Submissions Needed—None Left in the Queue for Next Week. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Alice sends a revision of her first chapter of When the Tree Is Dry. The previous prologue/chapter are here. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

"Convince me." The tall man behind the cluttered mahogany desk folded his arms and leant back in his chair. A plastic nameplate beside him identified him as Ryan Channing, Trust Fund Manager.

Keera lifted her chin and studied Ryan’s face. Damn, this wasn’t going to be easy. How best to play it?

"The facts and figures are all here--" she began, pulling a neat, slim folder from her briefcase.

"Figures can be manipulated. Facts are not always facts.” He waited until she looked up at him. “I need something more than that. I need to know why I should take on your project, and not those." He waved his hand at a cabinet stacked with similar folders.

She stared at the wall behind him, her eyes narrowed. "You want something more?" She drummed her fingers lightly on the desk. It was worth a try. "How about this, then?" She reached into the briefcase, pulled out a much larger file and laid it on the desk in front of him. The open edge showed it to be crammed with papers of different types and sizes.

"Bedtime reading for a month?" He smiled, and in that moment, she no longer saw him as formidable. Crinkly lines appeared around his eyes, softening his face. “I’d rather you just told me what’s in it.”

Were you compelled to turn the page?

The writing is certainly clean and clear. There’s a little bit of overwriting—I felt the staring at the wall apart, while Alice is trying to help us see the character in action, didn’t contribute much. But that’s not the key issue—for me, there were no compelling story questions raised. There are unknowns that might have helped—convince him of what, for example? And what are the consequences if she fails? As it is, we just know that she thinks it will be tough to convince him of something we don’t know about.

This opening takes place in 2016. A few pages later is a new segment dated 2008. For me, that had the start of an interesting story, so the first lines are below, followed by a poll. See what you think.

In Britain, the jails aren't bad. I had a cell to myself, with en suite facilities—well, a basic loo and washbasin behind a token piece of wall, but hey, they worked. It had a blanket, what passed for a mattress, and even air conditioning. I could have taught Her Majesty’s cleaners a thing or two, but at least they’d tried—the smell of cheap disinfectant proved it. British jails were a whole lot better than the digs I shared in Brixton.

It had all started with a bad Monday. My alarm didn’t go off, I missed the Tube by about thirty seconds, had to wait ten minutes for another, and almost skidded on black ice as I tried to make up time by running the last stretch. I paid no attention to the two scruffy characters bumming around outside the front door of the office building.

I climbed the narrow, dim-lit stairs like I was training for the Olympics, and was halfway across the landing before I saw the cops. Too late—they’d already seen me. No point trying to do a runner – the two lurkers outside were probably plainclothes cops, waiting for someone to try it. I joined about half a dozen of my co-workers, who stood about in the foyer looking as gloomy as the weather outside.

The door to the main office opened, and I peeped through it as old Blaine, my boss, came out escorted by two policemen. Inside, more cops ransacked filing cabinets, while another tapped at the computer.

Were you compelled to turn the page with this as the opening?

For what it’s worth.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Continued:

Where to start? After a moment, she opened the file and removed a photograph. She glanced at it, remembering. It showed a slim, fair woman with long legs, and two African girls, one tall and fine featured, the other, tiny and elf-like. They’d signed their names underneath: Claire, in bold, assertive writing, Florence, written with a flourish, and Sekai, in a neat, schoolgirl’s hand.

“It all started with three women.” Keera handed him the photo.

He reached out his hand for it. She felt a moment of awareness as their fingers touched. Hell, she needed to keep focussed. So much depended on her pulling this off.

He studied it. “Claire ... she’s a relation of yours?”

This surprised her. Few people saw the resemblance; Keera had dark, curly hair and curves. “My mother. But I didn’t think we were alike.”

His eyes rested on her for a long moment. “It’s the expression, mainly. So who are Florence and, er, Sekkay?”

“Se-kye,” she corrected automatically. “To rhyme with ‘eye.’” She chewed the end of her finger. Then she pulled the file towards her, and selected two printed sheets of paper. She added half a dozen handwritten pages torn from an exercise book. “Read just these? They’ll introduce you to Florence and Sekai. I asked them to write an account of ... what happened to them.”

He watched her, his eyes crinkling up again. He inclined his head, took the papers and began to read.

London, England, January 2008: Florence’s account

In Britain, the jails aren't bad. I had a cell to myself, with en suite facilities—well, a basic loo and washbasin behind a token piece of wall, but hey, they worked. It had a blanket, what passed for a mattress, and even air conditioning. I could have taught Her Majesty’s cleaners a thing or two, but at least they’d tried—the smell of cheap disinfectant proved it. British jails were a whole lot better than the digs I shared in Brixton.

It had all started with a bad Monday. My alarm didn’t go off, I missed the Tube by about thirty seconds, had to wait ten minutes for another, and almost skidded on black ice as I tried to make up time by running the last stretch. I paid no attention to the two scruffy characters bumming around outside the front door of the office building.

I climbed the narrow, dim-lit stairs like I was training for the Olympics, and was halfway across the landing before I saw the cops. Too late—they’d already seen me. No point trying to do a runner – the two lurkers outside were probably plainclothes cops, waiting for someone to try it. I joined about half a dozen of my co-workers, who stood about in the foyer looking as gloomy as the weather outside.

The door to the main office opened, and I peeped through it as old Blaine, my boss, came out escorted by two policemen. Inside, more cops ransacked filing cabinets, while another tapped at the computer.

My granny always said every dark cloud had a silver lining. Must be something the nuns taught her at the mission school. This cloud certainly had one, because Blaine’s fat cheeks quivered beneath his staring eyes. He’d gone green. I didn’t know people could do that. I grinned. If anyone deserved trouble, he did. He ran a cleaning service, and he had the best rates in town. Not difficult, since he only employed illegals like me, and didn't have to pay us much. Or be nice to us.

I wasn’t too bothered by the pay. Zimbos know how to live cheap, and the second-hand shops in London were fantastic. I'd never had so many clothes in my life.

For the time being, the cops ignored the staff, other than making sure nobody left. We huddled in the darkest corner, next to a sick-looking bunch of plastic flowers, talking occasionally in low voices. Two Nigerians, a Jamaican, a young boy from Morocco, a girl called Alija from a country I’d never heard of, and myself. We weren’t the only employees; others had gone directly to clients’ offices. The six of us were supposed to be taken in Blaine’s van to a job somewhere out of town, but that wasn’t going to happen.

The Jamaican spared a moment from gnawing a fingernail. “Are dey going to deport us?”

“Yeah,” said the Nigerian girl, her small, round face showing no expression. “Tey always do.”

Always? She made it sound as if being deported was something that happened to her every other day.

Alija raised a shaking hand to her pale face. “We can apply for asylum? Please, it must be possible. Yes?”

She had a point; she’d told me terrible stories about the place she came from. I was also scared, but I told myself I was being paranoid. Nothing bad would happen.

A thought occurred to me. I should warn the rest of the staff. Tell them not to come back here. Ever. I moved around so my back was to the cops, pulled out the mobile phone they’d forgotten to confiscate, and sent a text message.

After a bit, they called us one by one into Blaine’s office. When it was my turn, I pulled up a chair, slouched and tried to look bored.

“Can I have your full name, please?” My interviewer was built like a bamboo stick, a bit pimply, and he wore a uniform that barely reached his wrists. But he was polite, I’d give him that.

“Florence Izwirashe Chidziro. D’you know how to spell that or shall I write it for you?” I wished I had some chewing gum. It would’ve helped me look even less interested.

“Er. If you could spell it out for me, please.”

He got it eventually, but it would have been quicker if he’d let me write it. I said so.

“Age?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Right, I need details of your work permit.”

No point in pretending. He’d find out the truth soon enough. “I don’t have one.”

“Surprise, surprise.” He scribbled something on a form. “Alright, let’s have your full details.”

He fired questions at me, lots of them. Address, date and place of birth, sex.

Sex? Couldn’t he tell? I straightened my shoulders and leant forward in case he hadn’t noticed I wore a size double-D.

He ticked a box and continued. “Nationality?”

“Zimbabwean.”

“Self-defined ethnicity?”

“What the hell is self-defined ethnicity?” I asked.

“It’s how you define yourself. Your colour, your nationality, like.”

“Can I make it up? Can I be a Yellow-Spotted Yukkatan?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Oh, OK. Let’s be boring. Black Zimbabwean. How’s that?”

To cut a long story short, that’s how I ended up detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure, as they call it. With a view to being booted out of Britain very soon.

The problem with having a cell to yourself is, it gets boring. I mean, pulling funny faces at the CCTV camera is fun for a while, but it’s not something you want to do all day. So I had plenty of time to think. Should I apply for asylum, like Alija? Or should I go home?

I missed home a lot. Harare, colourful and noisy. My grandmother's village, set against misty blue hills. My friends, my family.

Trouble was, every time I thought of home, a cold little lizard moved around in my belly and sneaked its way up my spine. Fear. And if I let it get as far as my brain, it would tell me, Stay here. Be safe. Apply for asylum.

I chased the lizard back down again. Two of my friends had applied for asylum, and they’d been kept hanging about for years. Not allowed to work, not allowed to go anywhere. Waste two years of my life? Nah. Interesting things were happening in Zimbabwe. Elections coming up, and everyone saying Morgan Tsvangirai had a good chance of winning. Political alliances formed and broken; talks starting and talks shutting down. Speculation as to whether Simba Makoni would stand for President. And Tsvangirai arrested—again.

The people at home were doing something. WOZA, for example, that amazing group of women who kept right on demonstrating, in spite of being regularly arrested and beaten up by the cops. And the Freedom March, blocked by riot police with water cannons. We had demonstrations here in London, too, gathering outside the Zimbabwe Embassy, but it was those at home who faced real danger. Suddenly, I desperately wanted to be there, to be a part of it.

I’d take the kind British government's offer of a free ticket home. And when I got there, I wouldn’t sit back tamely; I'd fight for democracy and try to be brave like the others. And damn the fear. Anyway, those things—the things I tried not to remember—happened almost three years ago. Surely they wouldn't be looking for me after three years?

Would they?

London, England: 2016

Keera flipped through the file as Ryan read. Her hand froze. Oh hell, she hadn’t intended to include that. She glanced up at Ryan to see if he was watching. He’d stopped reading, a slight frown on his face. He wasn’t looking at her. After a moment, he put aside the typed sheets and pulled forward the handwritten notes.

Keera slipped a paper from the file and slid it under the desk, and into her handbag.

Ryan’s eyes were still on Sekai’s account.

Dombo re Zhou Village, Zimbabwe, January 2008: Sekai’s account

I knew Mutero's visit would bring trouble.

Trouble was not a stranger in our village. The older people told stories of the Chimurenga—the liberation struggle. They talked of hiding freedom fighters in caves, of sell-outs being beaten, and of security forces who hunted for the fighters. They told of being afraid, always afraid. All this happened before I was born.

In our time, trouble came with elections. The Party sent people to tell us how we must vote, and to remind us of the Chimurenga. We must not be sell-outs, we must support Zanu PF, the party of liberation. At one time, this was good, because they brought beer and meat, and we sang, danced and heard stories of the heroes who fought for Independence.

Then there came a new party, the MDC, and Zanu PF became angry. They no longer brought beer and laughter, but shouting. Their visits were like gata, the ceremony for divining why somebody has died, but Zanu PF were not looking for bad spirits. They were looking for MDC supporters.

On the day Mutero came, I knew my husband Albert wanted to talk men's things with him, so I left them. I looked for Everjoy and Blessings, my two children, and found them playing hide and seek under the wooden platform that held the grain store.

I called, “Come, we are going to visit Chengetai.”

We took the path past the Kaseke’s new brick house, its iron roof shiny against the dried thatch of the older huts. Perhaps there would soon be a thunderstorm, because a black cloud hung over the hill with the big rock we call the Elephant. For now the sun still shone in the village, but dark shadows stretched towards it. I wrinkled my nose at the smell as we turned by the overhanging rock where the goats slept. Chengetai’s children waved to us from the door of the hut. Everjoy shouted a greeting and ran ahead through the maize field.

Chengetai was preparing food.

“You are busy,” I said.

“Ah, no.” She wiped her hands on her dress. “I can always find time to talk.”

A kettle boiled on the fire, and she made tea. All the children ran outside, making noise. They went up onto the rocks and chased each other.

Chengetai added sugar to the tea. I wondered where she had managed to get sugar. If I asked, she would probably refuse to tell me.

She handed me the cup. "Who is that with Albert?"

I didn’t answer, because Blessings was crying. He was the smallest, and could not climb to the top with the others.

"Help him, Eva," I called. Everjoy stretched down her hand and the boy became quiet. I turned back to Chengetai.

She repeated the question.

"That is Mutero. You know him, he is the owner of Quick-Quick Stores."

"He has a nice car." She smiled. “I wonder what it would be like to have a car like that?”

"He is a rich man."

“Ayee,” she said. “It would be good to have a rich husband. I’m sure Mrs Mutero doesn’t have to dig in the fields, and maybe she has a new dress every month.”

“Mrs Mutero has her own money,” I said. “She is a doctor. I think it would be even better for a woman to have a good job than a rich husband. Then, if you saw some nice thing, you could have it without needing to ask.”

Chengetai looked at me for a moment, then shook her head. “No,” she said. “If I want money, I wait until Tinashe has been drinking, and he no longer knows how much money he has. Then it is easy.”

I laughed. “But now, nobody has money. Not Tinashe, not Albert. It is difficult, very difficult. When Albert worked on the mine, things were good, but then the mine had no more money and no more jobs.”

“It’s true, there is no money,” she said, lifting her cup. “I don’t know how we will find enough to eat this year.” She drank some tea. "Why is Mutero here? Is he going to give Albert a job?"

"I don't think so. I think they are talking politics."

"Ah. Politics. It would be better if there were no politics, then we could live in peace." She stood up and fetched the frying pan and the cooking oil.

"You are right. It would be better. But Albert does not think so."

"You are unlucky with your husband. Tinashe does not think of politics."

"No! Tinashe thinks only of beer. Albert is a good husband. He does not drink too much, or beat me like Rudo's husband. And he does not chase the women, like Eunice's husband. He is a good man, and our vegetables are the best in the village." I leaned forward, breathing quickly, but Chengetai only laughed.

"But he thinks of politics. That is no good for you. I saw they would not allow you to buy maize, because Albert is MDC. So you are unlucky."

I looked down at my cup, remembering how the men had chased me away at the grain depot. Last year we were on the mines, and we did not grow much maize. A person cannot live without sadza, the thick porridge we eat with every meal. So Albert went to see a man at night, and came back with three bags on the Scotch cart, enough for us to eat until the harvest if we were careful. After that, all our money was gone. But we had planted a crop in November, and in a few months we would no longer need to buy.

I watched Chengetai put onions and peppers into the oil. Perhaps it would be better if we talked of other things.

"Did you hear they are saying Tonderai is the father of Susan's baby?" I asked.

***

After Mutero went home, we returned home and I made a fire in the kitchen. Albert sat outside on a rock near the door.

"You saw Mutero was with me, Sekai?"

"I saw."

"He is now the aspiring candidate for Mushongwe West."

"Oh? He is going to be a Member of Parliament?"

"He is going to try. He wants me to be his election agent."

I filled a pot with water, and did not reply. Last time we had elections, Zanu PF chased the agents for MDC from the district. I had even heard that in some other places they had been killed.

Add a Comment

Submissions Needed—None Left in the Queue for Next Week. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Ted sends the first chapter of Murder at the Country Club, a cozy mystery. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

Sophia burst through the ballroom doors, “Help! Will’s been stabbed!”

The band stopped playing, the crowd hushed, and everyone could hear her say almost in a whisper, “Someone help, please!”

Her hands, and the front of her gown, were covered with blood. She avoided eye contact with her sister, Nelia, who had become engaged to Will just moments ago, and spying her other sister, Elizabeth, pleaded, “Beth, hurry!”

Beth leaped to her feet, and dashed past the stunned guests. Nelia, seated at the center table, further from the door, was five steps behind.

Beth yelled “Where?”

“By the restrooms.” Beth sprinted down the corridor.

Sophia grabbed Nelia’s hand as she approached, and they ran together, with Will’s best friend, Keith Miller, close behind.

Will was face down in the corridor, near the men’s room, with his head against the marble baseboard. As Beth knelt beside him, they could see that someone had slashed the left sleeve of his tuxedo jacket; it was soaked with blood. He was unconscious and deathly pale.

Nelia had no medical training and felt helpless, but she knew Beth would know what to do; she was an Emergency Medical Technician-Enhanced (EMT-E). Beth applied pressure to the (snip)

Were you compelled to turn the page?

Good, clean writing in an immediate scene that includes all the elements, and there are good story questions raised. So far, so good. I would not include the “-Enhanced (EME-E)” information unless it impacts the story later, and I suspect it won’t. It’s just clutter.

A word to Ted regarding the rest of the chapter: You do some “head-hopping” toward the last, getting into Nelia’s head when the scene started with Sophia. You also go on for a lot of time with the details of dealing with the wound. Unless those details matter to the rest of the story, I suggest you cut just about all of it. The key information is that he is treated and could live. The story is not about treating wounds, it’s about what happens to the victim and the other people involved. I’d spend no more than a paragraph or two on dealing with the wound and then get on with the story. Otherwise, I think you’ll lose readers, IMO.

For what it’s worth.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Continued:

. . . artery above the wound using what was left of the dangling sleeve. There were also blotches on the back of Will’s jacket. Beth pulled his shirttail out and they could see bleeding from several stab wounds in his left lower back. That didn’t look serious; it was obvious that the blood was coming from Will’s left arm.

Doctor Adams appeared. Beth said, “It’s an artery, he’s already lost a lot of blood.”

“Hold that while I get something else.” He turned toward the gathering crowd, “I need the first aid kit from the front desk.”

Several people turned towards the desk, but just then, the valet ran up with it.

“Beth, hold it a second longer while I make a compress. Did someone call 911?”

William Stephen Black, Will’s grandfather, an elderly man using a cane, maneuvered his way through the gawking crowd.

“Yes, the desk clerk called when he heard Sophia scream.”

The doctor stooped next to Beth and said, “Beth, keep the pressure on his arm. I’ll cut away the rest of his jacket sleeve.” The two of them worked over Will as the crowd watched in silence. Doctor Adams found scissors in the first aid kit, cut the sleeve above Beth’s hand, near Will’s shoulder. He did the same to the shirtsleeve. Taking a large quantity of gauze pads from the first aid kit, he made a compress and held it next to Beth’s hand.

“Okay, release it a sec and remove the sleeve,” Beth complied and blood spurted out of the wound. Dr. Adams applied the compress, “Good, use this to apply pressure again. I’ll check for other injuries.” He made a quick inspection of Will’s body. “Two stab wounds in lower left side, can’t tell how serious, but the location isn’t the worse. I’m not sure why he’s unconscious. He’s lost a lot of blood, but I don’t think that alone is the cause. Can you check his head with your other hand?”

Beth used her free hand to inspect Will’s head.

“He has a large swelling on his temple. He must have struck his head on the baseboard when he fell.”

Nelia watched Beth and Doctor Adams actions intently. She glanced over at Sophia, tears were running down her cheeks, and her eyes were already reddening. Her bright red hair, which Beth had arranged in a French braid on the back of her head, was hanging in disarray over her right shoulder, darkened with matted blood. Her left hand and forearm were bloody and she must have held her hands to her cheeks in her grief, because there were smears of dried blood on her face. Nelia heard her father whisper, e took her arm,He“Sophia, let’s go get you cleaned up.”

Sophia pulled away from him; her eyes, although filled with tears, never left Will.

Her reply was barely audible, “No!”

“Calm down, Princess, he’s alive. Doctor Sam will do all he can to keep him alive.” Sophia reached out with her left hand and touched Nelia’s arm, then sobbed again. Nelia looked over at her and then back at Will just as Beth glanced up. When she made eye contact, she immediately looked away. Nelia thought, ‘she must think Will is dying’. She felt faint and to steady herself, reached over and grasped Keith’s arm and murmured, “Why would anyone hurt Will?”

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Many of the folks who utilize BookBub are self-published, and because we hear over and over the need for self-published authors to have their work edited, It seemed to me that it could be educational to take a hard look at their first pages. If you don’t know about BookBub, it’s a pretty nifty way to try to build interest in your work. The website is here.

I’m mostly sampling books that are offered for free. I’ve noticed that many of these folks use a prologue—I skip those books. Following is the first page and a poll. Then my comments are after the fold along with the book cover, the author’s name, and a link so you can take a look for yourself if you wish. At Amazon you can click on the Read More feature to get more of the chapter if you’re interested. There’s a second poll concerning the need for an editor.

Should this author have hired an editor? Here’s the first chapter from a book by M. Ruth Myers, offered for free on BookBub.

The guy with the bad toupee strolled into my office without bothering to knock. His mustard colored suit set off a barstool gut and a smirk that told his opinion of private eyes who wore skirts.

“Maggie Sullivan?”

I kept filing my nails. “Who’s asking?”

“You’re bothering a friend of mine.”

My legs were crossed on my desk. I have great gams. Sometimes I don’t mind displaying the merchandise, but Mr. Hair wasn’t my cup of tea so I sat up. I blew some filings off my pinkie onto the afternoon edition of the Dayton Daily News where a column predicted the French and the Brits would likely let Hitler have the Sudetenland. The wrong step to take with a bully, I thought, but no one had asked me. I made a couple more swipes with the emery board before I acknowledged my visitor.

“Lose the stogie if you want me to listen.”

I saw his jaw tighten. He didn’t like being told what to do. He looked around, saw the ashtray on the file cabinet by the door, and stubbed out his smoke. A top-of-the-line Havana by its smell, so the guy had money. Or knew people who did.

“Who’s the friend?” I asked.

Were you compelled to turn the page?

Did this writer need an editor? My notes and a poll follow.

I love a strong, sassy female protagonist. There’s implied jeopardy here, what with a tough guy apparently not liking what she’s doing and there to stop her. Good story questions: what will he do next? Will he stop her? What’s she doing that bothers his presumably nasty friend? This is a case when a strong voice makes a big difference, and this writer has one in No Game for a Dame. I turned the page. In fact, I downloaded it to read (it was free when I discovered it, might not be today). What are your thoughts?

You can turn the first page here.

Should this writer have hired an editor?

Your thoughts?

Ray

Add a Comment

Submissions Needed—None Left in the Queue for Next Week. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Jared sends the first chapter of The Third Cryogenic War. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

Death wasn’t what I expected. No heaven. No hell. I figured either would be warm—just one noticeably more so. And if neither existed, I assumed I wouldn’t either. Death would be oblivion. Instead, I remained conscious, stranded in a dark, lonely abyss with only my thoughts to keep me company. But most of all, I was bitterly cold.

I’d been this way a long time. A really long time. Not that I could keep track of days or years or millennia, but at this point, I would have welcomed oblivion. Anything but this.

Funny thing is, I don’t even remember dying.

“This one looks promising.” A distorted, muffled voice slipped through the darkness, the first sound I’d heard in ions.

“Hello?” I tried to shout, but managed no sound.

“He’d better be.” A second voice. Deeper than the first.

The men sounded as though they were old records being played on a slow track.

“Caleb Tillman.” A third voice. Female. Smooth like an angel. She knew my name.

“It’s me! Where are you?” I shouted. Still no sound.

“It says he was frozen on October 9^th, 2016,” the woman said.

Frozen?

“Really?” the first man said. “That’s old. Maybe even one of the first.”

Were you compelled to turn the page?

I like the voice, and the wry sense of humor in this character (one place being “noticeably more” warm) made him likeable. His situation is interesting, death being an eternal interest to we mortal beings. So there’s a strong “what happens next” story question for me, so I turned the page.

Just one note: it’s “eons,” not “ions.” There are similar errors in the rest of the chapter, but this is a first draft. Still, Jared, you’ll need an editor before you send this out. Nonetheless, I would love to read the rest of the story.

For what it’s worth.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Continued:

“Enough chat,” the deep voiced man said. “The Reds are advancing. Wake him up.”

I’m not dead?

“One second,” the first voice said. “You can’t rush these things. Nurse, begin the pump.”

Warmth. I could feel it. Radiating fluid flowed into my arms, raced to my chest, and then my legs. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized I still had a body. Pitch darkness morphed into a shade of gray.

“Good,” the first man said, his voice no longer distorted. “Start chest compressions.”

A weight pressed against me. Pushing rhythmically. Then my heart pumped on its own, erratic at first, but it stabilized.

“Vitals are good,” the man said.

I inhaled deeply, involuntarily. The gray shifted to bright white. I opened my eyes and blinked at the blinding overhead lights. I was laying down.

“He’s coming too.”

“You’re not dead, Caleb.” A smiling, flawless face stared down at me. Her rich tan eyes sparkled. The lights above shone through her brown hair like rays from heaven. She was an angel.

“You sure about that?” I asked. I produced a raspy sound, not words.

“Don’t try to speak,” she said. “The effects will wear off soon.” She leaned closer to him and stared with gentle eyes and a warm smile. “We want to make you an offer.”

“No offer.” The deep voiced man stepped into view. His Adam’s apple looked swollen, like it had been injected with several doses of testosterone. He couldn’t have been more than twenty five years old. A rigid jaw line dominated his handsome face. His buzz haircut was neatly trimmed and his beaming white tunic was so spotless that the thick, neon-green stripe on each sleeve seemed out of place.

The woman cocked her head. “General?” She had a colored stripe on her sleeves two. It was just as thick as the General’s, and two thirds of it was the same color of green, but the top third was a red stripe.

“We don’t have that luxury,” General said.

I couldn’t move my head to see where I was or what was happening around me. My heart didn’t have the strength to beat any faster, otherwise I would have been red-faced and angry. Tell me what’s going on. Not being able to talk didn’t help the situation.

“What are you worried about? No one’s refused before,” the woman said. She looked down at me. “You don’t want us to return you to the cryogenic chamber, do you?”

“No.” Raspy sound. Unintelligible. “No.” I couldn’t shake my head. I’ll do whatever you want. Don’t send me back.

She grimaced. “Don’t move. Blink once for ‘yes’ and twice for ‘no’.”

I blinked four times rapidly, before really thinking about it.

“Of course you don’t.” She looked back at the General. “See?”

The General grinned. “Excellent.”

What did they want me to do? Would I really do anything? I didn’t know if this guy was in the military. He seemed awfully young to have such a rank. But even if that was just his name, it wasn’t one I could respect. I knew what the military was all about—the horrid things they compelled men to do.

I fixed my gaze on the woman. When she looked back at me. One blink. As exaggerated as I could make it, given my paralyzed state.

“What?” she asked.

One blink again.

“You changed your mind?”

“He agreed to help us,” the General said. “We all saw it. He’s just blinking now.”

Two blinks.

The General’s eyes narrowed. He looked someplace outside of my view. “Fix this. I want him to speak.”

A man wearing white rubbery gloves appeared. A light blue outfit covered his torso and arms. Draw strings hung from the back of his neck. “Give me a second.”

The doctor? He looked no older than the General.

A black metal object was lifted across my view. I only caught a glimpse. My throat pulsated.

The General leaned close to me. “Forget what the nurse said. We’re not making you a deal. You’re a young man. Do you remember what war is all about?”

All too well. I blinked once.

“We need you, son. Our ancestors.” His stare pierced. “Your generation, and those after you, created something beautiful. A future better than they could have imagined.”

“Utopia,” the woman said. Her eyes glistened at the word.

The General nodded. “But Utopia needs saving. It needs you.” He glanced at a clipboard. “Says here you have brain cancer. Terminal?”

One blink. It was supposed to be a long drawn out battle. One I’d lose, but not until my body withered away and my organs shut down. That never happened. Instead I found myself in the abyss.

“We can cure that, right Doc?”

