clad in beaten golden armor gut my neighbor for lying about his age. And before that, and far worse, I’d stood silently in the street while my mother’s throat had been split wide open, spilling jets of hot, peasant blood into the sunbaked sand.
As the handsome guardian’s hand closed around my neck now, his beautifully engraved gauntlet reflecting the glare of the twin suns overhead like a golden mirror, it was a miracle I didn’t crack open and yield my secrets like a piece of overripe fruit. His metal-tipped fingers gouged deeper into the hollow of my throat. “Name. Age. Ward. Spit it out. Low-tier citizens aren’t permitted in the Hub,” he snarled.
Like most cities, Zilvaren, the Great and Shining Banner of the North, was fashioned after the shape of a wheel. Around the city’s outer limits, the different spokes—walls designed to keep people contained in their wards—towered fifty meters high above the shanti towns and overflowing sewers.
The guardian gave me an impatient shake. “Answer quick, girl, or I’ll have you dispatched through the fifth gate of hell directly.”
Were you moved to want more?
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 phone rang. Again.
It was the fourth time in eight minutes.
All from the same number. All ignored by the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec. In the hopes it would go away.
But like most things ignored, it just got worse.
The first peal had interrupted the peace of the Gamaches’ back garden this Sunday morning in mid-August, in the Québec village of Three Pines. It broke into Armand’s thoughts as he sat on the fieldstone terrasse, absently brushing croissant flakes from his shirt and sipping strong, smooth café au lait.
While Reine-Marie read the paper, his section lay folded and warming and gathering crumbs on his lap. He tilted his head back slightly to the sun, taking a deep breath of the late-summer air. Then he contemplated the bobbing black-eyed Susans and the morning glories and sweet pea and purple Jackmanii Superba clematis climbing the fence that separated them from the mad poet next door.
It was a lovely, though ineffective, barrier. Barbed wire would have to be added.
Actually, the duck was the menace. Thank God Rosa seemed to have forgotten that she could fly. Or, more likely, she simply chose not to.
Were you moved to want more?
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?
I am desperately, painfully, completely, and stupidly in love.
Her name is Daisy. We met when we were four years old. I’ve been in love with the girl since age four—that’s how pathetic I am. I saw her at the playground feeding bits of her sandwich to the hungry squirrels, and all I could think was that I had never met any living creature as beautiful or as kind as Daisy Driscoll. And I was gone.
For a long time, I didn’t tell her how I felt. I couldn’t. It seemed impossible that this angel with golden hair and pale blue eyes and skin like the porcelain of our bathroom sink could ever feel a tenth of what I felt for her, so there was no point in trying.
But lately, that’s changed.
Lately, Daisy has been letting me walk her home from school. If I’m lucky, she lets me hold her hand, and she gives me that secret little smile on her cherry-red lips that makes my knees weak. I’m starting to think she might want me to kiss her.
But I’m scared. I’m scared that if I tried to kiss her, she would slap me across the face. I’m scared that if I told her how I really feel, she would look at me in sympathy and tell me she doesn’t feel the same way. I’m scared she might never let me walk her home again.
But that’s not what I’m most scared of.
What I am most scared of is that if I lean in to kiss Daisy, she will let me do it. I’m scared (snip)
Were you moved to want more?
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?
A sizzling zap of electricity snaps directly over Zeus’ temple, and I flinch while the crowd oohs and ahhs. People from all walks of life, cultures, and pantheons live in San Francisco, but there’s no denying this is Zeus’ patron city.
I don’t need to spare the shrine a glance to know what it looks like—pristine white stone with classic, fluted columns aglow in purplish-white flashes and sparks cast by the never-ending arcs of lightning captured above the roof.
I shake my head. He is very proud of the lightning thing—this being the only god-powered city in the world. Although if Zeus is in a pissy mood…well, it tends to affect the lights. I can only imagine how much time those who enjoy uninterrupted power must spend on their knees in that temple.
I’d rather live in the dark.
“We shouldn’t be here,” I mutter under my breath as I tick a checkbox on my tablet, then glance around the bustling crowd to try to spot one of our pickpockets moving in and out of the unsuspecting masses.