The doctor nodded, though his gaze didn’t waver from my throat. The way his arms were positioned, it looked like he was choking me. However, my throat felt more massaged than anything.

My eyes widened. This almost seemed too good to be true, but there was a catch. There’s always a catch.

“He’ll cure you. Then I have no choice but to drop you in a war zone.”

There it was. Two blinks.

“This isn’t an offer. You can’t refuse. The odds are against us and with everything at stake. I’m dropping you in the Zone whether you like it or not.”

The doctor straightened. He put his tool aside. My throat felt… usable. I opened and closed my jaw.

“Drink,” the nurse said. She put a straw in my mouth. Her expression was soft, sincere. It melted my heart. “Please help us.”

I closed my lips around it and sipped. Gel-like fluid soothed my tongue then coated my throat as I swallowed. I found the strength to harden my heart. No one plays me. It would take more than bribes and the batting of eyes to make me betray myself. Two blinks.

She drew back, clearly offended. “Why not?”

The doctor took a firm grip of my jaw, opening and shutting it. “You should be able to speak.”

I looked at the nurse then the General. “I’m,” my vocal chords vibrated, almost tickling, “a pacifist.”

The nurses eyes widened. She covered her mouth. “A pacifist?” She turned to the General. “He doesn’t belong down there. We can’t send him.”

The General rolled his eyes. “That’s not an option.”

“What year is it?” I asked. I already knew the answer. The one that mattered anyway. Everyone I knew was dead. My friends. My mom. Michelle, my fiancé. All gone. That would have been harder to accept, but I’d had my time of separation and grief in the abyss. Nor was I unfamiliar with losing the people I loved.

The doctor’s face turned sympathetic. “This will come as a shock. But by your standard of measurement, it would be year 3436.”

“All that time and nothing’s changed,” I said, glaring at the General. “There’s still wars. And people like you forcing others to be violent. Dying for causes they don’t even understand.” I harrumphed. “Some utopia.”

The nurse latched onto the General’s arm. “You can’t send him down there. It’s not right.”

The General looked at the doctor. “Inject him with the cure.”

“No,” the nurse said. “Let me speak to the quorum.”

“You’d jeopardize the war for him?” The General shrugged. “Fine. Talk to them. They’ll agree with me.”

“We’ll see.” The nurse disappeared from view. A door slammed.

The military and those in charge were always in bed together. General was right. They’d agree with him. Still, she was my only hope. My only advocate.

General faced me. His eyebrows furled. “You’re a strapping young man. Surely you’ve dreamed of the glory and honor found only in battle.”

“Once,” I said. “Then I learned that there is no glory. No honor to be had. Only death… and I’ve lost my taste for that.”

General pursed his lips. “Jess may be right about you. Still, I don’t have a choice and neither do you.” He turned back to the doctor. “Inject him.”

Something poked the crook of my right arm. The doctor leaned into view. “There. You’re cured.”

I almost laughed. Was he kidding? “You cured me of cancer with one shot?”

The doctor nodded.

“He doesn’t believe you,” the General said. He leaned closer to me. “A thousand years of medical progress and you think we can’t cure cancer? If only you knew how much we’ve really advanced. If you’d just help us, there is so much we can do for you.”

Empty promises. A ploy. I glared back with a half smirk. “Why don’t you tell me?”

He smirked, then fiddled with something to my side. My head lifted slightly as pressure across my forehead disappeared. I hadn’t even noticed that I’d been strapped to the table.

I was in a small room with white washed walls and a glistening floor. On a table to my right was the metal device I’d seen earlier and four syringes. One was empty. The others were filled with a sparkling blue fluid.

General spread his arms. “Beyond these walls is a future worth dying for. I’m not authorized to tell you much about it other than we enjoy peace, prosperity, and safety. You can see it for yourself. Even make it your home. If you help us.”

“If it’s worth dying for, why aren’t you on the battle field fighting?” I sneered. “Nothing’s changed at all. Nothing that matters anyway.”

General’s face reddened.

The doctor snorted sarcastically. “We’ve revived you. Cured you. And your thanks is to judge us? Can’t you conceive of a future so great that no one would be willing to leave it? Is that so hard?”

“What I can conceive of, is lies and deceptions. I see no reason to trust you.”

General moved to my feet. “I’m not asking you to trust me. I just need you’re instinct to survive to overcome your misplaced morality.” He took hold of the table I lay on then pushed, rolling me towards the door.

We entered a narrow hallway. The lights, walls, and floors looked no different than those in the previous room.

The doctor followed alongside. “His body is still recovering from the de-freeze. He’s not ready for training.”

General snorted. “There’s no time for training.”

The doctor put his hand on the rolling table and stopped it. “You’re sending him to War World? Now? He’s not ready for that either.”

My eyes widened and pulse increased. “Don’t. I’m not going to fight. Don’t send me there.” I tried to squirm. Leather Straps on my arms and legs held me in place. Tissue paper would’ve been sufficient.

“He has strength enough to yell,” General said to the doctor. “He’ll be fully recovered in time.”

“But without training what good will he be? You’re sending him down there to die.”

“Maybe not.” General grinned at me. “You don’t need training, do you Mr. Tillman? First thing you stared at when you saw me. It was my throat, then the doctors draw strings. You knew how to kill us the moment you opened your eyes, if only your arms weren’t strapped in.” He pushed the table forward. “Have a plan to kill everyone you meet. That’s a warrior’s code.”

“I won’t fight you. I won’t fight for you.”

“We’ll see.”

We passed multiple closed doors. I craned my neck but couldn’t see the end of the corridor. They stopped.

“Wait here,” General said to the doctor.

The door next to my head slid open. The room was dark. Black walls. Dim lights.

“No,” I shouted as loudly as I could. “I don’t want to go.”

“Relax,” General said. “We’re just getting you your uniform.”

General pushed me to the middle of the room, then sat at a desk. He lit a small lamp, then scribbled something on a piece of paper. “The Reds are cheating. Don’t know how, but they are.”

He crossed the room and put his hand on the wall. A door, which had been hidden until that moment, slid open. Spotlights illuminated clothes on a hanger. I didn’t recognize the pattern, but I knew military fatigues when I saw them. Other than a green stripe on the sleeves, they were tan with broken patterns. The stripe was only a third as wide as those on the General’s arms.

“These are for you.” He released the straps holding my arms and legs down.

I wanted to run, but my muscles barely moved. I might have had the strength to roll off the table, but certainly not enough to stand.

General stripped me. He took a ruler-shaped piece of green plastic from the table and slapped it against my right bicep. It bent like a bracelet, tightly wrapping around my arm. My muscles tingled then stung. A puff of smoke emanated from the bracelet. The tightness and pain stopped. The stripe remained, but rather than looking like plastic, it appeared more like a vibrant tattoo. A green stripe like the fatigues in the closet.

“What was that?”

“You’re a Greenie now.” General pushed and shoved me on the table, forcing the camouflaged pants on to me, then pulled the shirt over my head. “You run into someone with a stripe like this, he’s on your side and won’t hurt you. Watch out for the Red’s, though, cause they won’t hesitate.”

He returned to the table and neatly folded the piece of paper. “I know you don’t like me and don’t trust me. But surely you know I want to win the war, and that means I want you to succeed. If nothing else, you can trust that.” He stuffed the folded paper into my front pocket. “Give this to Chris.”

He wheeled me back into the hallway and towards the far end.

“Jess!” I shouted. “Don’t let him take me. Help! Anyone. I don’t want to die.”

General stopped the table. He looked up and down the hallway then leaned close to my ear. “You don’t have to die. Not ever. As long as you win.” He winked, then pushed me to the end of the corridor.

The doctor opened the door to a round room as we approached. At the center, there was a cone shaped boat floating in a small pool of water. It looked like a fiberglass ice cream cone laying on its side. It had a clear tip and a sealed curved door.

General pressed his hand against the cone. The door slid open. “This will take you to War World. I’ll give you more instructions once you’re under way.”

“Please. No!”

“Sorry.” The doctor helped place me into the lone seat, behind a control panel and twenty inch screen. “You’re arms and legs are going to ache before you gain full functionality, but you should be able to fight in an hour or so.”

“I’ll never fight.”

“You’ll be able to run, then.” The doctor buckled me. “Either way. Don’t let the Reds touch you.”

General nodded. “You’re no use to us dead.”

I strained to keep my head from flopping down. The doctor and General leapt back just before the door hissed shut.

The boat shifted, then sank. I sucked in a lungful of air as water bubbled over the window. The cone tilted downwards towards a bottomless, dark abyss, then accelerated.

Add a Comment

Submissions Needed—None Left in the Queue. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Tom sends the first chapter of Aftershock. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

I was thinking about my Studebaker when the quake hit. Though it’s not exactly a showstopper, it’s a ’63 Lark, and pretty sweet. The Studey was on my mind because a moment before the building went bonkers I’d been looking at Diana’s legs. She was wearing one of those napkin-sized skirts she sometimes wears and her legs are all the way up to there anyway. I always try not to stare—I’ve perfected this method of looking off in a fake distracted way and then flicking my eyes back. I can get away with zeroing in on her without getting caught, I think. It was almost quitting time, and I wasn’t paying much actual attention to anything.

So there I was standing in my cubicle holding some papers and Diana was standing at the copy machine in that skirt and I was thinking that maybe if those Nazi mechanics of mine would fix that problem on the Studey, this time I could finally ask Diana out without worrying that my car would stall at a light and maybe leave us in the Tenderloin without wheels and me looking like Doofus Number One. And then the quake hit.

Now it’s not like I’m a quake virgin or anything. I’m a California boy all the way, and have been through more than a couple shakers in my thirty-plus, including one in the 70s when I was staying in Santa Barbara where I watched a nearby hillside seem to turn to liquid—but that was just my eyes jiggling. And since I’d moved to San Francisco, I’d felt the earth skip a beat more than a couple of times. I’ve always sort of liked it—the land stretching its legs a bit and all. And (snip)

Were you compelled to turn the page?

Strong writing and a clear, likable, and on-the-charming-side voice were good to see in this opening. He uses an interesting technique to add to tension—springing a dramatic even on us (a quake) and then postponing showing it while he spends some time on other things that are going on in his head. Then the quake resurfaces, and then he goes on to other things for a bit. It worked okay for me on the first page, but I found myself feeling “Okay, okay, but can’t we get on with it?” towards the end of the page. We’re in the middle of a dramatic, traumatic, life-threatening event in this man’s life and, rather than be submerged in the quake, we’re treated to well-written backstory and sidebars. Will the rest of the narrative take a similarly leisurely approach? See what you think of the rest of the chapter.

For what it’s worth.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Continued:

. . . now it was almost the 90s, and there hadn’t been a real big bumper for a while. But this was different.

Different because Consolidated Leasing—yeah, that’s where I work—could a business name be any more lame?—is on the eighth floor of a new building on the edge of downtown, and it’s built to flex in a quake—and man was it flexing. But different yet, because even with the flex, even with me having rocked and rolled through my share of quakes, this shaker seemed special right from the get-go.

I felt it in my stomach first, a kind of squeezy uncomfortable feeling, like riding on one of those old centrifugal-force carnival rides where you lean against a wall on a spinning, circular platform, and then the floor drops away while you spin faster, pinning you to the wall in an awful, verge-of-nausea way. I always hated those rides, but I would always ride 'em when I could. You can’t be smart all the time, I guess.

So my stomach did a couple of pirouettes before I really even knew what was going on and then the floor started moving in a real greasy way, a kind of sliding, humping, fucked-up kind of way, and I was finally clued in that it was an earthquake—and that it was a big one. There seemed to be a second wave that had more kick than the first and then the building really stepped onto the dance floor. It swayed big-time, and I mean swayed like you’ve downed ten tequila shooters and slapped yourself in the temple with an unabridged dictionary. My heart was now hammering like a trapped animal was inside.

The jolt punched me into the edge of my cubicle, and I hit the corner about armpit height, hard, and then I stumbled to one knee. Though I pretty much forgot about scoping Diana, she was still right in front of me and I saw that she was clutching the sides of the copying machine with both arms, a love-death grip. From my angle it looked like the machine was actually lifting into the air a little, but maybe that’s because I wasn’t exactly the Rock of Gibraltar myself. Also from my angle I saw that her little skirt had hiked up even further so that I could see where the thighs of those fine legs moved right up into that round rump, which was covered by red panties. I filed that away in one of those micro-seconds because it’s really no time for my standard lech act, considering that the office was in a state of total pandemonium, and I’m not completely convinced that the entire building wasn't going to go kablooey right down onto Market Street. I tried to shout something out to Della, but it came out like a strangled little bark.

Cubicles playing bumper cars with each other doesn’t give me a lot of confidence. Since our building was getting so loosey-goosey, and we were on the top floor, office goods were really starting to scoot around with each pendulum swing of the building. Two of the tallest filing cabinets toppled with a huge crash, but I could barely hear that because of the shouts and screams that were ricocheting around the office. After I’d righted myself a little using my cubicle wall, the next round of building flexing took my monitor tumbling off my desk, and it exploded on impact. The novel! My novel, the only damn thing that’s seemed real to me in the last year, was on that computer. What if it was trashed too?

When I whirled around to check out the computer itself, another tremor hit that seemed to run sideways from the direction of the first. I was plunked right down in the aisle between the cubicle rows so that I sort of fell on my back and my butt, with my legs a little in the air. That gave me a splendid view of some of the plasterboard roof panels of the acoustic ceiling above, which were now deserting the roof in droves and diving to the floor. I had to get out—fast—but I felt like I was moving in slow motion. The novel, damn.

I sprang up, but was staggered by a rolling motion of the building. I was kind of half-crouching, half crab-walking my way across the office because there were so many toppled things on the floor, and so much noise and dust. In passing, I noticed that the most egregious example of wretched corporate art that the office possessed (on a lease, of all things) had jumped to its deserved death off the wall. It had been pierced by the weird sharp-edged desk lamp that one of the graphic artists had brought in to try and prove that she wasn’t a corporate drone. I had a fleeting thought that I hadn’t appreciated her creativity before. But no time for thoughts.

At this point, at least six people were crowded into the office’s open double-doorway, seeking wall-joint strength like good Californians should. Unfortunately for them, that was also the primary office exit, leading to the elevators and staircases and what seemed now to be an impossibly long flight away from a building that was rumbling like it was moving to a good belly laugh.

The bulk of the office populace was now pouring toward those open double doors, where that half-dozen of the first mad scramblers had fled. I was moving with them, in fact, kind of pulling on the shoulder of a guy in front of me for momentum, as the floors and walls did another little tango. The doorway people were half-crouching, some with arms entangled, all leaning on the person next to them, all wide-eyed and open-mouthed. They looked so scared that I had a new clench of fear.

They didn’t intend to abandon their protected place in the doorway, but those intentions had to negotiate with those of the half-crazed stream of souls coming toward them who had no intention of remaining in the building. I glanced back at the cubicles, seeing two people from payroll standing wall-eyed in the aisle, while a rivulet of a toppled Sparkletts bottle trickled between them toward me. When I turned back to continue for the door, my boss Megan was standing in front of me.

In front of me doesn’t quite explain it though. When I turned back toward Megan, I was wearing her, like an apron, since I had turned holding both my arms out from my waist and she had moved with her arms up and forward toward me. Since she’s about a foot shorter than me, just in turning around I ended up involuntarily clasping her to my chest, which surprised us both.

I grabbed her by the shoulders and screamed “Megan!” which was all I could manage. My ante was too high for her, however—she couldn’t even speak. We’ve all heard that phrase “white as a ghost.” Just another phrase that’s lost its elastic—but Megan brought a rich new meaning to a poor phrase.

She was drained of color, paste-white, a fully credible white that would never pretend to be the pallor of a living being. But I did detect a little pinkness in the center of her face: her tongue, usually as discreet as all of Megan’s doings, now blatant because she was unable to engage it to make conversation. It rested limp on the bottom of her widely open mouth. Behind the heavy black horn-rims of her Elvis Costello glasses, Megan’s bright blue eyes shrieked the words her tongue couldn’t manage.

I did a little pas de deux with her in the aisle, spinning her by the shoulders toward the exit. In thinking of it afterward, I longed for a video: my formidable boss, always cordial but always reserved, impenetrable and boss-like, spun like an addled child and pointed toward the door. “I think we should get out,” I said in as manly of a voice I could muster. But I was scared; my heart hadn’t let up, and for a second I thought I was having a heart attack.

We were near the tail end of the crowd moving through the doorways. The first human wall of resistance clinging to the entryway had been breached—and like bowling pins, most had scattered, choosing the staircase path preferred by the bulk of those in flight. Probably two minutes, three at most had passed since the initial shock hit, and the building still seemed to be reverberating, though I couldn’t judge time or the trembling with any accuracy.

I shepherded Megan past the lone doorway holdout, Squink from Accounting. He was gripping the doorsill with both hands, his eyes wet and dreamy as we went by. It was lucky I had Megan to tend, because that responsibility calmed my brimming panic.

“Squink, better head down. Maybe the worst of it’s over,” I said as we passed him. I thought I was getting the hang of this whole leadership-in-a-crisis thing, what with Megan acceding to every tiny pressure of my arm, and me feeling like most everything’s in control. It was only when my knees buckled at the first staircase step that I realized that my whole body was slightly quivering, and that I had lost that fine motor control needed for precise movement.

I grabbed the handrail to steady myself, though Megan, in full zombie mode, didn’t notice my stumble. At that moment, she might not have noticed if I had a long scaly tail and flippers. We merged into a mass of semi-orderly building deserters, moving haltingly down the staircases mostly three abreast. I saw Diana ahead of us, looking back with an alarmed look and then lurching forward. My crew, Silvie and Crenshaw, was ahead of her—I could see Silvie throw her arms up while she talked to Crenshaw as they descended. She had a characteristic way of flinging her arms about; she always wore about twenty bangles and wrist bracelets on each arm that clicked and clattered when she jostled them. I was glad to see they were both all right.

The only person I could see that had an injury was Mr. McManus, the portly Vice President, who had a pretty good gash on his forehead, against which he held a slightly bloody handkerchief. There was a lot of tangible tension going down the stairs, which was a process less than brisk. “What if there’s another quake? We’re going to get squashed here!” someone said. “God, I wonder what my house looks like? I just put all this decorative glass on shelves in my living room,” somebody else answered. “Goddamn. I thought the whole goddamn building was going down! The whole damn thing!” said one of the lawyers, who’d just come into the office before it hit. I wanted to push everyone out of my way. Calm down, I said to myself. But I was anything but calm.

We came to the seventh-floor landing, where we met a surge of employees from the big insurance firm that worked there. I could see a couple of women who were crying, and several people who looked disheveled and shaken up, but no major injuries. An older man in a suit was standing on the side of the stairwell saying over and over, “Just move slowly and watch out for your neighbor. It’s OK, just move slowly down and watch out for your neighbor.”

Just a few steps ahead someone I didn’t know had a portable radio pinned to his ear. “Seven-point five. They’re saying seven-point five, and major damage in the City. Big fires in the Marina. Not certain where it actually hit yet.” We were slowing way down on the stairs as we came in contact with people emptying out of the sixth-floor offices. People were getting more anxious, pushing a little, and I could see a big guy ahead of us trying to force his way through. I felt a strong pressure in my gut, and tried to push back against it. But when I looked down at Megan, she looked weirdly calm. Some color had started to come back into her face.

“Megan, are you feeling better? You OK?”

She turned to me and nodded and softly said, “Yes.” Her eyes still looked as if their owner was off vacationing, but at least she resembled the upright—if not uptight—boss that I reported to that morning. I turned into a bit of a robot myself after that, just moving kind of numbly with the crowd, listening to people speculate on what had happened, the fear squeezing their voices. But I kept jerking a bit as I went down the stairs—as we walked, it felt like there were more aftershocks, but I think my body might have been having little fear spasms. I couldn’t tell.

I wondered how my house was. Sure, it was a rental, so it’s not my house, but it had been hard enough finding the place after I left Santa Cruz in such a hurry a year before. It’s a big Victorian, with a huge bay window in the Lower Haight. I hoped Drew, my housemate, hadn’t been standing in front of that window debating his next decorating move. We hadn’t lost any windows in our office, but I was plenty worried that big old house wouldn’t have flexed quite like our spiffy new building.

It might have been thirty, forty minutes to get down to the lobby—it seemed like hours. Then, suddenly, we burst out onto Market Street. The noise was the first shock. The combined sounds—shouts, crashes, horns, machine noises, police sirens—hit with a physical impact, so that I ducked a little when I stepped out onto the street. It was pandemonium. I felt terrified all over again. The street and sidewalks were teeming with people, some milling about, some standing alone, many walking in waves up and down Market.

Traffic was completely stopped, with some cars left at odd angles in the middle of the street. I saw an empty Muni bus almost sideways, straddling both lanes with its door open. There was smashed glass all over the place, much of it from sidewalk-level storefront windows. Police cars were parked or in movement in all directions. I saw water gushing over a low rooftop wall and down the front of a nearby five- or six-story building onto the sidewalk below. Then I watched an ambulance pull up on the sidewalk of the building right next to ours and spill out its attendants, who rushed inside. I could hear sirens near and far. I checked out the big office building right across the street, and it had thick white smoke pushing out of broken windows on the third floor. It was madness. I noticed I was breathing very fast, in short gulps and gasps.

People from our office had gathered in a loose circle on the sidewalk edge and in the street, trying to decide what to do. One of the sales guys was trying to get people to go to the Gnome’s Hat, a dive bar around the corner, but nobody was listening. I thought I should try to call the house, but the only phone in sight had six or seven people crowded around it. I spun around in a small circle, looking up and down the street, and at my fellow workers, who didn’t seem to be able to put a plan of action together. Silvie and Crenshaw stood off to the side, Silvie waving her arms and Crenshaw sucking on a cigarette with fierce concentration.

Then I noticed Megan staring at me. Though her complexion was returning to normal, she still looked stricken. She looked at me steadily for a moment and then said, slowly, in a tight-throated way that made her words croak a bit, “Hayden, I would greatly appreciate if you would walk me to my apartment. I’m feeling quite ill.” She fluttered her arm toward my shoulder, and briefly rested it there and then she looked away. I thought I could see her trembling a little.

“Well, that’d probably be OK, Megan. I’ll just try and call my place from your house—I’m a little worried because it’s an old building.” I tried not to smile too broadly when I said, “I’m glad to see you’re getting some blood back—your face was the color of printer paper up there.”

She touched one of her earlobes, covering one of her tiny pearl earrings. “Well, that’s probably true. This is my first earthquake, and I’d like the number to stop there.” She looked out at the crazed street scene and shuddered a little. “At the moment, I think I’d take the peril of Boston drivers over San Francisco earthquakes hands down.”

Megan had come to Consolidated from Boston only two years before. She’d been an editor there, but also (because it was a small company) the Traffic Manager or some such ungodly title at a small boutique publisher in Boston, routing manuscripts, messages, contracts and communications through that office and across that quadrant of the East Coast’s literary world. She did have all kinds of exchanges with agents and name authors, but that didn't count much at Consolidated. But damn, that contract work did: Now she ensured that leases had signatures, executives had quarterly reports and that meetings had 100% attendance. Consolidated leaned on her small frame with a vengeance, but she never seemed to be caught with a contract—or a sandy-blond hair—out of place.

First things first—get off of Market Street. I knew Megan lived somewhere on Taylor in Russian Hill, so I figured we’d walk up to California and maybe move north on Stockton, skirting Chinatown. I knew that would first take us through some of the big-boy buildings in the financial district, but I didn’t want to flank the Embarcadero—I’d remembered that big waves can follow an earthquake, and though that seemed pretty unlikely in the Bay, I’d always had a strong fear of drowning. Megan still seemed only semi-coherent, so I just gestured the way with a pointing index finger up the street, and we moved through the chaos. I kept looking up at the tops of the buildings, expecting something to fall on us.

We started walking up to where California hits Market and I saw Leg Man, in his usual spot, not far from Consolidated. I saw him almost every morning, since he set up shop near the coffee stand where I regularly fueled up. Leg Man was a homeless guy, or at least he looked like a homeless guy, and like many of the homeless on Market, he had a regular spot where he plied his trade. The ways the homeless folks hit you up for dough on Market Street varied: some would try a story on every passerby, walking with you a bit to fast-talk a dollar. Some had crude or artistic signs with jokes on them—“Homeless man needs money for college and beer,” or sad descriptions of their plight. Others would just sit slumped on the sidewalk, not looking at the masses moving by, maybe with a plastic cup to take any donations.

Leg Man was different. Leg Man had an artificial leg that he set up on the sidewalk, and at the top of the leg, a little above the knee, there was a little platform and connecting bracket. He’d position a small metal can there for people to drop money in. He usually stood stock-still back off the sidewalk from his leg—he didn’t seem to need the leg to stand—looking at everyone passing by, a small scowl on his face. He was late forties, maybe fifty, black, a big, stocky guy with a small afro of wild, graying hair. Today, amidst the madness, his leg was next to him against the storefront wall he normally leaned against. He undoubtedly knew that pickings would be slim on a day when the entire City was upside-down.

I gave him a nod, and his eyes tightened a bit, but otherwise, he gave me no acknowledgment. But he gave Megan a long, sharp look and then gazed down the crowded street. He’d seen me many times, but I never knew if he recognized me or not, though I’d pushed a buck his way a few times. I wondered for a second if he knew Megan, but then we turned up toward California.

Add a Comment

Submissions Wanted. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Debbie sends the first chapter of Instrument of the Devil, a suspense novel. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

Happy 50^th Birthday, Mom. Love, Neal. Tawny Lindholm glared at the message label on the bubble-wrapped package, torn open on her chipped Formica breakfast bar. Inside lay a new smartphone, without any instructions, no clue how to operate it. Her son meant well, but he knew how much technology intimidated her. Besides, with him seven thousand miles away in Afghanistan, he couldn’t help her here at home in Montana.

The shiny black screen reflected her scowl while its bell dinged. The device barely fit in her hand. No matter how much she swiped the face or pressed the buttons on the side, the display remained black. Every time she touched it, the sound changed. Whistles, chirps, rodent squeaks, a woodpecker tapping, a chainsaw buzz. It was laughing at her.

Other people managed to zip around on their devices to get directions, play games, and now and then, make a plain old phone call. It looked so simple. “Damn you, I can’t even call 911.” The monster had her talking to herself.

Were you compelled to turn the page?

Good, clear writing and voice in this opening scene—but what happens here? A woman receives a phone from her son and she can’t operate it. Hmm. Sure, she has a goal and is frustrated in achieving it, but what are the stakes here? There’s no hint that not getting the phone to work will be anything other than an annoyance.

What’s really happening here is setup that doesn’t provoke any story questions other than “will she get the phone to work?” The setup does lead to an interesting twist, and there are clear hints of someone plotting to do something to her. Rather than open with all of this, I suggest you consider opening with the suspenseful part, Kalhil reporting what has happened. Then go on from there to the mysterious deposit in her bank (without all the setup about the son and family). You need to get this story going and cut out as much of the background exposition as you can.

As Steven James says in Story Trumps Structure, “If it’s in the story, it must matter. If it doesn’t matter, delete it.” Of course, sometimes the hardest part is deciding what matters. I put it another way: if it doesn't impact the story, then it doesn't belong in the story.

For what it’s worth.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Continued:

While her husband Dwight was sick, she’d used a basic cell, no problem. Flip it open, punch in numbers, and connect with doctors, the oxygen company, the pharmacy, and finally, on a July night nine months ago, one last call, to the funeral home.

With Dwight gone, she’d ditched that old phone, needing the fifty dollars a month more than cell service.

This screen remained blank, indifferent to Tawny’s frustrated prodding. She didn’t want a phone smarter than her. Since Neal ordered it from an online retailer, she couldn’t even take it back to a local store. If it wasn’t a gift from her son, she’d gladly smash it against the wall. Still might.

A different tone warbled five times. An incoming call? Or had she accidentally told the thing to launch a missile?

“You’re the instrument of the devil,” she said. “Your name is Lucifer.”

She twisted the tail of her auburn French braid and studied a postcard that had also arrived in the mail. Baffled by your smartphone? Free class. Easy, fun, impress your children and grandchildren.

If Tawny went, she’d be the dumbest person there. But how else could she learn without instructions?

The oldies station Dwight had liked played in the kitchen. “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” by the Temptations faded out. “I’m begging someone to put me out of my misery,” she answered. Without her husband, she’d been reduced to talking to the radio...often. And now to a damn phone.

The announcer came on, promoting the same free class described on the postcard. Tawny frowned and turned up the volume. “Learn how to operate your smartphone. Tonight, seven o’clock, at the library in downtown Kalispell.”

First, the postcard, now the radio ad. Might as well pay attention to these signs. Besides, she didn’t have anything better to do than sit home in the silent old house, listening to mysterious beeps and whistles from Lucifer.

#

Just walking through the entrance of the Colonial Revival-style library building caused Tawny’s palms to sweat, yanking her back to seventh grade when the teacher of “Dumbbell English” sentenced her to extra tutoring. She always felt claustrophobic among books, as if the looming shelves full of knowledge might cave in and bury her. The tutoring table still sat in the corner, reminding her of endless hours while the tutor pounded at her to sound out words she didn’t comprehend. Years later, when her daughter Emma also couldn’t read, Tawny learned the term “dyslexia,” but knowing what was wrong didn’t cure her problem.

Tonight, kids sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor, hunched almost double, their little noses buried in books. Adults in reading glasses tiptoed fingers along the shelves. How she envied people who read easily, even doing it for pleasure.

At the front desk, she found a kind-faced young librarian. Tawny held out the phone in her damp palm. “There’s, uh, a class, I think….”

The librarian nodded and pointed to stairs at the far end of the room. “Second floor. In the meeting room. Lot of seniors.”

Seniors? How old did she think Tawny was? Well, according to AARP, she was now technically a senior. Tawny thanked her and turned toward the stairs.

“Good luck,” the librarian called after her.

Was she being sarcastic?

I’ll show her who’s a senior…Tawny skipped up the steps two at a time.

On the second floor, more walls of books hemmed her in, centuries of knowledge other people read and understood, but never her. She followed a pathway to a glassed-in cubicle. About a dozen gray-haired people milled inside the room, wearing mystified expressions as they chatted and displayed their own Lucifers. Did she really look as old as these folks? In the eyes of the young librarian, probably. At least Tawny had company in her ignorance.

A dark attractive man at the entrance made Tawny draw in a breath. Strong wiry build, an inch or two under six feet. Crisp white shirt, ironed jeans, tweed sport coat. About forty, she guessed, with shaggy black hair and a thick mustache.

And startling, soulful green eyes.

He held a clipboard. Must be the teacher. Tawny approached him with a shy smile. “Smartphone class?”

He grinned, showing straight teeth below the dense mustache.

Would that tickle if he kissed her? What are you thinking? Stop that!

His eyes crinkled with warmth and humor, almost as if he’d read her mind. “Welcome. I am asking people to sign in with their name and cell number.” A hint of accent she couldn’t place touched his speech. He handed her the clipboard and a pen.

“I can give you my name, but I haven’t a clue what the number is. It goes ring-a-ding-ding, but the screen just stays black.”

“May I?” He held his hand out for her phone, which she gave him.

While she wrote her name on the sign-in sheet, he flicked the screen with a feathery touch. Suddenly the phone lit up, a bright glowing mountain scene. His index finger flew, changing the screen to strange icons she didn’t understand. Might as well have been scratches on the stone wall of an Egyptian pyramid.

A few more flicks and he handed it back to her, the heat of his palm lingering for a second. “This is your number.”

Tawny felt embarrassed she needed to put on her glasses to see the display. “How’d you do that?” Her voice sounded breathy. Must be amazement, or a surprise rush of hormones. Yet when she looked into his green eyes, she felt a connection.

How she’d missed her man’s closeness during the eight long years of Dwight’s illness. She hoped she’d never let on to him the hunger she felt when he could no longer make love.

She shook the memories from her mind.

The dark man peered at her, black brows drawn together, searching deeper into her thoughts. “Are you all right?” He glanced at the sign-in sheet. “Tawny? May I call you Tawny? I’m Kahlil Shahrivar.”

“Nice to meet you.” Beyond his good looks, she sensed concern, empathy, and depth of soul in those eyes. “Thanks for making it work.”

His smile warmed her. “No inconvenience. Your brightness control was turned all the way down, that’s all. No magic.”

“Might as well be magic,” she murmured. “To me, it is.”

He brushed her upper arm, directing her through the door. “Let me show you how to peek behind the curtain. When you’re finished with this class, that phone will do everything for you except fold the laundry.”

She moved into the room, wishing his hand had stayed longer on her arm. “In that case, I need a different model. I specifically asked for one that folds laundry.”

#

During the next two hours, Tawny learned how to take photos, find the weather forecast, record appointments, and keep track of her workout. Kahlil was a patient teacher. When he demonstrated a security feature using a thumbprint, he chose Tawny as the model. He enfolded her thumb in his warm hand, rolling it slowly and carefully around on Lucifer’s screen, sending shivers up her neck.

Students practiced calling and texting each other. Tawny discovered a text from her son already on her phone, Hv fun w/ ur new toy. Watch 4 email w/ updated Rear D contact #. Love, Neal. I ought to spank your butt, you little brat, she thought, even though the little brat now stood six-two, a no-nonsense Army sergeant.

As people tried various tasks, she felt relieved not to be the dumbest student, even though Kahlil seemed to spend more time with her than the others. Hopefully nobody picked up on how she had inhaled his masculine scent as she leaned close to him. Close enough that she spotted a small hearing aid inside his ear. Young to be going deaf. Probably too much loud music as a teenager.

When the class broke up, a white-haired lady winked at Tawny. “Teacher’s pet,” she said with a sly smile. Tawny’s cheeks burned. So she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed.

This is ridiculous, she thought. I can’t be interested in a younger guy, or any guy. She hurried from the room before the other students, clipping down the stairs, out to Dwight’s old Jeep Wrangler.

She now knew the basics of using Lucifer. Mission accomplished.

#

Sitting in his BMW Z-4 parked outside the library, Kahlil tapped an encrypted text, Contact initiated, response exceeded expectations, then sent it.

Operating in a small town made contact simple. Two nights before, he’d placed the package and postcard in Tawny’s mailbox. Combined with the advertising blitz he paid for on the radio station he knew she listened to, he felt confident she’d show up at his class. And she had.

She was taller than surveillance photos showed, matching his height of five-ten. Slender, long legs in black tights, a light orange sweater hugging lovely curves. Glossy auburn hair plaited in a braid that hung over her shoulder. High cheekbones and wide-set brown eyes befitting a model, which she’d been in her youth. A charming, self-deprecating sense of humor.

Her technological ignorance was obvious, as preliminary research had indicated. Leading her along would be simple. She’d made several comments that hinted at self-consciousness about her lack of education. Good. He’d play on that. Flatter her, praise her intelligence, but never let her grow too confident.

A successful evening’s work with a beautiful woman. Much superior to the other targets in his database. An unexpected pleasurable interlude amid the complex intensity of the mission.

#

The next morning, wrapped in her blue fleece robe, Tawny sipped coffee and nibbled rye toast while she labored to compose a thank-you text to her son, although she didn’t know when or if he might receive it. Neal’s deployment to Afghanistan three months earlier made her heart ache with worry, but he had chosen the Army for a career, rising through the ranks quickly. She was proud of her son, even though he never talked about his work. She guessed he had confided in Dwight, a Vietnam vet. Father and son used to spend hours huddled in the downstairs den, turning up the TV, she figured, to keep her from overhearing their conversation.

She appreciated their close relationship. Dwight had been a good dad and Neal was a good son. She’d been lucky, but how she missed them both. Silence hung heavy in their old house, so empty and hollow now. At least, one day, she’d be able to hug her boy again, admire the square jaw and steady gaze he’d inherited from his father.

She tapped the phone’s virtual keyboard, which kept correcting her spelling, changing Neal to neat. “Dammit!” she muttered. “Neal, what were you thinking, sending me this instrument of the devil?”

Fed up, Tawny padded barefoot on the hardwood floor through the living room, down the hall, to check email in Neal’s old bedroom, now her office. On her laptop, she found the promised message from him with a new phone number to the Rear Detachment. Dwight used to poke fun at the “rear echelon motherfuckers” in Vietnam who stayed at a base safely behind the action. He scoffed they were only useful for emptying trash cans.

But Tawny appreciated Rear D for the emergency lifeline between deployed soldiers and family back home. They had treated her kindly and helped her get a message to Neal during the last gasping week of Dwight’s life. She carefully copied the new Rear D number into Lucifer’s contact list and saved it.

She finished off the text to Neal and sent it. At least she hoped it had been sent. Every time she touched the smartphone, a new unexpected screen popped up, full of choices she didn’t understand, like Tethering, NFC, screen mirroring.

Kahlil had helped her through basic tasks at the library. She might’ve learned more if she hadn’t been so distracted by his sensual way of stroking the screen, his softly accented speech. He reminded her of Omar Sharif from the old movie Dr. Zhivago.

Kahlil. What kind of name was that? Sounded exotic, romantic, yet vaguely familiar. Then it hit her. In her daughter’s purple bedroom, Tawny pulled down a box of books from the top shelf of the closet and set them on the zebra-striped bedspread. When she’d wanted to donate them to Salvation Army, Emma protested. Somehow, unlike Tawny, Emma had overcome her reading difficulty and loved books. Whenever she came home, she promised to get her own place and give the books a place of honor. Hadn’t happened yet. She lived like a nomad in a van with her tattoo artist boyfriend.

Tawny opened the flaps on the cardboard box and dug among the books. Phew, mildew. The slim volume she was looking for turned up near the bottom.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. That’s where she knew the name Kahlil from. Emma had all but memorized the book during high school. At the dinner table, she was forever quoting passages of romantic, mystical poetry that didn’t rhyme. Tawny understood the appeal. Dwight would never have written such words to her, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t have loved to receive them.

Tawny carried the books outside and spread them on the picnic table to air out in the warm April sun. Then she forced herself to pull on black leggings and a sleeveless chartreuse top for Zumba class. Working out had been her salvation while Dwight was sick, a temporary escape. Now, she had to push herself to leave the house, even though she knew exercise would temporarily lift her out of the pit of loneliness.

In the mud room, she donned a denim jacket and left by the back door. In the detached garage off the alley, she climbed up into Dwight’s Wrangler. The rig bounced like a balky mule, but her brawny husband had loved it. She’d sold her comfortable Explorer because driving the Jeep made her feel closer to him, and no point paying insurance on two cars anymore.

On the way to the gym, Tawny stopped at the bank ATM, withdrew $300, and plucked the receipt from the machine. The balance caught her eye. Can’t be right. She dug in her bag for her readers, put them on, and verified the amount.

$47,281.06.

Impossible.

The account normally hovered around $5,000. $42,000 too much. Must be a computer error.

She parked the car and went inside the lobby, irritated. Once she’d badgered herself into leaving the house, she hated to miss Zumba class, especially for a bank error.

Fortunately, her favorite teller Margaret was on duty. The grandmotherly plump woman listened to Tawny’s explanation of the mistake, and tapped the keyboard to access the account. She rotated the screen to show Tawny. “Here’s the deposit yesterday. $41,500 in cash.”

Tawny stared at the screen, first without her readers, then with. “But I didn’t make that deposit. It’s wrong. Can’t you tell where it came from?”

Margaret shrugged. “If it was a check, we could backtrack the account number. Harder with cash.”

Tawny’s checkbook always balanced to the penny, a source of pride. She might struggle with reading, but she knew her numbers. “I did not make that deposit,” she repeated, as if her disclaimer would alter the figure flickering on the screen.

Margaret tapped again. “It wasn’t made at this branch,” she agreed. “Let’s see, it was done at the Helena branch.”

“That’s a hundred and fifty miles away,” Tawny answered. “I haven’t been to Helena in more than a year.” An unwelcome memory of that last trip to the Fort Harrison VA returned, the black day when doctors finally admitted defeat and pronounced Dwight’s death sentence. She shoved the bitter memory aside. “I couldn’t have made the deposit.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.” Margaret glanced over Tawny’s shoulder at customers lining up, then back at a couple of young tellers chatting as they ignored the growing queue. She raised her eyebrows and shook her head.

Ridiculous. In the age of computer tracking, IRS monitoring, and surveillance cameras, a bank had to be able to figure out where the cash came from, and where it should rightfully go. “Is the manager in?” Tawny asked.

“Sorry, she’s out of the office at a seminar.” Margaret pursed her lips and gave her a you-know-how-things-are shrug.

Yeah, Tawny knew the damn bank had been going downhill ever since a multi-national conglomerate bought it a year before and renamed it United Bankcorp. The former manager had taken early retirement, replaced by a snooty woman from San Francisco Tawny hadn’t met and didn’t particularly want to. Every time Tawny caught a glimpse of her, usually glaring down at the lobby from the mezzanine, the woman averted her eyes.

Margaret had confided her new boss didn’t like being stuck in the backwater town of Kalispell, Montana. One by one, familiar employees left, replaced by twenty-somethings with inflated titles whose main function seemed to be kissing the manager’s butt. Only Margaret remained, trying to hold out till she could collect Social Security. Tawny wondered how much longer till she too was swept aside.

She leaned forward. “I better see the operations supervisor.”

Margaret spoke into the phone, then gestured at a desk on the opposite side of the lobby. “He’ll be with you in a moment.” She mouthed good luck, as if she expected Tawny would need it, and made a face, warning you won’t like him.

Tawny sat in front of the desk and scanned strangers in glass cubicles along the wall, missing the atmosphere of the old neighborhood bank where she knew everyone’s names. Back when she and Dwight had their diesel repair business, an error like this would never happen, or if it did, the problem would be solved immediately with apologies.

A twenty-ish young man emerged from behind a solid wood partition, newly built since the takeover. He approached, looking as bored as if he were flipping burgers and scooping fries. Black horn rims accentuated his vampire-pale complexion.

Tawny pushed the ATM receipt across the desk. “I have a problem. Someone deposited $41,500 into my account yesterday.”

“Wish somebody’d do that for me,” the kid scoffed.

Tawny forced herself to keep smiling. “It’s not my money. Obviously someone must have keyed in the wrong number and it got put into my account by mistake.”

He stared at her through his horn rims.

This nitwit was the operations supervisor? Trying to hide the irritation in her voice, Tawny explained, “I’m sure whoever this money belongs to is expecting it to be in their account. Maybe they’re writing checks that are going to bounce. Don’t you think they might be a little upset?”

“The manager’s out,” he answered blandly.

“So I hear. Meanwhile, how do we straighten this out?”

With a put-upon sigh, he asked, “Are you sure it’s a mistake?”

She wanted to reach across the desk and swat him. “Look, a forty-one dollar error, maybe I could’ve screwed up. But I guarantee you I didn’t screw up $41,000 worth.” She sucked in a deep breath. “Look, why don’t you call the Helena branch and talk to them?”

He peered over the top of his glasses, plucked a bank business card from a holder, circled a phone number, and handed it to her. “Here’s the 800 number. You can explain directly to them.”

She took it. “Is this the branch number?”

He heaved another sigh. “It’s the 800 central number for the whole bank. They’ll help you.”

Useless talking to this clown. Tawny grabbed a pen and scrawled her name and phone number on a slip of paper. “When the manager gets back, please have her call me right away.” She rose and stalked toward the door.

“Have a wonderful day,” he called. How politely and professionally he told her to go fuck herself.

#

Tawny couldn’t wait to get home. Wait till Dwight heard about this ridiculous mess. He’d blow a gasket and they’d be out looking for a new bank tomorrow….

Realization hit her like an ice cube down the back.

Dwight was gone. Forever.

Tears burning, she pulled over and parked. “Dammit, Dwight!” She pounded the steering wheel. “Why aren’t you here to help me?”

Most of the time, she held grief at bay…until the smallest trigger set off the horrible replay of his death. She felt as if she’d been hanging on a sheer cliff with one hand, desperately clinging to her husband with the other, as her strength ran out until she could no longer hold him. When he fell into the abyss, she tore apart, half of her falling with him.

She knew it wasn’t the bank and its corporate indifference—it was the silent emptiness she faced at home, no one to share her frustration with. Guilt filled the hollowness inside her, multiplying and swelling, like Dwight’s cancer, seeping into the ragged edges of her soul.

When he had lashed out against the cancer, she took it personally. When exhaustion dragged her down, she longed for relief, an end to the constant burden of juggling his medicines that acted more like poisons. She hated arguing with doctors who never hesitated to remind her how smart they were and how ignorant she was, even when she caught their mistakes.

How she begged Dwight to eat as he wasted from two hundred pounds to eighty. How she held his head while he retched and blamed her for making him eat. How she dreaded the sleepless nights, listening to him moan and thrash in bed beside her.

Now their bed was silent and empty. Only his childhood teddy bear to hold, a pitiful substitute.

It was her fault—she had wished for the end. Now, she regretted the wish with all her heart.

Drained and sniffling, she pulled herself together and blew her nose.

No matter how much she screamed and pounded, Dwight would still be dead and she still had $41,500 of someone else’s money. She needed to fix that.

At home, she steeled herself and called United Bankcorp’s 800 number. The voice mail runaround offered to make a loan, open a credit card, consolidate her debts, and rattled off locations of branches in fourteen states. She heard a prompt for every possibility except what to do when someone else’s money winds up in your account. After twenty minutes of circular trips back to the main menu, she repeatedly pressed zero hoping to connect with a human being. The recorded voice sincerely apologized, but did not recognize that command. When she heard for the eighteenth time how important her call was to them and how valued she was as a customer, she disconnected.

“Valued, my ass,” she muttered. “If I’m so important, why can’t I talk to anyone but a damn machine?”

Then she remembered the Slocums, neighbors who had retired from banking, Sheryl as a loan collector, Phil as a vice president. Maybe they could give her advice.

Tawny walked down the avenue under mature maple and linden trees, past small well-kept 1920s Craftsman homes like hers, interspersed with century-old mansions on corner lots, landmarks built by early Kalispell movers and shakers. The Slocums’ was a two-story Colonial with a former carriage house converted to a double garage.

She rang the bell and heard Sheryl lumbering across the hardwood floor entry with heavy dinosaur steps.

“Hi, Tawny, what’s up?” Sheryl always looked vaguely annoyed, as if her bunions hurt or her bra chafed.

“Hi, I wondered if I could talk to you and Phil about a banking problem I’m having.”

Sheryl looked her up and down, eyes gone flinty. Heaven help anyone who might fall behind on their payments to Sheryl. “You know we’re retired. We really don’t like to talk business anymore.”

Phil approached behind Sheryl with a leering smile, the kind Tawny dreaded from husbands because it made wives hate her. “Howdy, neighbor!”

Tawny tried to back away. “I don’t want to bother you.”

“So what’s the problem?” Phil all but pushed Sheryl aside. “I heard something about banking?” He motioned Tawny into the house. “Come on in, sit down. Want some coffee?”

“No, thank you. I won’t take up much of your time.” She grimaced an apology to Sheryl who narrowed her eyes and closed the door.

Seated on antique chairs in their living room, Phil asked, “Now, what’s this about?”

Tawny released a breath. “This is going to sound weird, but United Bankcorp put money in my account, a lot of money, and I don’t know where it came from. I think it must be a computer mistake and it should have gone into someone else’s account. But I can’t get the bank to look into it. They insist I made the deposit yesterday in Helena. I haven’t been to Helena lately, so it can’t have been me.”

Phil hunched forward, elbows on knees, belly hanging. “How much are you talking about?”

“Forty-one thousand five hundred dollars.”

He whistled softly. “You sure it couldn’t have been a direct deposit, like from a life insurance payoff, or a tax refund you forgot about, or a settlement in Dwight’s estate?”

Tawny shook her head. “None of those. I think I’ve got our finances pretty well squared away. No, this is completely out of the blue. And it’s cash. The trouble is I can’t get anyone at the bank to pay attention. I’ve told them it’s an error, but they blow me off.”

Phil rubbed his chin. “This could be more of a problem than you think. Even before 9/11, regulators tightened restrictions and increased reporting to try to track money laundering that finances terrorism. Any time someone makes a cash deposit of more than $10,000 to an account outside the normal ordinary course of business, banks have to file a CTR within fifteen days of the transaction.”

“What’s a CTR?” Tawny asked.

“Currency transaction report. That goes to the feds so they can monitor unexplained movements of large amounts of cash—you know, like from drugs or weapons smuggling. If something alerts the teller to unusual behavior, he or she fills out an S-A-R, suspicious activity report.”

Tawny’s stomach clenched. “What the hell? I’m no drug smuggler or terrorist. I just want the mistake fixed.”

“That’s all well and good, but the bank has probably already filed the CTR, so you may still come under scrutiny unless you can explain the source of funds.”

“What’s to explain? It isn’t my money. I don’t know where it came from.”

“You need to talk to the manager and ask about putting the money in a suspense account until they find out the source.”

“What’s a suspense account?”

Phil crossed his legs, ankle on knee. “To put it in basic terms that you could understand, it’s an internal account where banks stick money they’re not sure what to do with until they figure it out.”

Tawny tightened at his condescending tone, but said nothing. She needed the ex-banker’s information.

Sheryl cleared her throat. Tawny recognized the wifely signal—wrap this up and get her out of our house.

Phil shifted, uncrossing his legs. His belly spread across his thighs. “You’re absolutely sure you don’t know about this cash? You’ve had a lot to keep track of with Dwight’s illness and death. Maybe something slipped your mind in the turmoil.”

Tawny pulled herself straight. “More than forty thousand dollars is not going to slip my mind.” She rose. “Thanks for taking the time. I’ll see the manager tomorrow.” As she went toward the front door, she felt Sheryl’s glare on her back, and heard Phil mutter something to his wife.

They think I’m crazy. If my own neighbors don’t believe me, how can I convince the feds I haven’t done anything wrong?

Add a Comment

Submissions Wanted. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Maya sends the first chapter of Different. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

"Bring me some grapes!" Caspian ordered as the butler entered his room. "Yes master. What is your preferred variety?" The butler asked slowly. Caspian narrowed his eyes and picked up a book. "I don't care! Just get me some grapes!" He yelled as he threw the book towards the butler. The butler swiftly exited the room before he got hit and the within seconds of his departure, the novel had hit the door and landed on the ground with a thud.

Caspian was the secondary master of his mansion. He was next in line to become the Lord of Salisbury Estate. Although only 15 years old, he had nearly full control of the entire house and made his butlers and servants do as he pleased with just a few commands. This made Caspian rather lazy and unknowing - having people do things for him twenty four seven made him virtually unable to do anything himself. But he wished to pay attention to only his requirements and continued to splash out orders to his unwilling helpers. Caspian had dark hair, like his father, which he kept neat and tidy nearly all the time. His eyes were crystal blue, and created a stunning portrait of a young wealthy boy. But behind this beauty was insolence and dominating proclivies and that consumed him almost entirely. In a word, it was the ugly truth.

Soon after his servant had left his room, Caspian rolled over on his bed and sighed. He was getting bored of this high-and-mighty lifestyle. And the thing that bugged him the (snip)

Were you compelled to turn the page?

“Telling,” credibility, and no story question are roadblocks to a page-turn for this opening. I was immediately stopped by the book-throwing action. For the book to have hit the door “seconds” after the butler had exited and shut it, the book would have had to have been traveling in slow motion. It would take no more than a second or two for the book to travel through the air. More likely the butler would have to dodge the book than exit and shut the door. A credibility issue caused by not thinking through the staging and action as it would really happen.

The character is unappealing, but I can deal with that as long as there’s a strong story question. But the narrative lapses into telling us backstory and details about the character rather than showing us in a scene. Even with the quicker delivery of information through telling, though, the narrative brings up no story question. You need to think this through and then give us a scene that isn’t all setup. The very end of this brief chapter works toward that with his decision to escape, but even if it opened there we would need something to block his desire, to cause him trouble.

Continued:

. . . most was that he was not allowed outside his mansion. The reason for this unusual enclosure, was that his mother and father were very overprotective, and thus leading to their child's restrictions. But he found a way to deal with this by distracting himself, in which he would do so by bossing his butlers and servants around. Although his method of diversion was hurtful towards his stewards, it was the only way that Caspian saw to divert his longing for the outside world.

Before long, the young master heard the door to his bedroom creak open and as he turned around, Caspian spotted his butler sauntering into the room, holding a large silver tray with grapes placed neatly in the middle. "Your grapes sire" the butler said. Caspian said his thanks and bid his loyal servant goodbye, for he wanted the room to himself again.

Once the butler had left, Caspian placed the tray of grapes beside his bed and picked one off the vine. "I don't understand" he muttered to himself, squeezing the grape between his fingers. "Why won't mother and father let me go outside? All the other children do and nothing happens. It’s downright unfair!"

This delusion had gotten him quite upset, and as a result, Caspian had pressed the grape enough so that it burst and left trickles of juice running down his arm. "Oh bother! Butler!" He yelled.

Moments later, the butler had reached his room and asked what his master required. "Tissues" Caspian ordered, and with that, the butler left, hoping to return shortly.

As Caspian waited, his patience grew thinner and for the first time in his life, he felt like getting up and getting the tissues himself. He was about to do so when his servant strolled in again, this time carrying a box of tissues. "Master, I have news in which I'm entitled to deliver" the butler said as Caspian took a tissue from the box. "What is this news you speak of?" The young boy asked, suddenly intrigued by his servant's words.

"Your parents are out for a few days, perhaps a week if there are delays during their travels, and so you shall have the house to yourself for the time being. Under servant supervision, of course."

Caspian looked at the butler with a smile. "That is great to hear. You may be excused."

With that, the butler exited his room, leaving Caspian on his own once more. The young lord rose from his bed and walked over to the window. "What can I do whilst my parents are away?" He thought to himself. Then an idea popped into his head. A very daring and worrisome idea. "That's it!" He cried.

"I'll escape!"

Add a Comment

Many of the folks who utilize BookBub are self-published, and because we hear over and over the need for self-published authors to have their work edited, It seemed to me that it could be educational to take a hard look at their first pages. If you don’t know about BookBub, it’s a pretty nifty way to try to build interest in your work. The website is here.

I’m mostly sampling books that are offered for free. I’ve noticed that many of these folks use a prologue—I skip those books. Following is the first page and a poll. Then my comments are after the fold along with the book cover, the author’s name, and a link so you can take a look for yourself if you wish. At Amazon you can click on the Read More feature to get more of the chapter if you’re interested. There’s a second poll concerning the need for an editor.

Should this author have hired an editor? Here’s the first chapter from a book titled Malevolent.

The phone rang and rang.

On the seventh or eighth ring, I answered. I already knew who it was. “This is Kane.”

“Kane, we have one.”

I let out a puff of air in disappointment. I hadn’t gotten a decent night’s sleep in weeks. “You really need me there?”

“Yeah.”

“Fine. Where?”

The captain rattled off the address. “Right away,” he said and hung up.

The address was the Manchester office building a couple miles from my condo.

While my schedule said I had Sundays and Mondays off, I couldn’t recall the last time I didn’t work a Sunday. Mondays were the only days I could somewhat count on not being bothered— murderers weren’t as active on Sunday nights and Monday mornings. However, as a department lead, I was always on call. That led to a lot of overtime. The clock on my nightstand read 7: 33 a.m. I rolled out of bed.

I rummaged through my closet and selected my day’s attire. The pants, shirt, and tie tucked under my arm were somewhat clean. The walls of the hallway guided me toward my bathroom. I splashed water across my face and ran my hands across my couple-day-old stubble. (snip)

Were you compelled to turn the page?