My only job tonight is to observe, which is really all I’m ever asked to do. Observe and record. But of all the piss-poor schemes my boss, Felix, has come up with over the years, this one ranks right up there with attempting to capture a pegasus to sell on the black market. That put (snip)
Were you moved to want more?
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? Genre: thriller
Apologies! I left off the opening sentence. So sorry.
JIMMY CUNNIFF CALLS TO tell me to get dressed, we’re taking a ride.
“Am I allowed to ask where we’re going?”
“To check in on an old friend.”
“Am I allowed to ask which one?” He tells me. And I tell him I’ll be ready when he gets to my house.
Now we’re standing at the top of steps leading up and into a courthouse, a new one for us, the Nassau County Courthouse in Mineola.
Rob Jacobson, my former client, one I recently got acquitted of a triple homicide in Suffolk County, is about to turn himself in one county over. On another triple homicide. Like Jimmy always says: You can’t make this shit up.
“Apparently he’s gonna tour,” Jimmy says. “Like the Ice Capades.”
“Ice Capades ended years ago.”
”I was making a larger point,” he says.
“You often are.”
Jimmy is my investigator, wing man, best friend, former hot-ticket NYPD detective. His divorce from the cops wasn’t pretty. But then neither were my divorces from husbands one and two.
Were you moved to want more?
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?
The bed is empty.
Louise, the counselor—twenty-three, short-limbed, rasp-voiced, jolly—stands barefoot on the warm rough planks of the cabin called Balsam and processes the absence of a body in the lower bunk by the door. Later on, the ten seconds that pass between sight and inference will serve to her as evidence that time is a human construct, that it can slow or accelerate in the presence of emotion, of chemicals in the blood.
The bed is empty.
The cabin’s single flashlight—the absence of which is used, even in daylight, to indicate that campers have gone to the latrines—is in its home on a shelf by the door.
Louise turns slowly in a circle, naming the girls she can see.
Melissa. Melissa. Jennifer. Michelle. Amy. Caroline. Tracy. Kim.
Eight campers. Nine beds. She counts and counts again.
At last, when she can no longer defer it, she lets one name bob to the surface of her mind: Barbara.
The empty bed is Barbara’s.
She closes her eyes. She imagines herself returning, for the rest of her life, to this place and this moment: a lonely time traveler, a ghost, haunting the cabin called Balsam, willing a (snip)
Were you moved to want more?
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?
Rachel Sherrill, thirty years old in a few days, master’s degree from Stanford in conservation biology, rising star in her world, still thought of herself as the smartest kid in the class. Just about any class. .
But today at the Hilo Botanical Gardens, she was trying to be the cool substitute teacher for a restless, wide-eyed bunch of fifth-graders visiting from the mainland. .
“Let’s face it, Rachel,” the general manager of the botanical gardens, Theo Nakamura, had said to her early that morning. “Taking these undersized tourists around is a way for you to put your immaturity to good use.” .
“Are you saying I act like a ten-year-old?” .
“On a good day,” Theo said. .
Theo was the fearless academic who had hired her when the park opened last year. As young as Rachel was—and looked—she was very good at what she did, which was serve as the park’s chief plant biologist. It was a plum job, and she loved it. .
And to be honest, one of her favorite parts of the job was conducting tours for kids. .
That morning’s walk in the park was with some very lucky and well-heeled schoolkids who had traveled all the way here from Convent and Stuart Hall in San Francisco. Rachel was trying to entertain and educate the kids about the natural world surrounding them.
Were you moved to want more?
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.
Were you moved to want more?
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?
I [29m] have been friends with Chad [32m] since we were born. Our moms are best friends and we grew up together and were roommates for the last 10 years, up until the incident that set our current situation into motion.
A little backstory. I have this… streak if you will? Basically every woman I date more than a few times ends up finding her soulmate after we break up. It’s a thing. It started three years ago and it’s now happened five times. We break things off and the very next person they date ends up being The One.
My friends think this is hilarious. I always part ways with the women on good terms, and I’m happy they’re happy. But my buddies tease me mercilessly about it. They call me the good luck charm.