Did this writer need an editor? My notes and a poll after the break.

This book is by E.H. Reinhard. Nothing to fault in the writing, and the first-person voice is fine. The promise of a murder investigation is, well, promising. But then the story gets into him getting out of bed and getting dressed. His only desire, unfrustrated, is to clothe himself. No jeopardy in that, no suspense, no tension. We just don’t need the backstory that follows (we meet his cat, for heaven’s sake). While this author doesn’t seem to need line editing, he could sure use a critique of the storytelling. What are your thoughts?

You can turn the first page here.

Should this writer have hired an editor?

Your thoughts?

Ray

Add a Comment

Submissions Wanted. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Elizabeth sends the first chapter of an untitled novel. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

The wheels of the Dispatcher are eating miles of road beneath me. Its metal grate rumbles beneath my combat boots, and I stand firm with my back to the wall like I’ve been taught. But it takes all my self-control to not move as Commander Jakob, or Grumps as I like to call him, lowers his mouth to hover beside my ear. “This is your final training mission before your coronation, Fife. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, would we?”

His hot breath hangs in wisps around his whiskers. I’m about to reply with the customary “No, sir” like the other soldiers, but I stop myself before I can. Grumps is my subordinate. I’m not going to let him forget that. So instead I just shake my head.

He straightens and grates it out, “I would like to take this opportunity to wish you good luck in your future endeavours, Fife. Let’s hope you’re a better ruler as the Astrixys, than you are a soldier.”

I nod, “Let’s hope so.”

Grumps turns on his heel and retreats to the front of the Dispatcher. What he really wanted to say is that I suck so much at combat training, it’s obvious I’m a human. Because when it’s a human vs a Saeptose, the Saeptose will always win. Whether it’s with smarts or speed or strength.

My eyes travel to the other side of the Dispatcher. I can barely make out the other (snip)

Were you compelled to turn the page?

I like the writing and the voice quite a lot and, as a science fiction fan, the new world that’s opening before me. All that said, what this opening page lacks is a story question. Fife doesn’t have a need or desire expressed at this point, nor is there a sign of jeopardy ahead. Later the Dispatcher opens and she is greeted with this:

The Dispatcher grinds to a halt. There’s a groan and sickening clunk as the wall on my left folds outwards. Dust swirls from where it touches the ground outside, forming a ramp I’ve walked down on similar missions many times before. A crowd of humans meets my eyes. Outside, meters away, is the Lower World.

We’re parked in a long kind of concrete hall. The ceiling hangs low and yellow markings are painted across the floor. A parking lot? Whatever it is, it stinks of piss. At least twenty humans are gaping at us, with ripped shirts and rotting teeth and filthy faces. Their eyes are hollow as their stomachs. But it’s not like I haven’t seen humans from the Lower World before. What makes me freeze all over is the weapons they carry.

I’m the closest soldier to the humans. I’m closest to their curved hunks of metal- clearly salvaged from junkyards and hacked till sharp enough to slice.

The page as it is gets an almost from me. Put the above on the first page and I’ll guarantee you a page turn. Notes:

The wheels of the Dispatcher are eating miles of road beneath me. Its metal grate rumbles beneath my combat boots, and I stand firm with my back to the wall like I’ve been taught. But it takes all my self-control to not move as Commander Jakob, or Grumps as I like to call him, lowers his mouth to hover beside my ear. “This is your final training mission before your coronation, Fife. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, would we?” I think the “Dispatcher” is a case of too much in the world-building. I had no idea what one was for a couple of sentences. It would have been so clear and simple to use something like “troop transport” or “troop transporter” instead.

His hot breath hangs in wisps around his whiskers. I’m about to reply with the customary “No, sir” like the other soldiers, but I stop myself before I can. Grumps is my subordinate. I’m not going to let him forget that. So instead I just shake my head.

He straightens and grates it out, “I would like to take this opportunity to wish you good luck in your future endeavours, Fife. Let’s hope you’re a better ruler as the Astrixys, than you are a soldier.” Clarity issue here. I didn’t have a clue to what “as the Astrixys” meant. I think context would have helped me if, instead, had been “when you become the Astrixys.” I still don’t know exactly what it is, but I get more out of it.

I nod, “Let’s hope so.”

Grumps turns on his heel and retreats to the front of the Dispatcher. What he really wanted to say is that I suck so much at combat training, it’s obvious I’m a human. Because when it’s a human vs a Saeptose, the Saeptose will always win. Whether it’s with smarts or speed or strength. How does one retreat to the front of something? I think stride or some other verb would be more clear for me.

My eyes travel to the other side of the Dispatcher. I can barely make out the other (snip)

For what it’s worth.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Continued:

. . . soldiers standing against the opposite wall. I’ve sparred with them all before. And they’re all Saeptose. Every time, I got my ass handed to me.

But if Grumps said he smelled a rat, I could imprison him for the rest of his life if I so chose. And geez, sometimes I really want to.

He hunkers down at the front of the Dispatcher, just as the vehicle sails over a bump in the road. He bangs on the wall at his back, “Watch wear you’re driving, human.” Goosebumps prick up my arms as the driver whimpers an apology.

The Dispatcher goes silent beneath me. Its rumbles are replaced by the hum of machinery on all sides. My stomach gives a vague flip as the elevator sails down, with our vehicle loaded inside. We’re heading to the Lower World. Where the humans live.

A door slides open from the back of the Dispatcher. Two pairs of combat boots thud on the metal grate, and I breathe a sigh of relief. The footsteps pass me and into the dim light. I can see their owners better now. They’re both muscular and broad shouldered, both with faces that look as if they were carved from ice. Clearly brothers who’ve finished their combat training.

They come to a stop in front of Grumps and I nearly laugh as the colour runs out of his face. Scrambling to his knees, he lays a hand across his chest.

“Give the heir the same treatment you give us,” the white haired one says. It’s not often that I hear Lucan so cold. He’s slightly taller than Iryn, slightly more willowy too. You’d never guess he’s the younger brother.

Grumps lowers his eyes, “Yes, my lord.”

Lucan and Iryn glance back at me. Their grins are wicked. I give them a thumbs-up. Technically, they should be on their knees in front of me like the commander, but us aristocrats stick together.

The elevator jerks to a halt and the Dispatcher restarts its rumbling progression. Lucan hangs back as Iryn steps forward. He fiddles with a keypad in his hand for a moment, before a projected image flashes on the wall behind him. Light bathes the entire Dispatcher, and I see the other soldiers lined up against the other walls in detail since we started the mission. All of us in the vehicle are decked out in our black uniforms. Bullet proof vests, combat boots. Nothing too major. Just enough to scare anyone in the city who’s thinking of causing trouble. Handguns hang in their holsters, and knives in their sheaths. There’s the collective squeak of leather boots as the other soldiers kneel with their arms over their chests, facing Lucan and Iryn.

Iryn raises a hand, “Yo. Lucan and I are taking over as your commanders for this mission.” The soldiers exchange frowns. It’s not every day that they get a commander address them with “Yo”. Iryn rolls his eyes. “You can’t do much if you’re on the floor, so get up already.”

I can sense their disapproval as they clamber to their feet. Iryn’s clearly not combed his hair in a week. And he and Lucan are only a couple of years older than the rest of us, so they’re not exactly battle-hardened yet. It’s unusual that we get a different commander, let alone these two. But the other soldiers haven’t sparred with these guys like I have. They’d do well to keep on their good side. They’re more deadly than Grumps ever was.

The only person who doesn’t seem to mind is Arena. I catch her on the other side of the Dispatcher batting her eyelashes. I stifle a laugh.

Iryn bends down to a crate leaning against the wall. He tosses us each a small black box. “Today isn’t the standard peacekeeping mission you guys were hoping for. My newest design of navigational device is inside the boxes you hold now. They’re called Tattoos. I need them tested for later use in guerrilla combat.” So that’s where Iryn’s been for the last month. Weeks can go by when I see Iryn daily, but just as many go by when he’s practically disappeared. At the end of such a period there’s always a new device he’s pieced together. They’ve exploded spectacularly more times than I can count.

Iryn sees my raised eyebrows and he smirks, “Don’t worry, they’re safe. I’m not sure about yours though.” I give him the finger and he cackles.

He pulls a clear plastic sheet out of a box. “You put them on like this,” Iryn holds the sheet near his forearm and it snaps onto the armour there, as if attracted magnetically. I can barely see it. But when he taps it three times, the Tattoo lights up all over. It’s a map of the Lower and Upper Worlds. “As you know, today we’re headed to the Lower World. The slums down there are always changing , so it’s hard to get an idea of where anything is, or where rebels could be hiding. This mission will fix that problem. Each of you are assigned one sector of the Lower World. All you have to do is walk through every street you find, and the Tattoo will track your progress on the map. If you walk a street not already on the map, it will be added automatically.”

I pull a Tattoo out of my box, and do what I’m told. The Tattoo flares into life and the map of the Lower and Upper Worlds flashes onto my armour. The Upper World is bristling with skyscrapers. Built by humans, inhabited by Saeptose. It stands on huge stilts above the rambling Lower World. As a human, that’s where I should be. My sky shouldn’t be blue like the one belonging to the Saeptose. It should be grey with the concrete of the Upper World’s belly.

But even the Lower World stands on stilts. Beneath it is the oily black waters of the Silth.

When I zone in again on Iryn, he’s handing out cloaks, and the soldiers are surrendering their weapons to Lucan. Each one clanks as they hit the bottom of the crate. “… remember that your job is to map the Lower World, not terrorise it, and certainly not destroy it. Although, that would be fun.”

I raise my hand, “Why the cloaks? Couldn’t we just walk around?” The others mutter softly. You don’t ask questions of your superiors. But Iryn’s not my superior.

He glances over his shoulder from where he’s handing Arena her cloak. He doesn’t see her blush as their hands touch for a moment, “If you get recognised as an armed Saeptose, you’re dead meat. This is by no means a safe mission. Especially not in times like these.” He turns to us all. All the humour is gone from his expression, “You all know of the skirmishes that have recently been occurring in the Lower World. If you come across any, speak into your Tattoo. It’s programmed to connect to either me or Lucan. We’ll contact the Saeptose stationed on Patrol in the city, and they’ll handle it. Always best to leave it to the pros.”

“I thought you were a pro, Iryn?” I say. The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them, but I don’t regret it. The other soldiers gawk at me, and Grumps is staring daggers.

Iryn smiles wryly, “I am. It’s just that my approach at handling rebels isn’t always the best one.”

“So your approach is, like, blowing them up?”

“You wanna find out, Fife?”

“Anytime.”

A knife whistles through the air and skewers the wall just above Iryn’s head. “Oops,” Lucan says. I turn to him and he shrugs, “It just slipped out of my hand.”

“Sure it did,” Iryn scowls, and hands out the rest of the cloaks.

Lucan comes up to me. He shakes his head, “Why are you two still like this? It’s been two weeks since you sparred.”

“But I beat him.”

“He wasn’t using his power.”

I grin, “But I still beat him. And he’s three years older than me. And he’s finished his training. And I beat him, by the way.”

He grins too, “Stop rubbing it in his face. It’s cruel.”

“Don’t act as if you don’t like seeing him squirm.”

He raises an eyebrow, “Fair enough. Then as your commander, I order you to keep tormenting him,” I hand him my weapons but he shakes his head, “Keep them.”

There’s no more explanation needed. For me to be in the Lower World is more dangerous than for any of the other soldiers. Not only am I from the Controlare, the government of the Upper and Lower Worlds, but I’m a human that’s been raised side-by-side with Saeptose. And I’m the next Astrixys- the next leader of the Controlare. As far as the rebels in Southern Citrene see it, I’m a traitor to the human race.

But even worse, a Saeptose can defend without weapons. Their powers can enhance their abilities. But as a human, I don’t have any such power.

I push the weapons into Lucan’s hands and whisper so only he can hear, “They’ll ask questions if you don’t take them, Lu. Iryn’s the only other person who knows I’m not human here. The others will be just as dangerous if they find out I’m not like you guys.”

“I’ll cover for you. Iryn and I can make up some sort of excuse,” he sees the protest on my lips, “I know you’d be fine against an unarmed human. I mean, you’ve beaten me in the past if I’m not using my power. But against an armed human, or a Saeptose-”

“Fife, stop flirting with your commander,” Iryn calls from the front of the Dispatcher. There it is. His revenge for getting embarrassed in front of the squad.

Lucan closes his eyes momentarily, “I will kill him.”

I smile, “Please do.”

Lucan steps away from me and calls to Iryn, “It’s likely there’ll be assassination attempt against Fife, with her coronation being so close. I think it’s necessary that she be armed.” That’s what Lucan says. But what he’s thinking is so obvious that even Iryn can’t miss it. Agree with me now and it’ll save you a lot of pain later.

The smile is wiped off his brother’s face, “Yes, you’re right. Fife, you can remained armed.” Lucan hands back my weapons as Iryn adds, “You and Fife should take the same sector. We can’t have the future Astrixys getting murdered.” He tosses me a cloak, “At least not when I’m in charge.”

My gun slides back into its holster. It’s always hard for me to rest easy without its weight at my hip. I throw on my cloak. I’d prefer to be alone for this mission, but being paired with Lucan isn’t all bad. It’ll be just like old times when we’d steal food from the Kitchens, or sneak into the training rooms to spar at night. When we were little kids, with no idea of the Lower and Upper Worlds.

The Dispatcher grinds to a halt and Lucan heads up the front to take his position next to Iryn. Grumps stands on Iryn’s other side. There’s a groan and sickening clunk as the wall on my left folds outwards. Dust swirls from where it touches the ground outside, forming a ramp I’ve walked down on similar missions many times before. Daylight spears into the soldiers’ eyes and for a second I’m blind.

I hear Arena scream. The Saeptose have adjusted to the light faster than I have. When I can see again, a crowd of humans meet my eyes. Outside, meters away, is the Lower World.

I stagger backwards. We’re parked in a long kind of concrete hall. The ceiling hangs low and yellow markings are painted across the floor. A parking lot? Whatever it is, it stinks of piss. At least twenty humans are gaping at us, with ripped shirts and rotting teeth and filthy faces. Their eyes are hollow as their stomachs. But it’s not like I haven’t seen humans from the Lower World before. What makes me freeze all over is the weapons they carry.

I’m the closest soldier to the humans. I’m closest to their curved hunks of metal- clearly salvaged from junkyards and hacked till sharp enough to slice.

And as Lucan said- I can hold my own against a normal human. But an armed human?

“The driver!” Grumps shrieks at my back, “The human driver! He drove us to the rebels! The human-“ I look over my shoulder in time to see him smash into the cabin. The human there crouches in the corner, hands outstretched as if he could push away this world. Grumps swaggers forward and reaches for him.

Iryn grabs Grumps by the neck. His right eye glows yellow as he slams him against the Dispatcher wall. Metal splinters and groans.

That’s what Saeptose can do.

“With due respect, comrade,” Iryn hisses, “You need more self-control. We aren’t beasts like humans. Don’t lower yourself to that level.”

Maybe this isn’t a great moment to tell Iryn he’s being hypocritical.

Grumps’ lips curl. He opens his mouth to retort. Iryn’s boot connects with his chest. Doesn’t kick. Not yet. Just a silent, deadly warning. “You were saying, soldier?”

“Nothing, my lord.”

Iryn pushes the boot deeper, “Get off your high horse and know your place.” Everyone, inside and outside the cabin, is silent. We all know what that means. Grumps is a mere soldier who worked hard at his job, and thus rose through the ranks. Aristocrats like Lucan, Iryn and me- well- we’ve got gold in our veins. Valuable gold.

“Yes, my lord. I apologise, my lord.”

Iryn tilts his head to the side and smiles. The boot leaves Grumps’ chest. “Great! Glad we cleared that up. How’s Kitchen duty sound then, eh? The dirty dishes are waiting.”

“Yes, my lord.” Grumps hangs his head.

Lucan walks to the human driver. The man shrinks against the wall. Even Iryn backtracks to linger beside me. But I know how these guys think, enough to know that Iryn’s here to guard me. He’s never been very good at negotiating.

He whispers in my ear, “You think I scared the commander enough?”

“Oh, yeah. Thanks for avenging me for all the times that asshole badmouthed me.”

“Can’t have pricks like that in the Controlare,” he mutters.

In the cabin Lucan’s voice is quiet. “Hey.”

The man stares at Lucan. He’s cleaner than the humans outside the Dispatcher, but still has that hollowness to his face and eyes. Probably works his fingers to the bone during the day in the Upper World, but goes home to his starving family in the Lower World at nightfall.

“You can leave quietly, if you want. We won’t harm you,” Lucan says.

The man swallows now, “You’re mocking me.”

“What good would that do? No, I’m not mocking you,” he glances at the humans outside. “I apologise if it appears that way.”

“Then what are you doing?” The driver throws out his hands. “Kill me! Do what you Saeptose do best! I lead you here to the rebels. Take your revenge.”

“There’s no revenge to take.”

“Not yet, maybe. But if Hurly down there pulls the trigger, Lucan Starka, then you will want revenge.”

Trigger? The humans only have blades and bludgeons. Iryn and I scan the crowd.

“Oh shit,” Iryn mutters.

A man in a long brown cloak stands, almost indiscernible, amongst the crowd. I’m staring down the barrel of a handgun that peeps from above shoulders. So that’s why the rebels haven’t attacked yet. I consider drawing my own handgun, but Hurly’s got his already trained on me. My hand lingers by the holster and I watch the man’s eyes narrow. From beneath his hood, I can see a sun-creased face and long and dirty blond hair.

He nods at me, “Lucan, Iryn, Fife. I would like to talk to you kids.”

The strangest thing is that he doesn’t sound like a rebel. Not an animal, not a beast. Not degenerated in any way. He just sounds like a normal man.

“We want negotiation. Not bloodshed,” the softness in Lucan’s voice is gone. The authority- the power- that’s replaced it is chilling.

Hurly waves a hand as he sidles to the front of the crowd. “Likewise, likewise.” He comes to a stop at the foot of the ramp, “Feel free to bring Marly. As insurance. If we kill Fife, you can kill Marly. If you kill Marly, we kill Fife.”

Lucan nods, “Deal.”

Uh, no. No deal. Firstly, Marly is a commoner, I am an heir. And secondly, I could be shot at anytime. Fat lot of good it’ll do me if I’m dead, even if Lucan avenges me. I don’t think Marly agrees with this deal either. He starts yelling and struggling, but all Lucan needs to do is place a hand on the man’s shoulder.

Lucan’s right eye goes yellow. Marly freezes and all the fear leaves his eyes. All that’s left is blankness. He takes a step forward, then another. Then he and Lucan are standing at the top of the ramp.

At its core, that’s what power a Saeptose has. The power to control anyone as long as physical contact is sustained. They even use the power on themselves, hence the heightened abilities.

Iryn nudges me and we walk to join Lucan and Marly. We face a swarm of humans, they face a horde of Saeptose.

Lucan looks at me, “You want to do the talking?”

No. I’m terrible at talking. You know that, Lucan. But at least I have no one to blame if I screw up and get myself killed. “Hurly?”

I raise my chin, and expect him to kneel and place his hand over his chest like any other subordinate would do. Hurly just stands there, looking amused. But the humans behind him aren’t amused.

“I would like to tell you two things, future Astrixys. Don’t forget them, especially since your coronation is tomorrow. On your sixteenth birthday, right? Happy birthday by the way.”

I scowl at him, and Hurly drops the act. He also drops his voice.

“The first thing is- I know what you are,” I swallow. Iryn and Lucan tense up beside me. “And if you don’t meet me, Fife, at the Lower World elevator entrance at midnight tonight, I will ensure that this little piece of information is broadcasted on every form of media the Upper and Lower Worlds have to offer. I swear to not hurt you. If you don’t trust me, bring a bodyguard.”

Iryn snorts, “Since when do humans have access to media?”

“Ah. This leads me to my second piece of information. Be sure to let it be known.” Hurly grins and I can sense something lurking beneath the friendliness. Rage. “The Reliance is back.”

A gunshot cracks from inside the Dispatcher. Somewhere in the human crowd, a body hits the concrete floor. We all turn. Arena stands with a pistol in front of her. The crate of our discarded weapons is at her feet. Iryn winks at her and she swoons.

Hurly’s face darkens, but I’ve already kicked the handgun from his grip. I snatch it up off the floor before he can grab it. It’s cocked and ready, and my feet move into position like the thousands of times I’ve practiced. The crowd of humans seethe at my feet. One lurches up the ramp and I put a bullet in her chest. The gun jolts in my grip. The woman howls and staggers a few steps forward before falling to the side.

“We only strike only if struck at,” I murmur.

Iryn’s hand shoots out beside me, and latches onto Marly’s neck. The man is motionless, controlled by Lucan’s power. Iryn’s about to squeeze when Lucan interrupts.

“Let’s withdraw.”

Iryn’s incredulous. “They’re a few humans with crude weapons. The three of us could clear this up in minutes. Might even give the students here some experience while we’re at it.”

Lucan’s voice is low and deadly, “I said let’s withdraw.”

I prise Iryn’s hand off Marly’s neck and thrust the man down the ramp. I yell into the mob, “Take your comrade. We don’t need him. We don’t want bloodshed.”

“It’s too late for that!” Hurly’s voice. But I can’t see him. He must be in the mob, somewhere, watching- “The Reliance is alive again!”

The humans thrust their weapons into the air. They’re pointed to the concrete sky. ”We’re alive!” They chant. Over and over.

“Get the door shut!” Lucan shouts. Grumps scrambles to his feet from where he had sagged against the wall. He shoves a button on the Dispatcher’s dashboard. The ramp begins to rise. A couple of humans leap onto it and hurl themselves forward. I pick one off with a bullet. The other one swings a shard of metal at Lucan’s neck, but he dodges it easily. No power needed.

He reappears behind the man. Lays a hand on his shoulder, “We only strike if struck at.”

Lucan’s eye goes yellow. Blood spurts from the man’s mouth and nose and his eyes roll back in his head. He doesn’t have time to scream. All that comes from his mouth is a soft gurgle.

Saeptose can make people do things. One of those things is to die.

I take a deep breath and look away. Somewhere in the cabin, Grumps is cheering. Something about beating the humans. But when I meet Lucan’s eyes, I know he’s thinking the same.

This doesn’t feel like a victory.

Add a Comment

Submissions Wanted, nobody in the queue for next week. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Jon sends the first chapter of The Ghost of Victory. This is a revision of the work he submitted in December, which is here. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

He had it – pop!

There, in the mirror, in his face. Was it fate? Belief? He felt that tingle in the bottom of his gut, that twinge of momentous choice now made, of decision wrought. He believed in destiny being forged upon battlefields, like those tropaion of old, of generals and military men – their glory forged into statue, their valor frozen, encapsulated, memorialized for all history to behold.

Young Emmanuel Juarez looked at himself, peered into the soft lines of his face, passed those long eyelashes hovering over his blue upon blue eyes: ‘Am I ready? Ready now to become a warrior?’

As tales of strife and fortitude continued playing across his mind’s eye, as he began humming a majestic, heroic soundtrack to himself, Miguel appeared, his seven-year-old brother, standing in the doorway to the bathroom, “You going away?”

“Not for a while yet,” Emmanuel assured.

“Manny,” Miguel thought a moment before asking, “you going to go fight the terrer-wists?”

Gladdened, Emmanuel shrugged open palms and turned back to the mirror. He popped that zit in the middle of his chin. “Don’t tell Mom about my idea to join the army though. Or Carl. It’s a secret, got it?” He held out his hand and Miguel high-fived it, “Alright, bro. Pinky (snip)

Were you compelled to turn the page?

Jon has dropped his old “telling” prologue to go to an immediate scene, which I think is a good thing. But is this scene compelling? What happens here? A young man, we assume, pops a pimple and then talks with his little brother about going away, but that’s not going to happen for a while. Emmanuel has no problem to solve, no desire that is being frustrated. It’s just another day in front of the bathroom mirror. The chapter is pretty much set-up and backstory. I want to be where the story starts on the first page, not engaged in foreplay. Find that point, Jon, and try starting there. For me, this page was not compelling. Notes:

He had it – pop!

There, in the mirror, in his face. Was it fate? Belief? He felt that tingle in the bottom of his gut, that twinge of momentous choice now made, of decision wrought. He believed in destiny being forged upon battlefields, like those tropaion of old, of generals and military men – their glory forged into statue, their valor frozen, encapsulated, memorialized for all history to behold. This is supposed to be a high-school student, a senior. I’ve seen the rest of the chapter and how he speaks. For me, the use of “tropaion” and words such as “encapsulated” do not reflect the voice of a teenage male. I know a lot of words, and I had to look tropaion up—using words in the very opening page that most folks would not understand is dropping a big speed bump into the pace of the narrative, guaranteed to take a reader out of the story right at the moment you want them going deeper. Or is it just me? Did you know that word?

Young Emmanuel Juarez looked at himself, peered into the soft lines of his face, passed those long eyelashes hovering over his blue upon blue eyes: ‘Am I ready? Ready now to become a warrior?’Including the color of his eyes isn’t consistent with what he’s thinking about and a bit of a breach of the close third person POV that is used here.

As tales of strife and fortitude continued playing across his mind’s eye, as he began humming a majestic, heroic soundtrack to himself, Miguel appeared, his seven-year-old brother, standing in the doorway to the bathroom, “You going away?” More uncharacteristic, for me, lingo in “strife and fortitude.”

“Not for a while yet,” Emmanuel assured.

“Manny,” Miguel thought a moment before asking, “you going to go fight the terrer-wists?”

Gladdened, Emmanuel shrugged open palms and turned back to the mirror. He popped that zit in the middle of his chin. “Don’t tell Mom about my idea to join the army though. Or Carl. It’s a secret, got it?” He held out his hand and Miguel high-fived it, “Alright, bro. Pinky (snip) Why is he gladdened by this question? It doesn’t mean anything to me without understanding the motivation for the feeling.

For what it’s worth.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Continued

. . . swear, too?”

“Pinky swear,” Miguel smiled and they wrapped pinkies, a bond between brothers. “Manny?”

“Hmm?”

“Why don’t ch’you call Carl dad like me and Selina?”

Selina piped in from the kitchen, her eight-year-young voice high and clear: “Because our dad’s not Manny’s dad! You ask that all the time!”

“Who’s your dad then?” Miguel asked up to Emmanuel, ever expectant, always wondering if Manny’s answer might somehow change.

Emmanuel paused, looking down, and shrugged, “You know I don’t know.” He patted Miguel’s brown hair, walking out of the bathroom and into their yellow kitchen; Selina coloring at the table; a massive, messy stack of coloring books there. Emmanuel had always been different, special. He was her first, Mom always said. Ten years separated him from Selina, and both step-siblings were black-haired and tan-skinned just like Mom and Carl. Emmanuel though had dirty-blond hair, white skin and pale eyes. True, he had never known nor heard much of anything about his own father.

“When’s Mom getting home?” Miguel shuffled in, following.

“I dunno, she’s at work,” Emmanuel sipped at his McDonald’s coffee.

“You should tell Mom you’re joining the marines,” Selina’s brown eyes flicked up, her blue crayon careful on the page.

“It’s the army, not the marines. And it’s my decision, not hers. I’m eighteen now –” slurp “– and I can do it without permission if I want to.”

“I’m gonna tell her when she gets home.”

“No you won’t,” he warned. “It’s between me and Mom. You’re not involved.”

Selina stuck her tongue out at him. He flicked it with his finger and Selina raspberried him instead. Miguel raspberried him next and Emmanuel smiled, sitting down.

“C’mon, let’s color.” Miguel tried nudging Manny’s chair to face the table.

Emmanuel moved as commanded, asking, “Why’re you still in your jammies?”

Miguel shrugged, sitting; Spiderman there on his pajamas, in the room with them.

Altogether they pulled at the stack of coloring books, examining each for uncrayoned pages and preferred designs. Like a couple of scholars, Miguel and Selina reviewed and critiqued their assortment of waxy artworks and instructed Emmanuel on which he should color based on his relative experience and ability. “Here, this one,” Selina pointed out. It was a Knight’s Tale. Its picture showed a chivalrous medieval warrior galloping on a horse, pointing forth his sword. With all their projects duly assigned, they set to work and chose carefully (and argued constantly about) which colors and shades ought to be applied.

Emmanuel chose steel gray for his knight. Selina chose blazin’ orange for her striped kitten and Miguel took rose for his piggy. Emmanuel went to color within the outline of his knight’s helm, but nothing rubbed out onto his paper. He peered, puzzled, at his crayon and then tried again. He saw impression upon the paper, his crayon’s force upon the book, and he could feel its application – he even noticed his crayon-tip wearing down. But no color, no hue, no hint of shading anywhere on the paper – no matter how feverishly he attempted to color.

“Well,” said Miguel, “you could just pretend it works.”

***

Later, Mom finally returned home and Selina spilled the coffee beans on her, so to speak. Emmanuel, though annoyed, was just grateful Mom didn’t seem too peeved about it – yet. In the living room, he unfolded his bed out of the couch, tucking in its sheets and fluffing a throw pillow, saying to Mom, “I wanna go as soon as I graduate. I don’t want to stick around here.”

“Manny, why’re you in such a hurry?” Mom called from in the kitchen, her voice humming along in glad rhythm: “Stay home a while yet. Finish your last year of highschool. Then go to college. Get ch’your feet on the ground and find ch’yourself a nice girlfriend – before going off and becoming army. The army’s not going anywhere.”

Crossing into the kitchen, Emmanuel watched Mom scramble counter to sink to stove to counter again. “I don’t wanna wait,” he replied.

“But why? Aye-ee, mi bebé. See?” She held open the oven door, curling her black hair behind her ear, “You will miss my e-special enchiladas when you’re off in the army! And look – apple dumplings – your favorite just for you!”

Emmanuel rolled his eyes.

Miguel and Selina sat at the table, throwing crayons at each other.

“Stop that!” Mom said over her shoulder, scrubbing plates in the sink, crayons landing around her sneakers. “Manny, don’t rush things –” she coughed and crossed her squat, busy body – dressed in blue nursing uniform – over to the counter. “Ch’you have your whole life ahead of you. Here, hold this.” For an instant, Emmanuel’s arms received her mixing bowl, before she snatched it back. “I don’t know where you get this idea.”

“College money, mom,” he said. “I can go to college after.”

“Huh? We pay for it, Manny! Between me and your stepfather, we send ch’you to the community college across the river. Then you can live here, and be with ch’your brother and sister, like a good brother.” She fought for breath, heaving cake batter in her mixing bowl.

Emmanuel sighed, “Well –” starting to counterargue, but then, gave it up.

“See? See?” She swung her spatula in his face, threatening to coat him with vanilla cake mush. “Ch’you don’t even know why you want this. Wait.”

Emmanuel secretly fingered an Army recruiting brochure inside his pocket. “Mom, I can be somebody. I can make something of myself. Not just work at the Shurfine.”

Robin’s egg blue and cornflower yellow went hurtling to the floor and he picked them up.

“Stop that!” Mom barked, drying dishes in the sink.

“Stop that,” Miguel piped.

“You stop that!” Selina returned.

“Aye-ee,” Mom sighed, and set her eyes a moment upon her frame of the Holy Mother, pinned upon the wall: “Dios te salve, Maria, blessed virgin, make my children obedient.” Then she continued with the dishes, muttering to herself in Spanish.

Emmanuel bent over Selina and coaxed her into coloring a jack-o-lantern in her book. He rubbed at Miguel’s mop of hair and fended off his little brother’s attempts to bite his fingers like an ornery dinosaur. “Mom, we can’t understand what you’re saying.” Miguel snapped shut on Emmanuel’s finger: “Ow!”

Both kids giggled like midget devils.

Mom shook her head, turned and said, “Emmanuel, mi bebé, my beloved child,” her wet hands on his cheeks, “You are my first and you will achieve great things in life! You will be something. You are so smart. So gifted. But this…this army idea is not for you. Go to college, and then, if you must, join the army. But perhaps…ch’you might be an officer then – be a leader then. Boys who join with just highschool are the ones who die because officers with education put them in the front lines.”

“Mom, I…I don’t think that’s true.” He sat down tableside and flipped through the coloring books.

Mom asked, “Why d’you want to leave your family?”

“Don’t color that one!” Selina squealed.

“I won’t,” Emmanuel said aside to her, and at Mom, “I don’t.”

“No?” Mom speculated, suddenly airy. She came over to him and caressed his buzzcut, “Tk, look what ch’you did to your beautiful hair.”

He ducked his head, “No. And I don’t wanna be like everybody else and just go to college.”

Running her fingers down his temple, she whispered, “You never stop amazing me, my boy.” Her tone awash with doubt, perhaps awe. She struggled to fathom how her first child, her beloved boy with the golden hair, was now grown up, was now wanting of the world. He wanted to hurry. She wanted just a little longer. Her hand laid still on his shoulder a moment. Selina and Miguel were also enchanted by her tone. The whole kitchen silenced except for the bubbling of savory enchilada juices in the oven.

“But!” she flicked her fingertips across his shoulder and bent over the oven, “I guess ch’you would look so handsome in uniform!”

“So hand-some!” Miguel and Selina teased.

Emmanuel smiled.

“But I am not giving my approval,” she said with effort, reaching up above the oven-fan to grab a new pan. Her bust nearly lit afire from the rangetop. “Oooo! Oooo! It’s hot!” Her hands fluttered across her chest, two little brown burn marks on her blue uniform.

Everyone laughed.

Then Miguel tried to slyly nibble on the tip of pumpkin orange.

“Stop that!” Mom scolded, tossing a dish towel at him. “You’ll ruin your appetite.”

Manny pointed at him and Miguel threw the towel at Manny, who then threw it at Selina, who threw it at Miguel and so on.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea right now,” Mom continued. “With iraq and everything going on. Go to college. Wait till the war’s over. Then you can join.”

Emmanuel rolled his eyes again as the dish towel came flying into them.

“Maybe you can – what is it?” Mom placed her hand, grasping a drippy wooden spoon, to her hip, “Those tomb guards. Tomb of unknown sailors – or soldiers. They look good.”

“Mom, I…that’s …that’s not really what I want to do in the military.”

Worry molded her eyebrows and lips. She didn’t dare voice the thought flashing through her mind, for fear that to say it would be to sanction it, to form the thought into realness: ‘He wants to fight…’ she thought, and somehow, had always known that. She dropped her eyes, and mixed, coughing a bit, saying little else while serving dinner.

Carl, Emmanuel’s stepfather, arrived home on the meal’s tail end. “What’s wrong?” he asked Mom.

“O. My cough is up.”

Emmanuel kept his eyes to his plate, sipping up leftover sauces.

Carl unsaddled his laptop case onto the floor and kissed Miguel and Selina and nodded a “What’s up” towards Emmanuel. He sat and chowed down, efficiently scooping the last enchilada in under his black moustache. He talked about work, about making headway on a new contract, about how he had to interpret construction instructions to a group of workers, again, today because they didn’t speak any English. Emmanuel only half-listened, still fingering the brochure hidden in his pocket.

Promptly, dinner was over with everybody full and the coloring books put away with the dishes. Mom and Carl retired to their bedroom with their TV. Miguel and Selina went to bed in their room and Emmanuel showered and settled onto his couch-bed. He slipped out his favorite movie from its DVD case (favorite simply by frequency of viewing) and rubbed its disc to clear off Miguel and Selina’s greasy fingerprints. In went his movie, popping up on a small television screen, alighting this shadowy living space in blue glow. He laid stomach-down on his bed, propped on a pillow, eyes and imagination glued to the screen:

PT boats raced towards the beach. Men vomited and rubbed crosses, praying. Then, the ramps opened… “Over the side!” yelled the Captain, their commander. Into water and up onto blistering sand. Sound shocked and sight awed the viewer. Emmanuel felt like he was there. “Move your men off the beach! – What’s the rallying point, sir? – Anywhere but here! Grab yourself a weapon and follow me.” Emmanuel probably knew the words better than the actors had: “Dog one is not open! We do not hold the beach, say again, we do not hold the beach!” His puppy eyes were saturated. He saw that officer, that combat leader, studied his mannerisms and saw a character he wanted to be: “Jackson, you see that impact crater? – Yes, sir. – That should give you complete defilade on that machine gun position. Get in there and get me some fire on it. Wait for my command!”

“Ah!” Emmanuel yelped.

Carl had snuck up on him. Sitting bedside, “Sorry, man. You watchin’ this again?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged.

“Hey, turn my way for a sec. Your mom, y’know, she don’t like this joinin’ the army business. She’s worried and her health…” he motioned as though pulling his heart out of his chest, “…y’know.”

Emmanuel nodded, still half-listening to the combat behind him.

Carl slapped his knee. “Uhh, look, I know you’re eighteen, and you’re starting to make real decisions for yourself, and that’s good, but keep us in the loop, eh? We care about ya and Mom…she’d die if anything happened to you or if she just thought something might, y’know?”

Emmanuel nodded, solemn, blue flickering across the walls. He switched off the TV and Carl and him continued talking in that dark living room; Carl silhouetted by bathroom light.

“So,” he continued, “think about her. Think about, just, goin’ to college first. Y’know this whole war on terror and…everything.”

Emmanuel said, “But it’s just that I wanna do something, Carl. I want to do something real. Something that matters. And the benefits, y’know…you can put money away for Selina and Miguel’s education instead.”

“You don’t have to worry about that–”

“But–”

“Really. You don’t have to worry about that. We can help all of you with your educations…and you know that I love you just as much as them. I’ve been here since you were–” Carl held out his hand “–this tall. Now I know you’re becoming a man, and you gotta make your own decisions for your life, but your decisions are gonna affect the people here, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Alright,” Carl moved in and hugged Emmanuel. “I love ya buddy. You don’t have to say it back, but I know ya do.” He padded Manny’s shoulder and returned to the bedroom.

Emmanuel heard Mom coughing as Carl opened and then closed the door.

What is peace but the magical leisure of loving?

What is peace but the heaven-borne crown of contentment?

What is war but the clasping of hands with your brother?

What is war but great bravery?

Oh, wonderful land of the States linked together,

Where all have their kingdoms of freedom and might,

To worship the vision of honor and right!

− Coletta Ryan, selected lines of My Country

Spanish-American War

There’s something characteristic about young males across cultures and times, those just blossoming into manhood, who send themselves off to fight. Not all young males are alike but many hear from far off the guns calling their names. They see themselves with a gun too, a weapon. They see themselves romantically charging over ramparts as though no other achievement in their lifetime may match this single, shining act of valor. I believe a little disillusionment with the normal, plaintive life, of pursuing the usual pursuits, helps these young men detach and go. And Emmanuel Juarez went. He’d already been dreaming of proving himself; of adventure and challenge; of battle and glory thereof. For what is peace compared to war?

In dreaming, he did not see himself as some poor sufferer in a trench, nor faceless among multitudes strewn across a beach, holding onto their guts and screeching for their mommies, nor as one who went crazy afterwards. No, he saw himself a Captain, a commander, an achiever, the victor. These concerns flowed through Emmanuel Juarez as though passed to him by the brave example of soldiers who had gone before; as though spoken by the ghosts of veterans. “I remember,” old veterans say, “back in the war…” and, for Juarez, they needn’t say anymore. By them, by their archetype, Juarez formulated what you call: the measure of a man. He figured a boy became a man in combat; that a man had battle-courage or wasn’t a man at all. And at this point in history, he was sure there’d be no other chance for it in his life – he had to go now.

Now, reader, allow this pause and I shall reveal myself. There are many unusual and remarkable but no less stimulating circumstances which you will find bound between the covers of this book, and, this pause, this intended poking through the page, is the least of them. I knew Juarez, I first met him some ten years ago, over there, in the sandbox. He was just a cherry, a new guy. I called him that, I called him a cherry. I was a regular ol’ Army sergeant, brash and full of myself, a tough-talkin’ trainer of troops, dubbed by buddies and subordinates and superiors alike as, Sergeant Mac. But that’s not my name anymore and I don’t tell my story, I tell Juarez’ story. I am insignificant. And, as any self-respecting soldier should, I keep my mouth shut and I don’t talk about my own experiences, because memoirs are for pussies and war memoirs especially, these days anyways, all seem penned by insecure glory-seekers.

My role in this prosaic is to guide you, reader, through Juarez’ story, since he was against telling it himself. But I, at least as someone who was nearby, a likewise infantryman, in the same unit, I at least can relate the military intricacies and communicate the subtleties to you. Throughout this story, information just spills out of me: footnotes, appendices, contexts, indices, firefight diagrams, and none the least some handy advice on the care and maintenance of combat helmets. Consider me a token spirit of these pages, bobbing in and out every so often, but only to dispel ignorance with illumination, or to poke you with a stick – I do so enjoy stick-poking, it’s like a favorite pastime. I take many liberties, I offer no justification.

A lot of people try to communicate what over there was. Through one set of eyes or another. People say there was a clear line between good guys and bad guys, some people are believers in right and wrong – and I believe in them too. But that line, that border demarcating moral domains as though betwixt heavenly and hellish – even as a soldier, you couldn’t always see it. That’s the way it was, there were things you see and things you don’t see. The enemy for instance: now you see him, now you don’t. You never knew what you were looking at, really. Some people see Iraq or Afghanistan and they call it over there. And some people see America and call it home. Who’s to say what anything is?

“It’s the ultimate reality,” so many veterans have said. They’ve said that about combat. “Where boys become men,” they say. “The last full measure,” or “the price of freedom” others have put in. I don’t know anymore. I sort of hate war stories, can’t stand ‘em anymore. But I’ll tell this one to you. I’ll tell this one to you and you won’t believe it, but it’s true, I tell you – it’s true.

Sensing, believing, despite his family’s doubts, Juarez stepped outside, sliding shut the door to their apartment. He wrapped a yellow Kmart flannel around himself, since it was late November and the evening wind bit. He folded his arms, scratched his eyebrow and gazed down from their hillcrest apartment complex, down and out at this small corner called Enola, Pennsylvania.

The sun had just slipped under Appalachian mountain, that one bend of the sky glowing purple and orange. Vehicles hissed softly, methodically, on a road below; headlights streaming. A deeper hiss layered under them, of interstate eighty-one less than a mile away, echoing against that mountainside.

A Honda slowed to go over a speed bump and Juarez heard its radio:

“−violently as the United States military continues to battle the insurgency. Five soldiers were killed today when a suicide bomber attacked their patrol. That brings the death toll in Iraq to two-thousand and fifteen. Also vehicles laden with explosives struck two major hotels in Baghdad frequented by Westerners. When questioned about the−"

The Honda drove on.

Further below, and already shrouded in shadow, the railroad yard which a hundred years ago had made Enola suspended familiar squeals of steel on steel into the air. The sound carried on throughout this little corner of Pennsylvania, here, where the great middle of America is in no place better emblemized. Here, this suburb, among many others, of Harrisburg. Here, where houses are built, and continue building, on and on, decade by decade; American dreams of windows and porches and pre-fab design popping up out of the ground; so fertile this wide Cumberland Valley. Here, where there are often two towns to every town: one, with its post office still on Main Street, and the other, with its cul-de-sac developments rolling out and over repossessed farmland. Here, where the Susquehanna flows and the traffic flows, truckloads and railroads and cars. Where cricks line the bottoms of hills, alongside the latest grocery store or refurbished community park. Here where families come to grow, live and be at peace.

Yet, despite that darkened skyline, Juarez saw simply cracks – this parking lot, here on the railyard-side of town, was filled with potholes and deficits. Things weren’t fresh here, not like on the other side of Enola, where the new houses and clean lawns grew. Here, he saw, the parking-space lines were all faded; a handicap man decapitated. Rust on signs and posts and things. Nearing a picnic table, he sat atop it. Underneath, a single dandelion – one flower, stem and two ratty leaves – eked an existence out a sidewalk crack.

He shivered and took a deep breath, watching road signals change – green, yellow, red. He saw people, driving by, heading to their houses or apartments, living their obscure, uneventful lives. He listened as the rails screeched louder: tone upon tone of squeal as those metal wheels slowed to a stop upon those steel rails. Juarez saw only the rust and cracks, only the old and the ordinary.

***

One fateful day a few weeks later, Juarez returned home to the apartment. Everyone else was out. School was out too for Christmas break, and Juarez was scheduled to work that day at the Shurfine. However, that morning, he had called in sick – and gone to meet with his Army recruiter instead.

He dropped a black backpack, logoed “Army of One,” onto the floor and headed for the kitchen cabinet to grab some cereal, but first, he remembered, there was this one pimple in the middle of his forehead he needed to pop. He entered the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror – yet, mid-pop, he stopped.

He glimpsed something there. Vague and unspoken, some moment of a lifetime beckoned – some experience out amidst the blur of bullets and bombs over there – some revelation within those adrenalin-elongated seconds. Yearning for it, Juarez had signed the papers and accordingly joined the infantry^{^[1]}. The flush of decision, of destining choice, blushed over him for the first time in his life and he liked the feeling of it.

Now he just had to break this new development to his family – to Mom particularly.

“It was inevitable,” he said to the mirror. “She should’ve seen it coming…Everybody’s always going somewhere else – somewhere other than enola. The trains, cars – the world is going by enola.” He finished popping his pimple. “It was inevitable,” he repeated – like a train following its track: all he could do was follow the line appointed to him; like a moving box. “It was inevitable,” he shrugged. “It was inevitable,” he pleaded. “It was inevitable!” he commanded. His long eyelashes blinked. His cheeks curved softly but he practiced tightening them, making a face of unimpeachable uprightness for Mom. It was pretty convincing, he reckoned.

Now, people join the Army for all types of reasons. Some wish to prove something. Others join out of family tradition or because they grew up an Army brat. Yet others desire a little hometown notoriety (they usually join the National Guard and become merely weekend warriors) and yet more others seek adventure or travel. Some pursue economic or job stability, or benefits. And some are just never going to be anything else but a soldier. Patriotic murmurs might stir within a young recruit’s mind but rarely, if ever, do these form the sole reason behind an initial enlistment.

Juarez continued into the kitchen, slurping his cereal, glancing at his brochure. He read, “Forty-two,” and then situated himself on the kitchen floor, placing both hands shoulder-width apart. He straightened his legs and back and proceeded to do some push-ups. He counted to fifteen until his arms began quaking. At eighteen, he collapsed. He returned to his brochure, “Forty-two?”

Finishing his cereal, he listened to an empty apartment – to the muted hissing of highway. A pinprick of loneliness stuck into him: they’d be coming home soon, or rather, home would start once they were back. Then he’d have to tell them. ‘Mom’s going to be a little angry,’ he reasoned, but what could he do? He had to go, he had to go…it was inevitable.

The front door swung open and shuddered against the wall. Noise and breath and stomping feet cluttered their already cluttered apartment space. Ah, home was home. Crunching paper bags piled onto the counter as hats and gloves were tossed onto the table and floor. Selina dropped her bag.

“Aye-ee! Selina,” Mom said, “the eggs!”

Carl dug through one bag, searching for their receipt and pulled it out like a band of ribbon as long as he was tall – requiring a minute or two before locating the section where it actually listed prices.

Miguel sat down to color.

“Hey, take your jacket off at least,” Mom tugged at him. To Juarez, she asked, “D’you go see the recruiter again? Did he give you that book bag?”

“Mm-hmm,” he replied, chewing his lip.

Selina victoriously showed Mom how none of the eggs were broken.

“Very nice, now put away.”

Selina danced in circles towards the fridge, purple mittens dangling from her jacket cuffs.

Mom asked, unpacking bags, “So what else did they say? D’you tell them you were waiting?”

Carl gave up on the receipt and grasped four boxes of Rice-a-Roni with one hand; between his thumb and pinky finger. He aimed to place them up with the dozen other multicolored Rice-a-Ronis they already had.

Juarez jumped up, put his hands to his hips and announced, “I joined. I signed the papers.” Rice-a-Roni boxes tumbled to the floor. “I joined up. As an active duty soldier with the army. I’ll –” he cleared his throat; an adolescent squeak betraying him. “I’ll go in right after I graduate.”

Carl sighed and shook his head, picking up the boxes.

Mom’s mouth hung open. Miguel and Selina stayed their reactions until Mom’s ran their course. “What do you mean?” she demanded, her full face contorting with each word, “What did you do?”

“I signed the papers. I’m committed. I’m in. I’ve gone to the mepps station and met the requirements. I’ve taken the asvab test. The recruiter’s got me all signed up. I’m in.”

“What do you mean?” Mom asked, the lower rim of her hazel eyes lifting, “You’ll go? Go away? For real? Into the army?”

“Yes, mom.”

“I told you to wait!”

Carl lifted his hand to assuage her.

Juarez gave a guff.

“Don’t give me that!” she pointed. “I told ch’you to wait.” She tossed their Christmas ham and a jar of mayonnaise into the fridge, slamming its door. “But I told ch’you! It’s too soon!”

Carl watched her, folding bags. He watched Juarez too, “What sort of job did you pick?”

He hesitated, but divulged: “Infantry.”

Mom threw more groceries into a cabinet. “Out! Out!” she shooed at Miguel and Selina – stacking their coloring books into disorder.

Juarez tried to make it easier: “Things’ll…things’ll probably be pretty cooled down by next summer. I might…I might not even go – over there…to iraq.”

“Hmm,” Mom suddenly smiled, a finger to her lips, one hand on her hip, “And, how many years did you sign up for, my boy?”

Juarez had done it. He knew the signs; Carl saw them too and began calculating evasive maneuvers.

“F-four,” replied Juarez.

“Hmm. Well, you’re eighteen. You can do what you want. You can go off and fight if you want. You can do whatever.” She cupped his face in her hands. “You can go and leave us and leave your brother and sister and go, just go. There’s nothing for you here, is there?”

“Mom…” he pleaded.

“IS THERE!” she yanked down on his ears.

Carl dove to the rescue and inched her back. “Don’t you understand?” she exclaimed, “You could get killed! For real, my baby, you could. For real…”

Carl coaxed her into the bedroom. Juarez sat down on a chair, listening to her loud sobs and coughs behind their closed door. Carl spoke assuring, muffled admonitions. He soon came out and remonstrated Juarez, packing the rest of the groceries away. “Emmanuel, you should have let us go with you.” Then his voice became very hushed, “Why did you do it like this? Why didn’t you let us in?”

Juarez picked at his fingernails, thinking, ‘They just don’t understand.’

As though confirming his thought, Carl stood over him shaking his head in confusion and frustration. “Well, you’re in now, I guess. There’s no goin’ back.”

‘No,’ motioned Juarez.

Carl approached and opened his hand towards Juarez’ head. Juarez drew back, unsure of this unusual intimacy from Carl. But Carl only laid his hand upon Juarez’ crown. “I just hope you know what you’re doing,” he whispered. “Please, let us in. Let us know what’s goin’ on.” Then he squeezed his stepson’s shoulder and lumbered into the bedroom.

Juarez blew out a sigh. ‘That was weird of him,’ he thought of Carl. But he inhaled and thought instead, ‘Well – that’s done,’ chin in his hands. Some regret bubbled up within him yet he cooled down its simmer and ate rather the hearty cake of excitement and enthusiasm: Where would he go? What would he end up doing? What sort of challenges awaited him out there in the world? Over there?

Add a Comment

Submissions Needed, nobody in the queue for next week.While I’ll probably take Friday off, I would do a flogging on Wednesday if I get one. I’ll do the Flog a BookBubber on Monday—got one that I bought. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Most importantly, what happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

LeighLa sends a short short story titled Miracle Red. The rest of the story follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

Five o’clock the hour, to the minute, in fact, Ava cracked an eyelid. Reddish hair fell across her cheek in church spires: straight, unwavering. She rolled over in bed and blinked fair lashes until her eyes remained open, reluctant, heavy-lidded but eager for a glimpse of sun: the red day to come.

In the darkness of her room, she fussed in a basket of unfolded clothes Mama had left from the previous day’s laundering. She found her favorite dungaree overalls, the ones with faded knees but certain shoulder straps; not an inch of movement even under duress. Restrained arms were useless arms: Ava knew. She turned to her closet and grabbed Daddy Bo’s red plaid shirt, shrunk long ago in the wash, and shoved her arms into the sleeves. Her father’s aftershave engraved like a hot iron into the collar brushed her cheeks, tickled her nose. Today is the day, Daddy; she muttered into the buttoned folds and pulled on her dungarees, securing metal clasps onto waiting buttons.

Ava glanced at an empty bed stripped bare. She pictured Stella, now nineteen, sitting in university classes with fellow students. English, Math, Science. Her sister would learn everything about the world and still know nothing. School was for ninnies. An assured half smirk, half smile pressed her red lips thin as she slipped on a clean pair of black, low-heeled, calf-length boots – well, as clean as you can manage on a working farm.

Were you compelled to turn the page?

There’s good, clean writing here but, for this reader, not much in the way of tension. It seems to me that a short short story needs to be as effective in hooking a reader as a novel, but there are no real story questions raised for me—basically, a young woman wakes up and gets dressed. Not much reason to wonder what will come next.

It turns out that she’s sneaking out of her room—that would have helped raise a story question if it had been on the first page. As I said, good writing, but some clarity issues here. Notes:

At five o’clock the hour, to the minute, in fact, Ava cracked an eyelid. Reddish hair fell across her cheek in church spires: straight, unwavering. She rolled over in bed and blinked fair lashes until her eyes remained open, reluctant, heavy-lidded but eager for a glimpse of sun: the red day to come. Perhaps this doesn’t apply to short short fiction, but we’re in her point of view and she would not think of the color of her hair or lashes. Also, “church spires” evokes an image of upright vertical structures, so I don’t see that as portraying hair that lies across her cheek.

In the darkness of her room, she fussed in a basket of unfolded clothes Mama had left from the previous day’s laundering. She found her favorite dungaree overalls, the ones with faded knees but certain shoulder straps; not an inch of movement even under duress. Restrained arms were useless arms: Ava knew. She turned to her closet and grabbed Daddy Bo’s red plaid shirt, shrunk long ago in the wash, and shoved her arms into the sleeves. Her father’s aftershave engraved like a hot iron into the collar brushed her cheeks, tickled her nose. Today is the day, Daddy; she muttered into the buttoned folds and pulled on her dungarees, securing metal clasps onto waiting buttons. For me there were clarity issues in the description of the dungarees. I had to reread it several times to figure out what was meant by “certain” shoulder straps and “not an inch of movement even under duress. Restrained arms were useless arms.” I guess it means that the shoulder straps won’t fall off her shoulders and then possibly restrict the movement of her arms. It just wasn’t easy to understand for me. I also wondered how her father’s aftershave could linger on a shirt shrunk long ago in the wash—wouldn’t the aftershave have been washed away?

Ava glanced at an empty bed stripped bare. She pictured Stella, now nineteen, sitting in university classes with fellow students. English, Math, Science. Her sister would learn everything about the world and still know nothing. School was for ninnies. An assured half smirk, half smile pressed her red lips thin as she slipped on a clean pair of black, low-heeled, calf-length boots – well, as clean as you can manage on a working farm. Doesn’t seem like an appropriate time for backstory about her sister—and it doesn’t affect the story later. On the pov side, she wouldn’t think of the color of her lips, nor can she see that her smirk is “assured.”

For what it’s worth.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Continued

Ava crept to her window and sliced open the curtains. A faint yellowish hue, mixed with violet and black along the distant horizon, outlined the fine edge of a hulking mass. A tickle of excitement raced her heart, fast as a bird’s. She grabbed a silver flashlight from the sill, tucked it in her pocket and slid open the window. Cool morning air swallowed her nose in an autumn tickle suggestive of orange pumpkins, pungent manure and well-oiled tractors. Stalks of multi-hued corn waved with the breeze in a hula skirt dance.