Anyway, forward to five months ago. I dated Hope [28f] for a few weeks. Not a big deal. We decided we weren’t feeling it, no chemistry, so we called it quits. And then lo and behold she hits it off with Chad. Of course in true Good Luck Charm fashion, this means Chad is her soulmate. Chad is all googly-eyed over her, they’ve met the parents, they’re ring shopping—and they want to move in together. Immediately.
The only problem is that Chad has six more months on our lease but found a perfect new house for him and Hope, and he can’t afford to pay rent on two places at the same time. So he (snip)
Were you moved to want more?
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 walled and gated McGrath estate was a world unto itself, protected and private. On this twilit evening, the Tudor-style home’s mullioned windows glowed jewel-like amid the lush, landscaped grounds. Palm fronds swayed overhead; candles floated on the surface of the pool and golden lanterns hung from the branches of a large California live oak. Black-clad servers moved among the well-dressed crowd, carrying silver trays full of champagne, while a jazz trio played softly in the corner.
Twenty-year-old Frances Grace McGrath knew what was expected of her tonight. She was to be the very portrait of a well-bred young lady, smiling and serene; any untoward emotions were to be contained and concealed, borne in silence. The lessons Frankie had been taught at home and at church and at St. Bernadette’s Academy for Girls had instilled in her a rigorous sense of propriety. The unrest going on across the country these days, erupting on city streets and college campuses, was a distant and alien world to her, as incomprehensible as the conflict in faraway Vietnam.
She circulated among the guests, sipping an ice-cold Coca-Cola, trying to smile, stopping now and then to make small talk with her parents’ friends, hoping her worry didn’t show. All the while, her gaze searched the crowd for her brother, who was late to his own party.
Frankie idolized her older brother, Finley. They’d always been inseparable, a pair of (snip
Were you moved to want more?
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?
There was nothing scarier than a blind old woman with whites for eyes suddenly gripping your arm under a full moon night.
Old Zelda had once been the caretaker of the home little Vad now lived in with other boys. But after she went blind a few years ago from an accident, the admin people let her stay on, which was a mistake in Vad’s opinion. Because she knew stuff, stuff she shouldn’t know, stuff about boys she couldn’t even see. She’d known things long before she lost her sight. She’d known Reed would drown in the pond a week before he did. She knew about Tor and his skin burning from the inside, something he’d never told anyone. And she said his best friend would “eat flames” one day, whatever that meant, and Fury was scared of fires.
Old Zelda was scary as shit. And Vad avoided her every chance he could.
So, being caught in the small garden on a boy’s birthday night in front of the others wasn’t something he ever wanted.
Her frail, wrinkled hand gripped his thin arm with surprising strength.
“To a castle where none go,” she said, her voice shaking, her face heavily wrinkled, the whites of her eyes staring eerily at Vad, “you will go, boy.”
Fury sniggered at his side. “Why would he go to a castle, Zelda? Where would he even find a castle?” They were piss poor, the lot of them
Were you moved to want more?
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?
If I leave this house, it will be in handcuffs.
I should have run for it while I had the chance. Now my shot is gone. Now that the police officers are in the house and they’ve discovered what’s upstairs, there’s no turning back.
They are about five seconds away from reading me my rights. I’m not sure why they haven’t done it yet. Maybe they’re hoping to trick me into telling them something I shouldn’t.
Good luck with that.
The cop with the black hair threaded with gray is sitting on the sofa next to me. He shifts his stocky frame on the burnt-caramel Italian leather. I wonder what sort of sofa he has at home. It sure doesn’t cost five figures like this one did. It’s probably some tacky color like orange, covered in pet fur, and with more than one rip in the seams. I wonder if he’s thinking about his sofa at home and wishing he had one like this.
Or more likely, he’s thinking about the dead body in the attic upstairs.
“So let’s go through this one more time,” the cop says in his New York drawl. He told me his name earlier, but it flew out of my head. Police officers should wear bright red nametags. How else are you possibly supposed to remember their names in a high-stress situation? He’s a detective, I think. “When did you find the body?”
I pause, wondering if this would be the right time to demand a lawyer. Aren’t they (snip)>
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