With a practiced heave she swung her leg over the sill, balanced for a moment, a pendulum on a low swing, stretched her booted toe and searched for the lattice. A familiar thunk indicated she’d found the right spot. She shifted her weight and exited the window: a worm through a terrestrial hatch. Hand under hand, boot by lowered boot, Ava descended, one story, two, until she reached the ground.

She checked her watch. Five-fifteen: right on time.

Clouds of breath billowed against a black sky winking with faint stars. A hushed sun waited for the right earthly breath to birth it from a purple-blue horizon womb. Tilled earth and a well-worn path threading between stalks of elephant corn hinted at her mission. A click of the flashlight and compass footfalls, six inches from toe to heel, headed due north: magnetic, unerring.

Ava brushed aside the last stalks of corn and removed silken webs from her face and hair. She imagined confronting a Jupiter-sized spider, bulbous belly swinging, pincers clicking, depthless balloon eyes glowing with fading stars. A flash of the sword from her hip-mounted scabbard and she’d dispatch her adversary in well-aimed thrusts, thwick-a-thwack-thwack! and step over the spent body, legs still twitching: nothing could thwart her mission. Not today.

A square-shouldered, two-story barn loomed at the top of a hillside. The flip of a wooden latch, three booted steps, the smell of excrement and twitch of alert eyes, shifty wings, birthed Ava into a familiar tunnel. In the dim light she imagined hearts beating under proud chests, thumwa-thumwa-thumwa, diddi-diddi… She passed by rows of wooden bins stacked one atop another, all of them filled with yellow straw. “Hello ladies,” Ava cooed. Glistening russet, white, and gold heads tilted in unison; beady yellow eyes stared through: through the red hair and steady dungaree straps, the silver flashlight tamed in a sweaty palm and perspiration pooling under her arms.

She headed to the other side of the barn where a light burned in a hay-strewn stall, steady with anticipation: come see what I have in store today, the light beckoned. Ava’s breathing quickened. Seven long weeks of waiting; five daily visits, two hundred forty-five trips to the barn, sneaking away from under Mama’s watchful eye to roll them, assuring membranes wouldn’t cling; weekly light bulb changes; duties about the enclosure, filling water, adding feed to dispensers, picking just the right hand-sized ovals for the next round of yellow down and black-eyed promises.

Six months. One hundred eighty days of devotion and hopes dashed. But today was the day: it had to be.

If only Daddy Bo could see her now, tending the farm, diligent, hopeful, every day performing the tasks of his calloused hands. She recalled his scruffy beard against her cheek, his hearth-warm hugs and bill-paying arms; the regular maintenance of farm equipment: oiling tractors, replacing tires, servicing engines, unjamming the baler; the daily feeding of livestock; trips to town for feed and supplies; and his noonday mile walk to the mailbox, waiting for word from Jimmy. “War aint for sissies, Ava,” Daddy would say, fingering his breast pocket, the same pocket, Ava knew, where Jimmy’s army photo clung to soft cotton and cherry-flavored tobacco.

Miracle Red. They were waiting on Miracle Red now.

Sculbash Acre Farm had been passed down from Grandpa Whitten. Daddy Bo was the proudest man in the county of Sculbash, South Dakota the day Grandpa had signed over the farm. Tears streaked his round cheeks; the first time Ava had seen her father cry. “Wait for the red rooster,” Grandpa had instructed. “Red roosters are good luck.”

The day army men had come started like any other day on the farm. Mama’s baking apple pie clung in nooks and crannies to their white, two-and-a-half story, century-old farmhouse, its rooftop rooster weathervane predicting the weather with steady, creaking twirls beside a one-man cupola that afforded a bird’s eye view of the surrounding land.

The white city car puked two men onto the driveway in front of the house, their shiny black shoes attracting dust with each step. Up the porch stairs they’d marched while Ava and Mama peered out the dining room window.

Rat-tat-tat! Three solid raps on the old farmhouse door.

Mama wiped flour-coated hands on her apron and straightened to full height.

Ava followed her to the front door. She’d forever remember the creaking floorboard; the loose one Mama usually stepped around without thinking. On this day the wood sound echoed through the house like a shotgun blast. Or maybe that’s just how Ava remembered it now, three hundred and sixty-four days later as she’d stood a mere foot behind her mother on that mid-autumn day.

The men, dressed in blue uniforms, a yellow stripe down each leg, medals across their chests, hats in hands, stood like the giant redwood trees Ava had seen in Daddy’s picture book: tall, silhouetted against a clear California sky. One man clutched a cross to his stomach with white-knuckled hands. The younger, dark-haired man with eyes as black as a ravens cleared his throat. “Mrs. Whitten?” he asked.

In the silent century that followed, Ava heard Mama swallow hard. “Yes, I’m Natalie Whitten,” she responded.

“The Secretary of the Army regrets to inform you that your son, Patrick Orville Whitten, was killed in action yesterday…”

Mama sucked in a breath, clutched her chest and swayed in place as the man’s words droned and then drowned when a wail, long and low like a screech owl in the midnight hour, pierced the far corners of Sculbash Acre Farm.

Three months, two days and eleven hours after Jimmy died in the war, Daddy Bo killed himself, one shot between the eyes on Jimmy’s birthday. She recalled the red-stained wall, her mother’s shrieks, chickens squawking, pigs grunting, cows oddly silent on their muddy four-acre field. Jimmy had been twenty-two when he left for Iraq. Two years ago. The army laid him to rest, forever twenty-two, and Ava remembered Daddy Bo, heartbroken, his long days in bed, sullen, inconsolable. The decline of the farm followed.

Ava’s hopes hinged on Miracle Red.

This is for you, Daddy. Ava glanced up at the rafters and inhaled a long, steely breath. She pushed open the stall door; the creak echoed to the barn’s high ceiling. Ava punched her legs into the straw, feeling her knees protest on the wooden floor beside a homemade incubator. She opened the makeshift cover and peered inside. A clutch of twenty-two eggs twitched in the heated space, oval, white, perfect. Perfect except for cracks across each surface where yellow beaks poked through, opening and closing: the peep-sip, peep-sip, peep-sip of sneakers across wet floor.

Ava sucked in a breath, her heart racing. Please, please, she begged. Please let this be the one.

She waited and watched with sky-blue eyes wide, hopeful. Yellow, all yellow… and then the spark of red… red baby-chick down. Could it be?

At long last Miracle Red had arrived on Sculbash Acre Farm.

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Submissions Needed, nobody in the queue for next week.While I’ll probably take Friday off, I would do a flogging on Wednesday if I get one. I’ll do the Flog a BookBubber on Monday—got one that I bought. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Alice sends the prologue and first chapter for When the Tree Is Dry. The rest of the prologue and chapter followa the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

Prologue:

The photograph, a little out of focus and badly centred, had that elusive something that professionals strive for and seldom achieve. A moment of awareness, where a story without words is written on a face. or in this case, three faces.

"Mind if I look?" Ryan stretched out his hand, hesitated, and glanced at Keera.

She looked up from the folder lying open on the desk. Her taut face relaxed a fraction as she met Ryan's eyes. "Sure." Her eyebrows drew together. “Why did you follow me here?”

He shrugged. “Anything’s better than listening to the office bore competing with tinny Christmas carols.”

He could have added more. You’re gorgeous. And intriguing – why did you storm out of the party like that? Instead, he picked up the photograph and studied it. On the left, two African girls exchanged glances. Each pair of eyes held the same message: You know the things I know. The things I wish I didn't know.

Ryan studied them for a moment, then concentrated on the fair woman on the right. Her head was turned towards the other two, her hands were clenched into fists. As he tried to read her expression, a line from an almost-forgotten history book floated into his mind.

Yet must I go and must I do this thing.

Were you compelled to turn the prologue's first page?

Chapter 1

“You have to come home. In fact, I’m ordering you to come home.” I'd intended to be calm and controlled, but my voice came out as a screech, ugly even to my own ears.

"I'll stay where I like, and there's nothing you can do. I'm fifteen, and I can choose to live with my father. The law says so." Keera's voice would have done justice to a sergeant major on parade. I held the phone six inches away to avoid permanent injury to my eardrums.

I took three deep breaths and tried again. "Ok, calm down, let's discuss this reasonably—"

The line went dead. She'd hung up on me.

I stood for several minutes, staring at the phone. Started to dial her number, then changed my mind. Brain in neutral, I walked up the stairs, across the landing, and into her room. Her soft perfume filled the air, her jacket draped carelessly across a chair. Tubes of oil paint and acrylics littered the desk, and a ball of crumpled paper lay on the floor. But no Keera. No loud music, no chat room open on the laptop. No "Not now, Mum, please! Can't you see I'm in the middle of something?"

Gone.

I wandered about, opening doors, pacing around empty rooms. My son Josh's, unnaturally tidy now he was away at university. Our bedroom. Craig's books on the shelf (snip)

Were you compelled to turn the chapter's first page?

I like the writing in these pieces quite a lot, and a the voice is strong and confident. Yet they didn't create the tension in this reader needed to get past an "Almost, but no" vote. Basically, it's the lack of story questions. The prologue and the first chapter are introductory exposition for the various characters. Yet I ended up with no idea of what the story was about. I urge Alice to look at a later place in the story to start. I'm assuming it will be where all three women are together in Africa. Does all this backstory/setup really matter when you get into the action of the story? Do a "save as" for the current manuscript file and see if you can find a point where the actual story launches and take it from there, filling in necessary background when and if it is needed. Nice writing.

For what it’s worth.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Continued

Prologue

Who'd said that? Was it Joan of Arc?

Ryan looked again at the picture, and then at Keera.

"A relation?" he asked.

"My mother. But I didn't think we were alike."

True enough: the woman in the photograph, ultra slim, with straight fair hair and long legs, bore little physical resemblance to Keera. Keera was all curves, with dark curling hair and expressive brown eyes. So why did he think they were related? Perhaps the determined thrust of the chin? Or maybe the air of vitality, of living life to the full?

"Your mother has something to do with Africa?" asked Ryan.

Keera nodded. She murmured under her breath, so low Ran wasn’t sure he’d heard the words correctly. “My fault.”

"That's why you let that bunch of boring gits upset you back at the party?"

Her eyes sparkled with anger. "They know zilch about anything. That idiot Paul, going on about it all being the fault of capitalism, and slagging off the aid organisations. And as for that other little jerk—can't remember his name, the new bloke with the spiky hair."

"Julian?"

"Yeah, Julian. Saying they're primitive people, and they enjoy bumping each other off."

Ryan suppressed a chuckle. "He didn't mean it. He was just trying to wind up Paul." He gave Keera a sidelong look. "Except the one who got wound up was you."

She shrugged, and turned back to the folder. Ryan perched on the desk, leaning against the glass partition. He picked up the photograph again. The three women had signed their names above their pictures. Sekai, in a neat, schoolgirl's hand above the pixie-faced young woman whose head barely reached the shoulder of the girl beside her. Florence, written with a flourish that matched the tall girl’s striking good looks. Claire, in bold, assertive writing above the leggy blonde.

"Claire’s your mother, right? So who are Florence and, er, Sekkay?" he asked.

"Se-kye," she corrected. "To rhyme with 'eye'." She shuffled the papers together, replaced the photograph and closed the folder. “Florence and Sekai? Long story. It’s all in here."

“Yeah? So what’s in there?”

“Just–-a collection I put together. My mother always kept a journal, and Florence and Sekai each wrote an account of ... what happened to them. And my mum interviewed people, and wrote down their stories. I added some bits to fill in the gaps.”

“So what did happen to them?”

“You should read it." She pushed the folder towards him. "Read what happened in 2008. Then perhaps you'll understand."

Chapter

. . . above the bed. I opened a cupboard and stared at a neat pile of shirts, ran my hand over the soft silk tie Keera gave him for Christmas. I'd pack all this up and send it. Or burn it, or throw it away. Tomorrow.

Back downstairs: I needed a drink. I was onto the third vodka when numbness gave way to rage. Rage against Craig for leaving me. Rage against Keera for choosing to follow him without even so much as telling me beforehand. But mostly rage against Leigh. The sweet-as-pie, I'm-so-nice little bitch who stole my husband. Little Miss Poor Me, look at me, a widow at thirty-two, and Little Miss I'm-so-brave, bringing up three children on my own. People fell for it. People like Craig.

The days passed somehow. Going to work, coming back to a dark, empty house every night. Trying to sleep, then starting the whole process over again the next morning. I felt like a sun that had passed the white dwarf stage, a silent object floating endlessly through space.

For twenty years, ever since I’d found out I was pregnant with Josh, my life had consisted of being a wife and mother—no time for anything else. I’d dropped out of journalism school, exchanging it for a hasty wedding, a pile of nappies and an even bigger pile of bills. All for nothing. Craig, Josh and Keera. Without them, I was a non-person. Family and a boring job - that was my life. Now there was only the job, and I hated it. At eighteen I'd dreamed of being a war correspondent, going to out-of-the way places and being heroic. Now it was too late.

I prowled about the empty house. Stopped, stared at the wall Was it too late?

London, England, January 2008: Florence’s account

In Britain, the jails aren't bad. I had a cell to myself, with en suite facilities—well, a basic loo and washbasin behind a token piece of wall, but hey, they worked. It had a blanket, what passed for a mattress, and even air conditioning. I could have taught Her Majesty’s cleaners a thing or two, but at least they tried—the smell of disinfectant proved it. British jails were a whole lot better than the digs I shared in Brixton.

It had all started with a bad Monday. My alarm didn’t go off, I missed the Tube by about thirty seconds, had to wait ten minutes for another, and almost skidded on black ice as I tried to make up time by running the last stretch. So I didn’t pay attention to the two scruffy characters bumming around outside the front door of the office building.

I climbed the narrow, dim-lit stairs like I was training for the Olympics, and was halfway across the landing before I saw the cops. Too late—they’d already seen me. No point trying to do a runner – the two lurkers outside were probably plainclothes cops, waiting for someone to try it. I joined my half-dozen co-workers who stood about in the foyer, looking as gloomy as the weather outside.

The door to the main office opened, and I peeped inside as old Blaine, my boss, came out escorted by two policemen. Inside, more cops ransacked filing cabinets, while another tapped at the computer.

My granny always said every dark cloud had a silver lining. Must be something the nuns taught her at the mission school. This cloud certainly had one, because Blaine’s fat cheeks quivered beneath his staring eyes. He’d gone green. I didn’t know people could do that. I grinned. If anyone deserved trouble, he did. He ran a cleaning service, and he had the best rates in town. Not difficult, since he only employed illegals like me, and didn't have to pay us much. Or be nice to us.

I wasn’t too bothered by the pay. Zimbos know how to live cheap, and the second-hand shops in London were fantastic. I'd never had so many clothes in my life.

For the time being, the cops ignored the staff, other than making sure nobody left. We huddled in the darkest corner, next to a sick-looking bunch of plastic flowers, talking occasionally in low voices. Two Nigerians, a Jamaican, a young boy from Morocco, a girl called Alija from a country I’ve never heard of, and myself. We weren’t the only employees; others had gone directly to clients’ offices. The six of us were supposed to be taken in Blaine’s van to a job somewhere out of town, but that wasn’t going to happen.

The Jamaican spared a moment from gnawing a fingernail. “Are dey going to deport us?”

“Yeah,” said the Nigerian girl, her small, round face showing no expression. “Tey always do.”

Always? She made it sound as if being deported was something that happened to her every other day.

Alija raised a shaking hand to her pale face. “We can apply for asylum? Please, it must be possible. Yes?”

She had a point; she’d told me terrible stories about the place she came from. I was also scared, but I told myself I was being paranoid. Nothing bad would happen. Everything would be OK.

Another thing occurred to me. I should warn the rest of the staff. Tell them not to come back here. Ever. I moved around so my back was to the cops, pulled out the mobile phone they’d forgotten to confiscate, and sent a text message.

After a bit, they called us one by one into Blaine’s office. When it was my turn, I pulled up a chair, slouched and tried to look bored.

“Can I have your full name, please?” My interviewer was built like a bamboo stick, a bit pimply, and his uniform barely reached his wrists. But he was polite, I’d give him that.

“Florence Izwirashe Chidziro. D’you know how to spell that or shall I write it for you?” I wished I had some chewing gum; it would have helped me look even less interested.

“Er. If you could spell it out for me, please.”

He got it eventually, but it would have been quicker if he’d let me write it. I said so.

“Age?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Right, I need details of your work permit.”

No point in pretending. He’d find out the truth soon enough.

“I don’t have one.”

“Surprise surprise.” He scribbled something on a form. “Alright, let’s have your full details.”

He fired questions at me, lots of them. Address, date and place of birth, sex. Sex? Couldn’t he tell? I straightened my shoulders and leant forward in case he hadn’t noticed I wore a size double-D.

He ticked a box and continued. “Nationality?”

“Zimbabwean.”

“Self-defined ethnicity?”

“What the hell is self-defined ethnicity?” I asked.

“It’s how you define yourself. Your colour, your nationality, like.”

“Can I make it up? Can I be a Yellow-Spotted Yukkatan?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Oh, OK. Let’s be boring. Black Zimbabwean. How’s that?”

To cut a long story short, that’s how I ended up detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure, as they call it. With a view to being booted out of Britain very soon.

The problem with having a cell to yourself is, it gets boring. I mean, pulling funny faces at the CCTV camera is fun for a while, but it’s not something you want to do all day. So I had plenty of time to think. Should I apply for asylum, like Alija? Or should I go home?

I missed home a lot. Harare, colourful and noisy. My grandmother's village, set against misty blue hills. My friends, my family. Trouble is, every time I thought of home, a cold little lizard moved around in my belly and sneaked its way up my spine. Fear. And if I let it get as far as my brain, it would tell me, Stay here. Be safe. Apply for asylum.

I chased the lizard back down again. Two of my friends had applied for asylum, and they had to hang about for years. Not allowed to work, not allowed to go anywhere. Waste two years of my life? Nah. Interesting things were happening in Zimbabwe. Elections coming up, and everyone saying Morgan Tsvangirai had a good chance of winning. Political alliances formed and broken; talks starting and talks shutting down. Speculation as to whether Simba Makoni would stand for President. Tsvangirai arrested—again.

The people at home were doing something. WOZA, for example, that amazing group of women who kept right on demonstrating, in spite of being regularly arrested and beaten up by the cops. And the Freedom March, blocked by riot police with water cannons. We had demonstrations here in London, too, gathering outside the Zimbabwe Embassy, but it was those at home who faced real danger. Suddenly, I desperately wanted to be there, to be a part of it.

I’d take the kind British government's offer of a free ticket home. And when I got there, I wouldn’t sit back tamely; I'd fight for democracy with all the rest. And damn the fear. Anyway, those things - the things I tried not to remember - happened almost three years ago. Surely they wouldn't be looking for me after three years?

Would they?

Dombo re Zhou Village, Zimbabwe, January 2008: Sekai’s account

I knew Mutero's visit would bring trouble.

Trouble was not a stranger in our village. The older people told stories of the Chimurenga—the liberation struggle. They talked of hiding freedom fighters in caves, of beatings for sell-outs, and of security forces who hunted for the fighters. They told of being afraid, always afraid. All this happened before I was born.

In our time, trouble came with elections. The Party sent people to tell us how we must vote, and to remind us of the Chimurenga. We must not be sell-outs, we must support Zanu PF, the party of liberation. At one time, this was good, because they brought beer and meat, and we sang, danced and heard stories of the heroes who fought for Independence.

Then there came a new party, the MDC, and Zanu PF became angry. They no longer brought beer and laughter, but shouting. Their visits were like gata, the ceremony for divining why somebody has died, but Zanu PF were not looking for bad spirits. They were looking for MDC supporters.

On the day Mutero came, I knew my husband Albert wanted to talk men's things with him, so I left them. I looked for Everjoy and Blessings, my two children, and found them playing hide and seek under the wooden platform that holds the grain store.

I called, “Come, we are going to visit Chengetai.”

We took the path past the Kapfunde’s new brick house, its iron roof shiny against the dried thatch of the older huts. Perhaps there would soon be a thunderstorm, because a black cloud hung over the hill with the big rock we call the Elephant. For now the sun still shone in the village, but dark shadows stretched towards it. I wrinkled my nose at the smell as we turned the corner by the overhanging rock where the goats slept. Chengetai’s children were standing by the door of the hut. Everjoy shouted a greeting and ran ahead through the maize field.

Chengetai was preparing food.

“You are busy,” I said.

“Ah no.” She wiped her hands on her dress. “I can always find time to talk.”

A kettle boiled on the fire, and she made tea. All the children ran outside, making noise. They went up onto the rocks and chased each other.

"Who is that with Albert?" Chengetai added sugar to the tea.

I didn’t answer, because Blessings was crying. He was the smallest, and could not climb to the top with the others.

"Help him, Eva," I called. Everjoy stretched down her hand and the boy became quiet. I turned back to Chengetai.

She repeated the question.

"That is Mutero. You know him, he is the owner of Quick-Quick Stores."

"He has a nice car." She smiled. “I wonder what it would be like to have a car like that?”

"He is a rich man."

“Ayee,” she said. “It would be good to have a rich husband. I’m sure Mrs Mutero doesn’t have to dig in the fields, and maybe she has a new dress every month.”

“Mrs Mutero has her own money,” I said. “She is a doctor. I think it would be even better for a woman to have a good job than a rich husband. Then, if you saw some nice thing, you could have it without needing to ask.”

Chengetai looked at me for a moment, then shook her head. “No,” she said. “If I want money, I wait until Tinashe has been drinking, and he no longer knows how much money he has. Then it is easy.”

I laughed. “But now, nobody has money. Not Tinashe, not Albert. It is difficult, very difficult. When Albert worked on the mine, things were good, but then the mine had no more money and no more jobs.”

“It’s true,” she said, lifting her cup. “I don’t know how we will find enough to eat this year.” She drank some tea. "Why is Mutero here? Is he going to give Albert a job?"

"I don't think so. I think they are talking politics."

"Ah. Politics. It would be better if there were no politics, then we could live in peace." She stood up and fetched the frying pan and the cooking oil.

"You are right. It would be better. But Albert does not think so."

"You are unlucky with your husband. Tinashe does not think of politics."

"No! Tinashe thinks only of beer. Albert is a good husband. He does not drink too much, or beat me like Rudo's husband. And he does not chase the women, like Eunice's husband. He is a good man, and our vegetables are the best in the village." I leaned forward, breathing quickly, but Chengetai only laughed.

"But he thinks of politics. That is no good for you. I saw they would not allow you to buy maize, because Albert is MDC. So you are unlucky."

I looked down at my cup, remembering how the men had chased me away at the grain depot. Last year we were on the mines, and we did not grow much maize. A person cannot live without sadza, the thick porridge we eat with every meal. So Albert went to see a man at night, and came back with three bags on the Scotch cart, enough for us to eat until the harvest. After this, all our money was gone. But we had planted a crop in November, and in a few months we would no longer need to buy.

I watched Chengetai put onions and peppers into the oil. Perhaps it would be better if we talked of other things.

"Did you hear they are saying Tonderai is the father of Susan's baby?" I asked.

***

After Mutero went home, I returned to my house and made a fire in the kitchen. Albert sat outside on a rock near the door.

"You saw Mutero was with me, Sekai?"

"I saw."

"He is now the aspiring candidate for Mushongwe West."

"Oh? He is going to be a Member of Parliament?"

"He is going to try. He wants me to be his election agent."

I filled a pot with water, and did not reply. Last time we had elections, Zanu PF chased the agents for MDC from the district. I had even heard that in some other places the agents had been killed.

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Submissions Needed--no chapters to flog this week. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

Many of the folks who utilize BookBub are self-published, and because we hear over and over the need for self-published authors to have their work edited, It seemed to me that it could be educational to take a hard look at their first pages. If you don’t know about BookBub, it’s a pretty nifty way to try to build interest in your work. The website is here.

Following are the first page and a poll. Then my comments and a second poll concerning the need for an editor are after the fold along with the book cover, the author’s name, and a link so you can take a look for yourself if you wish. At Amazon you can click on the Read More feature to get more of the chapter if you’re interested.

Should this author have hired an editor? Here’s a book titled Bound by Prophesy.

They called it a thinning of the blood. Though most of our ancestors’ magic had slowly weakened, it still left us the ability to hold sway over humans. I glanced around the room where I hung chained by the ankles. Damn sight of good it’s doing me now, I thought.

“Aern,” my brother asked coolly, “where did you hide the girl?”

I glanced at the abandoned warehouse’s walls. The concrete floor. There really was no way out.

Morgan stepped closer, plainly irritated he had neither my answer nor attention. “Aern.” I recognized the fury in his tone, though he tried to mask it. He was a lean man, only an inch or so shorter than I, but he was strong. Not only his body, but his mind, the power to control any human he touched. He was stronger than the rest of us, and that was why he needed her.

I finally looked at my brother.

“The girl,” he demanded.

He looked odd from this perspective. His custom-tailored suit, his Italian loafers, all of it wrong now. I tilted my head to see him better. Maybe it was just the blood rushing to my brain.

“Have you lost weight, brother?” I asked. “You seem thin.”

Morgan’s jaw went tight, his nostrils flared the tiniest bit. I smiled, though my cheeks throbbed with the effort. I could feel the blood vessels expanding at my neck and temples. “Must (snip)

Have a vote, and please try to keep genre preferences out of it and just judge the storytelling. Then go to my editorial notes and vote again after the break.

Were you compelled to turn the page?

Bound by Prophesy is book one of a series, Decendants, by Melissa Wright. BookBub price is 99 cents for the trilogy. I found the voice to be strong and the writing crisp and clean. I was immediately engaged by this character’s flippant attitude in the midst of a clearly perilous situation. Lots of good story questions here. I enjoy fantasy, so I not only turned the page but bought it for the entertainment it promises. You can turn the first page here.

Should this writer have hired an editor?

Your thoughts?

Ray

Add a Comment

Submissions Needed, nobody in the queue for next week.While I’ll probably take Friday off, I would do a flogging on Wednesday if I get one. I’ll do the Flog a BookBubber on Monday—got one that I bought. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Jon sends the prologue and first chapter for The Ghost of Victory . The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

Prologue;

I met Juarez in the Hindu Kush hills of southeastern Afghanistan. People say there was a border with Pakistan somewhere nearby but you couldn’t normally see it. Juarez was a new guy, a cherry, and I addressed him as such. He sheepishly assumed that role. I once admired another NCO, an Army sergeant like myself, who said, “New guys ought to just shut up and do what they’re told.” But I cannot admire what that man said anymore. Juarez shut up and put up though. He was a dutiful soldier…

Were you compelled to turn the prologue's first page?

Chapter 1

In the living room of their apartment, Emmanuel Juarez unfolded his bed out of the couch. He tucked in its sheets and fluffed a throw pillow.

“Manny, why you in such a hurry?” Mom called from within the kitchen. “Stay at home a while yet. Finish yer last year of highschool. Go to college. Get ch’your feet on the ground, before going off and becoming army. Iz not going anywhere.”

Crossing into their yellow kitchen, Juarez watched Mom scramble counter to sink to stove to counter again. “I don’t wanna wait,” he replied.

“But why? Aye-ee, mi bebé. See?” She held open the oven door, curling her black hair behind her ear, “You will miss my e-special enchiladas when you are army! I make eet for you!”

He rolled his eyes.

Miguel and Selina, his siblings of six and seven, sat at a table coloring, throwing crayons at each other. They were both black-haired and tan-skinned like their mother, but Juarez, different, had dirty-blond hair, white skin and pale eyes.

“Stop that!” Mom said, scrubbing plates in the sink. “Manny, don’ rush theengsz –” she coughed and crossed her squat, busy body over to the counter. “You have your whole life ‘head of you. Hold this.”

Juarez’ arms received her mixing bowl.

Were you compelled to turn the chapter's first page?

I have a sense that there’s an interesting character here and, perhaps, an interesting story—if I were to get to the story. The prologue, for me, served to introduce a character, sort of, but offered no dramatic reason I should care about him or be intrigued with his story--or let me know what the story is about.

The opening page of the chapter, while continuing with the character we learned about—a good thing—it didn’t raise any story questions. There’s little reason to want to read more about Mom cooking dinner. I did skim through the chapter, of course, and my advice to Jon is that it is just about all backstory. Unless, for some reason, that impacts his story later on, it’s not a good use of the reader’s time. A very interesting thing that suggested something paranormal going on came at the very end of the chapter. It should be at the very beginning—if, of course, it starts the actual story.

Another word of advice--limit how much dialogue you cast in a dialect. A very few words usually serve to give the flavor--I think you could do with less in Mom's speech. Good luck, Jon, but look for where the story really starts to start your novel. Thanks.

For what it’s worth.

Comments, please?

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Continued

“I don’ know where you get this idea.” She swung her bust, almost crushing him against the counter, “Give me that.”

He gave her the mixing bowl, or rather, it was snatched.

“College money, mom,” he said. “I can go to college after.”

“Huh? We pay for it, Manny! Between me and your stepfather, we send ch’you to the community college across the river. Then you live here, be width ch’your brother and your sister, like a good brother.” She fought for breath as she heaved cake batter in her mixing bowl.

Juarez sighed, “Well –” starting to counterargue, but then, he gave it up.

“See? See?” She swung her spatula in his face, threatening to coat him with vanilla cake mush. “You don’ even know why you want this. Wait.”

Juarez secretly fingered an Army recruiting brochure inside his pocket. “Mom, I can be somebody. I can make something of myself. Not just work at the Shurfine.”

Robin’s egg blue and cornflower yellow went hurtling to the floor and he picked them up.

“Stop that!” Mom barked, drying dishes in the sink.

“Stop that,” Miguel piped.

“You stop that!” Selina returned.

“Aye-ee,” Mom moaned, muttering to herself: “Por favor, Jesús, haz que mis hijos obedientes – todos ellos.”

Juarez bent over Selina and coaxed her into coloring a jack-o-lantern in her book. He rubbed at Miguel’s mop of hair and fended off his little brother’s attempts to bite his fingers like an ornery dinosaur. “Mom,” he beseeched, “How can you be against this?” Miguel snapped shut on Juarez’ finger: “Ow!”

Both kids giggled like midget devils.

Mom shook her head and spoke, “Emmanuel, mi bebé, my beloved child,” her wet hands caressed his cheeks before turning to the oven. “You are my first and you will achieve great things in life! You will be somet’ing. You are so smart. But dis…this army idea is not for you. Go t’college, and then, if you must, join the army. But perhaps ch’you will be an officer – be a leader then. Boys who join with juss highschool are ones who die because officers with education put them in dee front lines.”

“Mom, I…I don’t think that’s true.” He sat down tableside and flipped through the coloring books.

Mom asked, “Why d’you want to leave your family?”

“Don’t color it!” Selina squealed.

“I won’t,” Juarez said aside to her, and at Mom, “I don’t.”

“No?” Mom speculated, suddenly airy. She came over to him and played with his odd-colored hair.

He ducked his head, “No. And I don’t wanna be just like everybody else and just go to college.”

Yet running her fingers through his hair, she whispered, “You never stop amazing me, my boy.” Her tone awash with doubt slipping into awe; her first, her beloved child, was growing up and seeking a challenge she could barely contemplate.

Selina and Miguel were also enchanted by her tone. The whole kitchen silenced except for the bubbling of savory enchilada juices in the oven.

“But!” she flicked her fingertips across his shoulder and bent over the oven, “Ch’you’d look so handsome in uniform!”

“So hand-some!” Miguel and Selina teased.

Juarez smiled.

“But I am not giving my approval,” she said with effort, reaching up above the oven-fan to grab a new pan. Her bust nearly lit afire from the rangetop. “Oooo! Oooo! Iz hot!” She fluttered her hands across her chest.

Everyone laughed.

Then Miguel tried to slyly nibble on the tip of pumpkin orange.

“Stop that!” Mom scolded, tossing a dish towel at him. “You’ll ruin your appetite.”

Juarez pointed at him and Miguel threw the towel at Juarez, who then threw it at Selina, who threw it at Miguel and so on.

“I don’ think izza a good idea right now,” Mom continued. “With iraq and everyt’ing going on. Go t’college. Wait till the war’z over. Then you can join.”

Juarez rolled his eyes again as the dish towel came flying into them.

“Maybe you can – what is it?” Mom placed her hand, grasping a drippy wooden spoon, to her hip, “Those tomb guards. Tomb of unknown sailors – or soldiers. They look good.”

“Mom, I…that’s not…really…what I want to do in the military.”

She turned and looked at him – worry and apprehension molding her eyebrows and lips. She returned to the counter and mixed, coughing a bit, saying little else while serving dinner.

Carl, Juarez’ stepfather, arrived home on the meal’s tail end. “What’s wrong?” he asked Mom.

“O. My cough’iz up.”

Juarez kept his eyes to his plate, sipping up leftover sauces. Carl was Miguel and Selina’s father; Juarez never knew nor heard much of anything about his own.

Carl unsaddled his laptop case onto the floor and kissed Miguel and Selina and nodded a “What’s up” towards Juarez. He sat and chowed down, efficiently scooping the last enchilada in under his black moustache. He talked about work, about making headway on a new contract, about how he had to interpret construction instructions to a group of undocumented workers, again, because they didn’t speak any English. Juarez only half-listened, still fingering the brochure hidden in his pocket.

Promptly, dinner was over with everybody full and the coloring books put away with the dishes. Mom and Carl retired to their bedroom with their TV. Miguel and Selina went to bed in their room and Juarez showered and settled onto his couch-bed. He slipped out his favorite movie from its DVD case (favorite simply by frequency of viewing) and rubbed its disc to clear off Miguel and Selina’s greasy fingerprints. In went his movie, popping up on a small television screen, alighting this shadowy living space in blue glow. He laid stomach-down on his bed, propped on a pillow, eyes and imagination glued to the screen:

PT boats raced towards the beach. Men vomited and rubbed crosses, praying. Then, the ramps opened… “Over the side!” yelled the Captain, their commander. Into water and up onto blistering sand. Sound shocked and sight awed the viewer. Juarez felt like he was there. “Move your men off the beach! – What’s the rallying point, sir? – Anywhere but here! Grab yourself a weapon and follow me.” Juarez probably knew the words better than the actors had: “Dog one is not open! We do not hold the beach, say again, we do not hold the beach!” Juarez’ puppy eyes were saturated. He saw that officer, that combat leader, studied his mannerisms and saw a character he wanted to be. “Jackson, you see that impact crater? – Yes, sir. – That should give you complete defilade on that machine gun position. Get in there and get me some fire on it. Wait for my command!”

“Ah!” Juarez yelped.

Carl had snuck up on him. Sitting bedside, “Sorry, man. You watchin’ this again?”

“Yeah,” Juarez shrugged.

“Hey, turn my way for a sec. Your mom, y’know, she don’t like this joinin’ the army business. She’s worried and her health…” he motioned as though pulling his heart out of his chest, “…y’know.”

Juarez nodded, still half-listening to the combat behind him.

Carl slapped his knee. “Uhh, look, I know you’re eighteen, you’re starting to make real decisions for yourself, and that’s good, but keep us in the loop, eh? We care about ya and Mom…she’d die if anything happened to you or if she just thought something might, y’know?”

Juarez nodded, solemn, as blue flickered across the walls. Then he switched off the TV and Carl and him continued talking in that dark living room; Carl silhouetted by bathroom light.

“So,” he continued, “think about her. Think about, just, goin’ to college first. Y’know this whole war on terror and…everything.”

Juarez said, “But it’s just that I wanna do something, Carl. I want to do something real. Something that matters. And the benefits, y’know…you can put money away for Selina and Miguel’s education instead.”

“You don’t have to worry about that–”

“But–”

“Really. You don’t have to worry about that. We can help all of you with your educations…and you know that I love you just as much as them. I’ve been here since you were–” Carl held out his hand “–this tall. Now I know you’re becoming a man, and you gotta make your own decisions for your life, but your decisions are going to affect the people here, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Alright,” Carl moved in and hugged Juarez. “I love ya buddy. You don’t have to say it back, but I know ya do.” He padded Juarez’ shoulder and returned to the bedroom.

Juarez heard Mom coughing as Carl opened and then closed the door.

What is peace but the magical leisure of loving?

What is peace but the heaven-borne crown of contentment?

What is war but the clasping of hands with your brother?

What is war but great bravery?

Oh, wonderful land of the States linked together,

Where all have their kingdoms of freedom and might,

To worship the vision of honor and right!

− Coletta Ryan, selected lines of My Country

Spanish-American War

There’s something characteristic about young males across cultures and times, those just blossoming into manhood, who send themselves off to fight. Not all young males are alike but many hear from far off the guns calling their names. They see themselves with a gun too, a weapon. They see themselves romantically charging over ramparts as though no other achievement in their lifetime may match this single, shining act of valor. I believe a little disillusionment with the normal, plaintive life, of pursuing the usual pursuits, helps these young men detach and go. And Juarez went. He’d already been dreaming of proving himself; of adventure and challenge; of battle and glory thereof. He figured a boy became a man in combat; that a man had battle-courage or wasn’t a man at all.

In dreaming, he did not see himself as some poor sufferer in a trench, nor among the many strewn across the beach, holding onto their guts and screeching for their mommies, nor as one who went crazy afterwards. No, he saw himself as the Captain, a commander, an achiever, the victor. These concerns flowed through Juarez as though passed to him by the brave example of soldiers who had gone before; as though spoken by the ghosts of veterans. By them, by their archetype, Juarez formulated what you call: the measure of a man.

And at this point in history, he was sure there’d be no other chance for it in his life – he had to go now. Keeping this passion hidden, under cover of the room’s dim darkness, he slid that Army recruiting brochure out of his pocket and gazed on at pictures of camouflaged, helicopter-rappelling soldiers. He fell asleep reading it, as though to knightly tales and lullabies.

***

Now, people join the Army for all types of reasons. Some wish to prove something, while others join out of family tradition or because they grew up an Army brat. Others desire a little hometown notoriety (they usually join the National Guard and become merely weekend warriors) and others seek adventure or travel. Some pursue economic or job stability, or benefits. And some are just never going to be anything else but a soldier. Patriotic murmurs might stir within a young recruit’s mind but rarely, if ever, is this the sole reason behind an initial enlistment.

Just outside Shurfine, the lesser of two grocery stores within the suburb of Enola, Pennsylvania, Juarez sat atop a picnic table. His bright, heightened blue eyes contrasted from his pale face and buzzed scalp, over which he wore a flat-rimmed Phl’Eagles hat. Transparent facial hair darted out his chin. His hoody’s wrist cuffs were stained and overtop it all he wore a black and yellow Kmart flannel. His baggy sweatpants were tucked into his work boots, laces dangling. He cupped the red ember of a dying cigarette in his hand; one last huff and then, it’d be gone.

He was waiting for Harrisburg’s regional bus to pick him up, after working his evening shift at the Shurfine. His partner was a cigarette butt-dispenser whose top-hole overflowed with burnt filters. And a dandelion, below his boots, squeezed its flower, stem and two ratty leaves out a crack in the sidewalk. Early November and the evening wind bit. Yet the dandelion braved this cold wearing no jacket. Juarez wrapped his own flannel a little tighter.

Sun glowed a pumpkin orange before slipping under Appalachian mountain. Vehicles hissed softly, methodically, on a road beyond the parking lot; headlights streaming. A deeper hiss layered under, of interstate eighty-one less than a mile away. A Honda slowed to go over a speed bump and Juarez heard its radio:

“−violently as the United States military continues to battle the insurgency. Five soldiers were killed today when a suicide bomber attacked their patrol. That brings the death toll in Iraq to two-thousand and fifteen. Also vehicles laden with explosives struck two major hotels in Baghdad frequented by Westerners. When questioned about the−"

The Honda drove on.

From across the road, from the railroad yard which a hundred years ago had put Enola on the map, familiar squeals of steel on steel suspended into the air. Below them, Juarez could just make out the squawky voice of a McDonald’s drive-thru across the parking lot. He fished his hand out his pocket and held up his thumb – gauze wrapped ridiculously, over and over; during his recent shift he had absentmindedly cut his thumb on his deli slicing machine. But, Juarez shook his head and repocketed his hand – something else was bothering him.

Despite a darkening skyline, he noticed that Shurfine’s parking lot was full of cracks and potholes; it’d been a long time since that pavement was last rolled. The parking-space lines were all faded; a handicap man decapitated. Rust on signs and posts. Wind blew, as it usually does, downriver, curling round the mountain, whipping right into Enola – right into Juarez.

He shivered. McDonald’s “M” began to glow. He took a deep breath, watching the road’s signals change – green, yellow, red. He saw people, driving by, living obscure, uneventful lives. He looked at his thumb and listened to the rails screech louder: tone upon tone of squeal. He forgot about the dandelion, or perhaps never noticed. He saw only rust, cracks, the old and ordinary – and thought, ‘Perhaps there’s only one train to catch out of here…’

***

One day, a few weeks later, Juarez returned home to the apartment. Everyone else was out. School was out too, for Christmas break, and Juarez was scheduled to work that day, however, in the morning, he had called in sick – and gone to meet with his Army recruiter instead.

He dropped a black backpack, logoed “Army of One,” onto the floor and headed for the kitchen cabinet to grab some cereal, but first, he remembered, there was this pimple in the middle of his forehead he needed to pop. He entered the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror – yet, mid-pop, he stopped.

He felt something from deep down inside him coming out. Hidden and unspoken, some moment of a lifetime beckoned – some experience out amidst the blur of bullets and bombs over there – some revelation within those adrenalin-elongated seconds. Yearning for it, Juarez had signed the papers and accordingly joined the infantry^{^[1]}. It struck him then, as he gazed upon himself in the mirror, that his idea was now working towards fruition – the wheels set in motion. The flush of decision, of fateful choice, blushed over him for the first time in his life and he liked the feeling of it.

Now he just had to break this news to his family – to Mom particularly.

“It was inevitable,” he said to the mirror. “Everybody’s always going somewhere else – somewhere other than enola. The trains, cars – the world is going by enola.” He finished popping his pimple. “It was inevitable,” he repeated – like a train following its track: all he could do was follow the line appointed to him; like a moving box. “It was inevitable,” he shrugged. “It was inevitable,” he pleaded. “It was inevitable!” he commanded.

He rubbed his shaved head and said, “Well, at least they won’t have much to take off.” His long eyelashes blinked. His cheeks curved softly but he practiced tightening them, making a face of unimpeachable uprightness for Mom. It was pretty convincing, he reckoned.

Then he continued into the kitchen, slurping his cereal, glancing at his brochure. He read, “Forty-two,” and then situated himself on the kitchen floor, placing both hands shoulder-width apart. He straightened his legs and back and proceeded to do some push-ups. He counted to fifteen until his arms began quaking. At eighteen, he collapsed. He returned to his brochure, “Forty-two?”

Finishing his cereal, he listened to the silence of an empty apartment – to the muted hissing of highway. A pinprick of loneliness stuck into him: they’d be coming home soon, or rather, home would start once they were back. Then he’d have to tell them. They’d be a little angry, he reasoned, but what could he do? He had to go, he had to go…it was inevitable.

Then the front door swung open and shuddered against the wall. Noise and breath and stomping feet cluttered their already cluttered apartment space. Ah, home was home. Crunching paper bags piled onto the counter as hats and gloves were tossed onto the table and floor. Selina dropped her bag.

“Aye-ee! Selina,” Mom said, “the eggs!”

Carl dug through one bag, searching for their receipt and pulled it out like a band of ribbon as long as he was tall – requiring a minute or two before locating the section where it actually listed prices.

Miguel sat down to color.

“Hey, take your jacket off at least,” Mom tugged at him. To Juarez, she asked, “D’you go see the recruiter again? D’he give you that book bag?”

“Mm-hmm,” he replied, chewing his lip.

Selina victoriously showed Mom how none of the eggs were broken.

“Very nice, now put away.”

Selina danced in circles towards the fridge, purple mittens dangling from her jacket cuffs.

Mom asked, unpacking bags, “So what else did they say? D’you tell them you were waiting?”

Carl gave up on the receipt and grasped four boxes of Rice-a-Roni with one hand; between his thumb and pinky finger. He aimed to place them up with the dozen other multicolored Rice-a-Ronis they already had.

Juarez jumped up, put his hands to his hips and announced, “I joined. I signed the papers.” Rice-a-Roni boxes tumbled to the floor. “I joined up. As an active duty soldier with the Army. I’ll –” he cleared his throat; an adolescent squeak betraying him. “I’ll go in right after I graduate.”

Carl sighed and shook his head, picking up the boxes.

Mom’s mouth hung open. Miguel and Selina stayed their reactions until Mom’s ran their course. “What do you mean?” she demanded, her full face contorting with each word, “What did you do?”

“I signed the papers. I’m committed. I’m in. I’ve gone to the mepps station and met the requirements. I’ve taken the asvab test. The recruiter’s got me all signed up. I’m in.”

Carl sighed again.

“What do you mean?” Mom asked, the lower rim of her hazel eyes swelling, “You’ll go? Go away? Into the army?”

“Yes, mom.”

“I told you to wait!” she screamed.

Carl lifted his hand to assuage her.

She exhaled furiously.

Juarez gave a guff.

“Don’t give me that!” she pointed. “I tol’ ch’you to wait.” She tossed their ham and a jar of mayonnaise into the fridge, slamming its door. “But I told you!”

Carl watched her, folding bags. He watched Juarez too, “What sort of job did you pick?”

He hesitated, but divulged: “Infantry.”

Mom threw more groceries into a cabinet. “Out! Out!” she shooed at Miguel and Selina – stacking their coloring books in a disordered pile.

Juarez said: “Things’ll…things’ll probably be pretty cooled down by next summer. I might…I might not even go – over there.”

“Hmm,” Mom suddenly smiled, a finger to her lips, one hand on her hip, “And, how many years d’you sign up for, my boy?”

Juarez had done it. He knew the signs; Carl saw them too and began calculating evasive maneuvers.

“F-four,” replied Juarez.

“Hmm. Well, you’re eighteen. You can do what you want. You can go off and fight if you want. You can do whatever.” She cupped his face in her hands. “You can go and leave us and leave your brother and sister and go, just go. There eez nothing here for you, is there?”

“Mom…” he pleaded.

“IS THERE!” she yanked down on his ears.

Carl dove to the rescue and inched her back. “Don’t you understand?” she exclaimed, “You could get killed! For real. My baby, you could. For real!”

Carl coaxed her into the bedroom. Juarez flopped down on a chair, listening to her loud sobs and coughing. Carl spoke assuring, muffled admonitions. He soon came out and remonstrated Juarez, packing the rest of the groceries away. “Emmanuel, you should have let us go with you.” His voice was very hushed. “Why did you do it like this? Why didn’t you let us in?”

Juarez picked at his fingernails, the cut on his thumb mostly healed. ‘They just don’t understand.’

As though confirming his thought, Carl stood over him shaking his head in confusion and frustration. “Well, you’re in now, I guess. There’s no goin’ back.”

‘No,’ motioned Juarez.

Carl approached and opened his hand towards Juarez’ head. Juarez drew back, unsure of this unusual intimacy from Carl. But Carl just laid his hand upon Juarez’ crown. “I just hope you know what you’re doing,” he whispered. “Please, let us in. Let us know what’s goin on.” Then he squeezed his stepson’s shoulder and lumbered into the bedroom.

Juarez blew out a sigh. ‘That was weird of him,’ he thought of Carl. But he inhaled and thought, ‘Well – that’s done,’ chin in his hands. Some regret bubbled up within him yet he cooled down its simmer and ate instead the hearty cake of excitement and enthusiasm: Where would he go? What would he end up doing? What sort of challenges awaited him out there in the world? Over there, in the sandbox…

As he pondered tales of strife and fortitude, of effort and experience, Miguel appeared, standing in front of him, kicking playfully at a plastic bag. “You going away?”

“Not for a while yet,” Juarez assured.

“You going to go fight the terrer-wists?”

Gladdened, Juarez shrugged open palms.

“C’mon, let’s color.” Miguel tried to push Juarez’ chair to face the table; Juarez moved as commanded.

Miguel began to sit but Juarez said, “Hey, take your jacket off.”

“O.” He unclasped himself, revealing Spiderman pajamas.

“Why are you still in your jammies?”

Miguel shrugged.

Selina came out and hopped into her chair. They pulled at the stack of coloring books, examining each for uncrayoned pages and preferred designs. Like a couple of scholars, Miguel and Selina reviewed and critiqued their assortment of waxy artworks and instructed Juarez on which he should color based on his relative experience and ability.

“Here, this one,” Selina pointed out. It was a Knight’s Tale. Its picture showed a chivalrous medieval warrior galloping on a horse, pointing forth his sword. With all their projects duly assigned, they set to work and chose carefully (and argued constantly about) which colors and shades ought to be applied.

Juarez chose steel gray for his knight. Selina chose blazin’ orange for her striped kitten and Miguel took rose for his piggy. Juarez went to color within the outline of his knight’s helm, but nothing rubbed out onto his paper. He peered, puzzled, at his crayon and then tried again. He saw impression upon the paper, his crayon’s force upon the book, and he could feel its application – he even noticed his crayon-tip wearing down. But no color, no hue, no hint of shading anywhere on the paper – no matter how feverishly he attempted to color.

“Well,” said Miguel, “you could just pretend it works.”

Add a Comment

Submissions Welcome. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Kelsey sends the first chapter of Lady Waiting, a YA fantasy. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

I pulled on the fur lined boots hand made to look well-worn and grubby. They completed the scratchy brown wool leggings and muted blue tunic that split at the sides from my wait to my knees. I pulled up my hood and check my reflection in my small hand mirror. My face was rubbed with dirt to hide my porcelain complexion. I added some dirt to the backs of my hands.

I closed the door softly and crept down the hallway. The castle’s torches were not lit at this hour. I quickened my pace. Just as I checked the hallway behind me I walked straight into another man.

No, a boy. My age. He was not wearing the uniform of the castle guard or servant’s livery. All of his clothing was a muted shade of black or deep blue, I couldn’t tell with only faint moonlight coming through the slits in the walls. He stared at me only for a moment before he continued running down the hallway.

I continued in the same direction, running now, and skidded to a stop in front of the kitchens. The room was inviting both in the soft warmth from the bread ovens and the rich floury smell wafting from them. The cook was not to be in the kitchen right now and he had promised to keep the maids from it as well. I left through the scullery entrance into the cool night.

I grabbed my small bag of provisions stashed in a nearby barrel and slung it over my shoulder. I made my way to the river that bisected the city and followed it to Madge’s Inn.

Were you compelled to turn the page?

The voice is good and we start with something mysterious happening, which is to the good. On the other hand, we also start with errors and clarity issues--for example, the character is not male as is implied. And a compelling story question has yet to be raised. It’s clear that the character is sneaking out, but no indication of consequences if she is caught. The time that could be introduced is when she runs into the other person. Fear of discovery for certain consequences could come up at that time. There could be implied jeopardy that would help.

A sense of the mission would also help. Why is she sneaking out? What is the goal? Is there danger or jeopardy involved? Is she going to meet some rebels, as is implied later? Now would be a good time to introduce something like that. Overall, while the writing is good it needs to get better before this is ready for prime time, and tension needs to be developed on the first page. A good start, keep at it. Notes:

I pulled on the fur-lined boots hand made to look well-worn and grubby. They completed the scratchy brown wool leggings and muted blue tunic that split at the sides from my wait waist to my knees. I pulled up my hood and check checked my reflection in my small hand mirror. My face was I had rubbed my face with dirt to hide my porcelain complexion. I added some dirt to the backs of my hands. A spelling error and an incorrect verb tense is not a great start. It pays to check everything before sending work out. Changed the sentence from passive to active.

I closed the door softly and crept down the hallway. The castle’s torches were not lit at this hour. I quickened my pace. Just as I checked the hallway behind me I walked straight into another man. Clarity issues. First, in the opening the character was adding dirt to his/her skin, which suggests outdoors, but now he/she is in a hallway. The first paragraph needs to include something that makes the use of dirt logical. Second problem: the character runs into “another” man. This makes it clear that the character is a man—but she isn’t a man, as we learn later. Needs to be clarified.

No, a boy. My age. He was not wearing the uniform of the castle guard or servant’s livery. All of his His clothing was a muted shade of black or deep blue, I couldn’t tell with only faint moonlight coming through the slits in the walls. He stared at me only for a moment before he continued running down the hallway. Couldn’t tell what? What the actual color is? Does it matter?

I continued in the same direction, running now, and skidded to a stop in front of the kitchens. The room was inviting, both in the soft warmth from the bread ovens and the rich floury smell wafting from them. The cook was not to be in the kitchen right now and he had promised to keep the maids from it as well. I left through the scullery entrance into the cool night. In my experience the aroma of baking bread is from the yeast, not the flour.

I grabbed my small bag of provisions stashed in a nearby barrel and slung it over my shoulder. I made my way to the river that bisected the city and followed it to Madge’s Inn.

For what it’s worth.

Add a Comment

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Athan sends the first chapter of In the Flesh. The previous version is here. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

With the Deal sealed, I take up Residence in the kid’s body.

I notice the taste right off: a bitterness at the back of my tongue mingling with the sweetness from the rum and Coke. Roofies.

Sorting through recent memories, I get impressions of flashing lights, loud music, writhing male bodies. The man. The drink. And then waking up here, naked and chained.

My Host is an idiot.

I sigh and stand up. I can see my breath.

My prison cell is a room the size of a garden shed, about eight feet square. Filthy cinderblock walls, equally disgusting concrete floor, one bare lightbulb, no window. A surveillance camera points at me from above a steel door with no doorknob. Under the musty basement stench lurks a metallic rot, and I know I’m not the first.

Between the cold, the smell, the filth, and the chafing chains, I’m distinctly uncomfortable. I don’t like being uncomfortable. It’s annoying.

First order of business: get out of these fucking chains.

They’re heavy, thick enough to pull a truck; two lengths of about eighteen inches each, linked to shackles on each wrist, and attached to a heavy steel bracket bolted into the wall at (snip)

Were you compelled to turn the page?

This one is fun. The voice is strong and entertaining, the writing clear. Just a couple of notes below. I’ve not read a story where a demon was the protagonist but, after reading the rest of this chapter, I’d like to read this one. Athan does a super job of raising story questions, as you’ll see if you read on. Little notes:

With the Deal sealed, I take up Residence in the kid’s body. I took “kid’s” to mean a child. Needs clarification.

I notice the taste right off: a bitterness at the back of my tongue mingling with the sweetness from the rum and Coke. Roofies.

Sorting through recent memories, I get impressions of flashing lights, loud music, writhing male bodies. The man. The drink. And then waking up here, naked and chained. Another clarity issue: the reference to “the man” and being naked and chained led me to think that the kid was female. He isn’t. Find a way to make this clear.

My Host is an idiot.

I sigh and stand up. I can see my breath.

My prison cell is a room the size of a garden shed, about eight feet square. Filthy cinderblock walls, equally disgusting concrete floor, one bare lightbulb, no window. A surveillance camera points at me from above a steel door with no doorknob. Under the musty basement stench lurks a metallic rot, and I know I’m not the first.

Between the cold, the smell, the filth, and the chafing chains, I’m distinctly uncomfortable. I don’t like being uncomfortable. It’s annoying.

First order of business: get out of these fucking chains.

They’re heavy, thick enough to pull a truck; two lengths of about eighteen inches each, linked to shackles on each wrist, and attached to a heavy steel bracket bolted into the wall at (snip)

For what it’s worth.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Continued

. . . waist height. Long enough that I have some room to shift my weight, but short enough so I can’t raise my arms while standing, nor lower them while sitting.

I look back at the camera. Whoever’s watching me probably wonders why I’m not freaking out. I smile and wave (Hello, Washington, D. C.!) and then try to loosen the bracket by giving the chains a good, solid pull.

Nada. Those bolts could be six inches deep or more. If I had a chisel and ten or twenty years, I could be all Shawshank Redemption, but I have neither tool nor time. I might as well try gnawing through the wall with my teeth.

Why in Lilith’s name didn’t I assess the situation more thoroughly before presenting the Deal?

Desperation, plain and simple.

Oh, well. Nothing for it now but to see it through. There are worse things than being chained naked in a freezing cold cell. Breaking a contract, for one.

So now what?

I decide to be cool (ha! See what I did there?) and wait him out. There’s no toilet and no food or water. Surely my Host’s kidnapper doesn’t get his kicks by watching naked young men defecate in a corner and then die of thirst and starvation. He’ll come into the room eventually, right?

I think about sitting down again, but the idea of touching that nasty floor any more than necessary grosses me out. Instead, I’ll just stand here like a statue. He’s going to watch me do absolutely nothing for however long it takes him to get curious and come in. I can stand here for hours if need be. Or days. Or weeks.

Fifteen minutes later I’m yanking on the chain and screaming for help at the top of my lungs. Patience has never been my strong suit.

After a while it’s clear that nobody can hear me and I’m not going to be rescued. My throat is raw and I’m no closer to getting loose than I was before. I’m also getting bored, which can have severe consequences. Remember London, 1666?

New tactic. Find out more about the kid. Maybe there’s a clue I can use to my advantage.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, leaving my physical surroundings in search of my Host’s consciousness.

#

In the past, every Host I’ve made a Deal with has been a vocal participant in our partnership. They always have an opinion about how I conduct their affairs and they’re not shy about telling me when they think I’m doing something wrong. They’re engaged and active, back-seat driving until I threaten to take away their window seat. But this kid has withdrawn so far from his body’s situation that it takes me a few minutes just to find him.

When people talk about going to their Happy Place, they’re talking about creating an imaginary realm in their mind where they feel safe and at peace. Maybe they fish from a little row boat on a private mountain lake. Or maybe they walk along a deserted beach on a beautiful tropical island. It doesn’t matter where it is, so long as it’s not here.

My Host’s Happy Place is a wingback chair facing a fieldstone fireplace. The fire crackles merrily, casting a cozy glow in the otherwise dark room. The heat from the fire feels so wonderful I’m almost tempted to forget the cell and stay here with him.

It’s difficult for people to create a detailed environment in their head. It takes practice and a disciplined mind. Most Happy Places are just a series of vague impressions that only come into focus when their creator thinks about them.

The kid is no different. Beyond the rag rug and firelight are mere shadows of book-lined walls, a small table, and something that might become a window if he looks directly at it. The rest of the house doesn’t exist.

I circle around the chair to find the kid—I realize I don’t even know his name!—buried up to his neck under a thick plaid blanket. He stares at the flames and doesn’t seem to notice me.

“Hey,” I say, quiet. It wouldn’t do to spook him. He’s the type who shuts down when frightened. When I found him in the cell he was nearly catatonic. It took a good amount of cajoling to get him to respond enough to seal the Deal. Now that I think about it, it probably wasn’t fair to make the offer while he was in such a state of mind.

No, not fair at all. But perfectly legal.

“What’s your name?” It’s as good a place to start as any.

He pulls his gaze from the fire to look at me. The light dims a little.

“You can call me Ian,” I say. “What’s your name?” I kneel on the rug to make myself less intimidating. Now I’m slightly below his level.

He stares at me like a cornered animal and I can see it in his eyes: Distrust. Fear. A desire to flee, if only he had somewhere to run. A promise to bite if I get too close.

“What’s your name?” I ask again.

After what feels like forever, he answers. “Jeremy. My friends called me Remy.” His brow furrows and the room starts to fade.

“This is a nice place you have here, Remy,” I say quickly. The room comes into focus again as I bring his attention back to it.

“It’s Grampa’s cabin,” he says, without further prompting. “We used to come here at least once a month. In summer, we’d go hiking in the woods. And in the winter Grampa pulled us around the yard in a sled. Then we’d come inside and sit by the fire and drink cocoa and he’d read us stories.”

As he speaks, the room brightens and the bookshelves come into focus. A mug of hot cocoa appears on the table, with half-melted marshmallows floating on its surface. I’m sure if I take a sip it’ll be be the best damned cocoa I’ve ever tasted. The window is clearly visible now. Outside, moonlight bathes the trees: birch, with a few tenacious leaves still clinging to the branches; tall pines, majestic against the sky, their boughs bent with snow.

In the room, everything—chair, table, mug—is too large, like it was all designed for someone twice my Host’s size. The kid himself looks younger than the late-teen or early-twenty-something that I made the Deal with. An effect of the oversized furniture, no doubt.

“What kind of stories did he read?” I say.

“Peter Pan. The Wizard of Oz. The Hobbit.” His expression darkens and he drops his gaze. “But he died a year after Justin went missing.”

“Is Justin your brother?”

Remy nods. “I was eight when he didn’t come home from school one day. He was twelve.”

Most people put the ones they love in with them when they create their Happy Place. It’s interesting that the kid’s brother and grandfather are absent, especially considering how important they are to this scene.

“What do you think happened to him?”

The fire flares like someone squirted butane on it. “I don’t want to talk about this any more.”

Oookay. I sit back on my heels. I can feel Remy watching me as I stare at the flames.

“Are you a demon?”

The question usually comes up at the same time I present the Deal to a potential Host, but the kid wasn’t in a question-asking mood when I found him. I’m ready with my standard response.

“Do I look like a demon?” If you want to avoid answering a question, ask another one.

“I don’t know,” he says. “You don’t have bat wings or horns. But you’re possessing my body, aren’t you?”

“That was the Deal,” I say. Bat wings? Really? Where do they get this shit?

“So, you’re either a demon, a ghost, or a fairy. I don’t know of anything else that possesses people.”

“I’m not a ghost. Fairies can’t possess people.” And demons can’t possess fairies. Believe me, I’ve tried.

“Then you’re a demon.”

I shrug and let my silence speak for me.

“Am I going to Hell?” he asks. He doesn’t seem upset by the prospect. More like resigned.

I examine his face and can tell he’s not afraid of me any more.

“I think you’re already there.”

He gazes at me for a moment longer, then nods and goes back to staring at the fire.

I can’t think of anything else that might help us out of our situation, so I decide to bask in the imaginary warmth of Remy’s Happy Place.

My comfort is brief. I hear the cell door’s lock sliding back with the clang of steel on steel.

Someone’s coming in.

#

The guy has to duck when he steps through the doorway. He’s tall, but not heavy. A beanpole wearing a red wool cardigan. He stares at me through John Lennon glasses over a bulbous nose and black, porn star mustache.

I send a thought to my Host. ::Really, Remy? This is the guy you accepted a drug-laced drink from?::

But there’s something wrong about this guy. Something more wrong than keeping a naked young man chained in his basement, I mean.

The dude has two faces. No, really. There’s second, uglier (if that’s possible) face superimposed over his porn star mug. Like he’s standing in front of a movie projector and his face is the screen. I can see the human face clearly enough, but I have to unfocus my eyes to see the transparent monster on top. Once I do a tight knot forms in my solar plexus. Our situation just got worse.

I don’t know the man, but I know the monster. And he’s a real asshole.

He holds a barbecue fork in one hand and a carving knife in the other. Behind him, through the open doorway, I see a set of old, wooden steps leading up. Freedom is only a few yards away, but it may as well be a few miles.

Before he can do anything with the cutlery, I say his formal Name. “Nisroch.”

He goes by ‘Rock.’ He thinks it makes him sound cool. I think it’s a fitting description of his intelligence quotient. I felt Rock’s presence when his Host came in the room. He should’ve felt mine, too, without me having to call attention to it. Problem is, we demons can get into a rut. The longer we stay in one Host, the more we come to focus and rely on the physical senses.

Rock’s head jerks back as if slapped. For one long moment he stares at me in glorious, mouth-breathing stupidity. Finally, I can tell he’s worked it out. He crosses his eyes and blinks, and I know he finally sees me over my Host’s face.

“What the fuck? You wasn’t here before… was you?” His mustache twitches like a dying rat.

“No, I just got here.”

“Why you here, Ian?”

“I am in process of fulfilling my end of a contract,” I say. “With that in mind, how about unlocking these shackles?”

He shakes his head. “You want to run away.”

That’s remarkably quick of him. Must be his Host’s input. Some demons only improve their station when they take up Residence in a human. Others end up chained in a basement.

“Of course I want to run away,” I say. “Can you blame me? I’d also like a robe and a pair of slippers, if you’ve got them.”

He takes one step with his beanpole legs and crosses the tiny room. Now he’s close enough that I can smell his rancid breath. His fuzzy lip curls back in a snarl, revealing broken, yellow teeth.

::Lilith’s tits, Remy, what were you thinking? Were you drunk before you went to the gay bar?::

“That’s my meat,” Rock says, pointing at Remy’s body—our body—with the blade.

“The Deal’s already in effect, Rock,” I say. “This body is mine, fair and square. No backsies.”

“But you wasn’t here!” He jabs the knife at the wall next to my head. His breath comes faster, a vein throbs in the side of his neck.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid of him. I’m suddenly thinking about that snarling bulldog from Looney Tunes, the one that’s only calmed down by the tiny black kitten. I’ve got to be the kitten.

“But I am now, and I’m in Residence. You know the rules. If you can’t close the Deal, you have no right to the body. Possession is ninety-nine percent of the law.” I know, old joke.

“I didn’t take him for riding,” Rock says.

“No, you want to eat him.” And that would break my contract. I can’t allow that to happen. As Auntie Entity said: ‘Bust a Deal, face the wheel.’

“Just a little bit at a time,” Rock says. “Gotta make it last. Human meat’s hard to get around here.”

“So are Hosts. Which begs the question: how does your Host feel about your appetites?”

When a demon makes any Deal it has to be agreeable to both sides, but a Deal to possess a human body is particularly touchy. Despite what Hollywood portrays, it’s not all that hard to evict us. If we don’t hold up our end of the bargain, or if we do things with the Host’s body in direct opposition to his nature, it’s easy for him to evict us. He just wills us out. The secret is he has to be aware that he can do it. It’s not the kind of information we spread around.

Which brings me back to Rock and his Host. If Pornstache Cardigan isn’t completely on board with Rock’s depravity, I have a good chance of getting him to buck his rider and let me go.

“My Host?” Rock grins. “David is more fun than Jeffrey was.”

It’s common knowledge to any demon who’s heard of Rock that his favorite Host was Jeffrey Dahmer. They spent over ten years together. I shouldn’t be surprised that Pornstache Cardigan—I mean, David—shares the same tastes. No pun intended.

“David likes to hear them scream,” Rock continues, “so we keep them awake. And fresh meat is better.”

As opposed to Dahmer, who killed his victims before violating their corpses and carving their bodies up for future meals.

“Where do you find these twisted motherfuckers?” I say.

“It’s a gift.” Rock chuckles.

I join in his laughter, not because I feel it, but because I want to get on his good side. Or at least his not-as-bad side. Right now I’d be happy to be on his downwind side.

“Well, now that you know it’s me, how about letting me go?” I say.

The laughter stops abruptly and Rock scowls. “Why should I?”

I tap my chest. “Because I made a deal with this kid to get him out of here without getting hurt,” I say.

“That was a stupid deal to make.”

Yes. Yes, it was.

“Be that as it may, it would be a nice gesture on your part. Professional courtesy and all that.”

“Professional courtesy, huh?”

I nod. “Yes. It would really suck to be in Residence while you rape and dismember my Host.”

“Shoulda thought of that before.” Rock may not be the brightest crayon in the box, but what he lacks in intelligence, he makes up for in simple-minded tenacity. He raises the knife, turning it so the light gleams along its edge.

Time for some flattery.

“I didn’t know it was you, Rock, or I never would’ve made the Deal. I’d have to be a fool to think that I could come out ahead. A person of your reputation and caliber? Pfft.”

The scowl on his face disappears as I talk, replaced by a mask of neutrality. He hasn’t killed me yet, which tells me he’s willing to negotiate. I’ve already had one Host die on me tonight, so I’ll take what I can get.

“You know, I’m actually glad it’s you,” I say. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”

“What?”

What, indeed? My mind races as I try to think of a reason. Then it hits me and my mouth starts talking, full speed ahead.

“Well, ah… oh! You know how Balberith hates to travel, right?”

“Does she? Never met her in person,” Rock says.

“Oh, yes. That’s why she sends subordinates to most contract signings. She only personally handles a very few, mostly involving world leaders or celebrities.”

True.

“And you know how adept my sisters are at landing the big names,” I say.

Rock grins. “Yeah, your sisters are hot.”

“Of course they are. Anyway, because most of Beri’s travel time is spent going from one sister to another, notarizing their Deals, she’s been on our case to set up a clearing house where we can wine and dine clients and sign contracts all in one place. So she doesn’t have to jet all over the world so often. Well, my sister, Mitzi, finally opened up an exclusive resort on a little island off the coast of Monaco just to that effect.”

Mostly true.

“And now Mitzi is looking for someone competent and strong to oversee the pit bosses in the casino and keep them in line.”

Not quite true.

“I think you’d be perfect for the job.”

LIE.

“Where’s Monaco?” Rock says, looking dubious. I probably used too many words too quickly for him to follow along. At least, I hope I did.

“It’s on the Côte d’Azur in the south of France. Warm, perfect weather. Beautiful, scantily-clad women. And men.” And now the pitch. “If you let me and my Host go, I’ll ask Mitzi to consider you for the position.”

Rock takes a moment to consider. Actually, I think he’s just passing gas.

“I don’t know. Sounds too fancy for me. Would I have to wear a suit? And what about David? How hard is it to get fresh meat there?” He uses the barbecue fork to scratch at his head.

“Mitzi can get you anybody you want. And as long as you’re not on the casino floor, you can wear anything you like. In fact, she’ll probably give you your own private office in a completely separate building.” I know I would, if only to avoid the smell.

But now I’m getting uneasy. It’s one thing to promise to ask my sister to consider him for employment; I know very well her answer will be ‘Hell, no.’ It’s another thing entirely to start making assurances I have no control over. This conversation is getting dangerous.

“So, lemme get this right,” Rock says. “If I let you go, you’ll get me a job working for Hurmiz?”

He uses Mitzi’s formal Name. We’re now in official negotiations. Fuck me.

“Yes,” I say. I flash him my best confident grin.

Rock shakes his head. “Nah. I like D. C.”

My shoulders sag with a mixture of disappointment and relief. I’m still in chains, but at least I won’t owe Mitzi any favors.

“But if you can get me a date with her instead, and bring me new human meat by next weekend, we have a deal,” Rock says.

“A date?” How in Lilith’s name am I going to get Mitzi to agree to that?

“Yeah. And the meat’s gotta be alive,” Rock says, studying the knife’s edge again.

Oh, well. In for a penny…

I lay it all out succinctly for both our benefits. “All right. You let me and my Host go without harming us, and in exchange I get you a date with Hurmiz and bring you another living human to torture and kill.”

“By next weekend. Yeah.”

The chains rattle as I offer my hand. “Deal.”

Add a Comment

Submissions Welcome. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Mackenzie /strong> sends a rewrite of his first chapter of Flipped. The previous version is here. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

“Bella is going to die tonight. Do you understand?” I said to Elliot, my accomplice, on the way to Bella’s house. “Do you hae the Spaghettifier?” I asked Elliot.

He replied with a “Yes.” He knew that if he hadn’t had it, then he would await the same fate as Bella (especially since we just got to her house). “How will we open the door?” he asked and I burst into laughter.

“We have a portable black hole, so it should be pretty easy.” I replied. I used the Spaghettifier We snuck up into her bedroom. It was big, beautiful, and obnoxiously bright. It was almost as obnoxious as her.

I walked up to her bed and found a carcass. I felt her neck, there was no pulse. I couldn’t see the rise or fall of breath in her lungs. She was a doornail. What a fitting time to die though, in the dead of winter, in the dead of night. Nothing stirred and there were no crickets chirping tonight. “How do you kill someone who is already dead?” I yelled. Then I understood why her death bothered me so much. “She didn’t deserve it.” I sobbed. “She did nothing to me. Nothing!” I yelled. I walked home alone with a heavy heart in the rain alone, so, so alone. I cried myself to sleep. I dreamed about what caused me to try and murder her

It was the big test… and I bombed it. I knew I wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, but I also knew that what I lack in left brain I make up in right brain. I was fine with this (snip)

Were you compelled to turn the page?

There are for sure some interesting things going on here, but ultimately I ended up on the confused side, and then the narrator starts to tell us about a dream. Little things got in my way—if it’s the dead of night, how come her bedroom was obnoxiously bright—if we’d been shown the lights were on or someone turned them on, okay, but that didn’t happen. I was willing to go along with the Spaghettifier as some kind of tool, but its name suggests children at play and not something involving a real death. So I'm not sure if I should take the reported death seriously. I’m going to assume that the “hae” instead of “have” is just a typo, though I guess it could be some kind of Scottish or Irish dialect.

For what it’s worth.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Continued

. . . until I heard Bella yell “Kaliq failed his test! Kaliq failed his test!” so loud that I’m sure all of the city heard. This is pretty much all you can expect from Bella, the worst person I had ever known.

She kept yelling so, I thought had to shut her up. “Bella, what did you get on your test?” I replied. If luck was on my side she would act violent and be expelled, permanently. Then, she probably would still be alive.

Elliot, my wingman, diffused the situation before it would get out of hand by saying “You both scored horribly on your tests, okay!” He is a lifesaver… sometimes. All the other times though he’s just a pain in the neck, but, aren’t all brothers. Nobody ever fights here. There is no conflict of any kind here, so if anyone were to write a story about this city, it would have to be fiction. This city is like an old style clock because everything goes by like clockwork. The government is the face, the public are the gears. Eventually, I will be the face. Until then though, I’ll start spinning in the wrong direction to cause destruction, chaos, and to make everyone think in a new way because “we are all important”. Multiple people were preventing the fight. The government have a strict no violence policy or else you are kicked out of the city. Also, Bella probably didn’t want to get in trouble with the teacher either.

How could I think like this though? I’ve been so violent and negative. I’m too in the moment. I should have listened to Elliot.

Elliot! Where is he? I left him in the house. He’s like a little child out there. He doesn’t understand the criminal world. He’ll never make it out alive! Like Bella. Like Bella. Like Bella. I have to save him because I have a chance. I don’t need two on my killed list.

I ran all the way to Bella’s house hoping I had slept in and everyone was working. He was asleep in Bella’s room. It was still there. How did she become it? Why haven’t we cured death? We, as a city, can do anything with science, but maybe science isn’t the answer to everything. The entrance to death though is unconsciousness and Elliot is unconscious.

I woke him up. As soon as he woke up and realized I was there he asked “Why are you here? Bella is dead. You don’t want to be caught.” I explained the whole story to him and he understood. He’s always been like that. The only one I could trust. I took him home after I sprinkled my DNA all over it’s bedroom.

At his home, we made a plan. “The funeral will be tomorrow,” I told him.

He said “Kaliq, you can stay at my house until the funeral, then you should get out of town. At 5 pm I will give you rations and you can sleep with me in my bedroom.”

I agreed and Elliot left for school. Tomorrow would be a big day.

Add a Comment

Submissions Welcome. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Devin sends a rewrite of his first chapter of Bugsy’s Moll. The previous version is here. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

Even before the Chicago Outfit accepted me into its folds, the rackets were a part of me. Always would be. Just like the loneliness that refused to budge from its perch on my shoulder. I realized so much when I was seventeen, around the time I served Greasy Thumb’s wife cannelloni at the San Carlo Italian Village.

She looked like the sun in a yellow linen, wide-shouldered bolero jacket, her blond, frizzy hair, a corona of light. Leisurely she sat sipping her coffee cup of Chardonnay while I waited, pad in hand, for her to order. The way she studied me was unnerving from the moment she had walked into the restaurant, and now under her unrelenting scrutiny, I chewed the end of my pen, tugged the white scalloped collar of my uniform, smoothed my apron.

But rather than pick a dish, she spat, “I am Alma, wife of Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik. You’re familiar with him, right?” She said it like an accusation, as though just knowing Jake Guzik was a sordid thing in itself. Perhaps it was. A chubby-faced, pin-striped tough with a handkerchief exploding out of his pocket and wise-cracks out of his slack-jawed mouth, word around the restaurant was that he ran a string of cathouses throughout Chicago.

“Yes, I suppose I’ve seen Mr. Guzik around,” I replied uneasily.

She kicked out the chair opposite her with a yellow empire sandal, and motioned for me to sit.

Were you compelled to turn the page?

I like the voice, and the writing is good, though there are some little fixes needed. I like the world that I’m being invited into, and the scene is set pretty well. My only real issues is a story question. There’s none in these lines. I’ll suggest some cuts in the notes in order for the following two lines to make it onto the first page.

I hesitated. What did a gangster’s wife want with me, a lowly waitress?

“Fine, don’t sit, but I’ve come to make you a proposition, Virginia.”

They would make this a page-turn for me instead of an almost. Notes

Even before the Chicago Outfit accepted me into its folds, the rackets were a part of me. Always would be. Just like the loneliness that refused to budge from its perch on my shoulder. I realized so much when I was seventeen, around the time I served Greasy Thumb’s wife cannelloni at the San Carlo Italian Village. I liked the first line and how it clues me in to story. I know the line I cut goes to character, but I’d rather get involved with story first. I’m sure there’s a good spot for it later. I didn’t understand what was meant by “realized so much”—so much about what? Perhaps, instead, if the above cuts are made: And then, when I was seventeen, I served cannelloni to Greasy Thumb’s wife at the San Carlo Italian Village.

She looked like the sun in a yellow linen, wide-shouldered bolero jacket, her blond, frizzy hair, a corona of light. Leisurely she sat sipping her coffee cup of Chardonnay while I waited, pad in hand, for her to order. The way she studied me was unnerving from the moment she had walked into the restaurant, and now under her unrelenting scrutiny, and I chewed the end of my pen, tugged the white scalloped collar of my uniform, smoothed my apron. Sipping implies leisurely, no need for the adverb.

But rather than pick a dish, she spat, “I am Alma, wife of Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik. You’re familiar with him, right?” She said it like an accusation, as though just knowing Jake Guzik was a sordid thing in itself. Perhaps it was. A chubby-faced, pin-striped tough with a handkerchief exploding out of his pocket and wise-cracks out of his slack-jawed mouth, word around the restaurant was that he ran a string of cathouses throughout Chicago.

“Yes, I suppose I’ve seen Mr. Guzik around,” I replied uneasily.

She kicked out the chair opposite her with a yellow empire sandal, and motioned for me to sit.

With those cuts I’m pretty sure the two intriguing lines will be on the first page. I think this is much improved over the first version.

For what it’s worth.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Continued

I hesitated. What did a gangster’s wife want with me, a lowly waitress?

“Fine, don’t sit, but I’ve come to make you a proposition, Virginia.”

Virginia? The broad knew my name? I didn’t wear a nametag. I hadn’t introduced

myself. And yet the smug way she pronounced, “Virrrrginya” sounded as though she had been reciting it all her life! Like it belonged to her and not me!

“I’m just here to earn my wages, Mrs. Guzik!” I sputtered. “I ain’t done nothin’ wrong with your husband! Or any other fella’ that works or dines in this joint, for that matter, so I got no idea what this is all about, and—”

“Hold your water, Virginia. I’m not worried you spent a night on the pillow with Jake. Gingers aren’t his type.” She laughed wickedly.

Self-consciously, I smoothed my long, auburn hair.

“No, actually Virginia, I’m here because I hear you’re the coldest dish on the menu. Jake tells me you don’t put out for no one,” she jeered.

Why had Jake and Alma Guzik been talking about me?! And what business was it of theirs the relations that I did or didn’t have?!

“Frankly, Mrs. Guzik, my interest in the men that I meet here at the San Carlo runs about as thick as the stack of bills I make in tips each shift, and not a bit above that.”

“Are you that proud at the end of each night when it’s just you and an extra long, fat breadstick you’ve copped from the restaurant?”

I gasped.

“Now really, what better reason to be loosey goosey than money? There are plenty of well-heeled fellows dining here. Paint your face with a little drugstore make-up and bed a man a day until you land a husband. I wouldn’t think it would take too long with those crystal blue eyes and that lion’s mane of hair.”

“Don’t matter how lovely you are to look at, Mrs. Guzik, throw yourself at your male customers, and they’ll lose interest before their spaghetti cools. And I need this job! It’s not like I’m flickin’ caviar eggs against the wall for sport! I don’t got a single crumb in all of Chicago I could rely on in a pinch!”

“Exactly why you should play ball with the fellows, not sit on the sidelines!”

“Mrs. Guzik, men ain’t never to be trusted! That’s what my momma says. Best to ply your own trade so ya got the wherewithal to leave your two-bit sucker when the time comes. Because it always comes.”

Alma Guzik clamped her lips shut to that, deafening silence descending like an angry hailstorm. A moment passed. “Give me the cannelloni, Virginia.”

I scrawled the order on my pad, and turned toward the kitchen, when Alma began again.

“As you may be aware, Jake and I are in the business of… remunerated sexual art.” She chuckled.

I spun back around.

“You aren’t run-of-the-mill cathouse material, darling, because I don’t see any desperation in your gaze…” and here she stopped, her eyes boring into mine, as if to make sure that indeed there were no signs of the hopelessness that normally pushes a woman to take on the streets. Or was there? “But we always need hot dishes. Keep off the needle and you could command the big bucks. The common hooker is just out there peddling ass, but there’s a high rolling breed—the gals that are mistaken for Fifth Avenue debutantes.”

An offer to prostitute myself?

I was so taken aback I probably couldn’t have gotten out the word “fire!,” had the table burst into flames at that moment. My rear-end touched down on the chair Alma Guzik had kicked out for me earlier.

Meanwhile, she took a giant swig of her wine and rolled it around her mouth. She ran her finger around the rim of her cup slowly, making a squeaking sound, pink lipstick on her fingertip. “You know, Virginia, there ain’t no doll out there that doesn’t want to feel like a thousand bucks… or to make a thousand bucks… should the opportunity present itself.”

Well, I hated to admit it, but she was right—I could certainly make do with that kind of dough… Move into nicer digs, shop a bit maybe, send a little cash back home to Georgia…

Suddenly I was impatient to know more! Spill it, lady! But just at that moment the cook arrived with Mrs. Guzik’s food.

“Mmmm, I love the smell of garlic,” she said while meticulously twisting the pasta around her fork leaving not a string to dangle.

I watched her take several bites, chewing each mouthful deliberately, swallowing with notable satisfaction. For Chrissake!

“You do like money, don’t you, Virginia?” she suddenly hissed.

Of course, I did!

But in exchange for sex?

I was no prude, damn it, but I was no maestro of “sexual art” either. “Well, how much would I make exactly and what do I gotta do?”

“Slow down, Virginia. We don’t know each other very well yet, do we? There is plenty of time to talk about the ins and outs of the job, so to speak.” Again she laughed. “But first we should make sure you aren’t a waste of my time. I don’t need to groom a gal so frigid she has to perform on a double-burner hot plate, now do I?”

“No?” I guessed.

“Tonight Jake and I will be entertaining a few friends at our home on the Drive. Are you available to join us?”

Add a Comment

Submissions Welcome. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Sophie sends the first chapter of The Clinkers, a YA fantasy. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

The man ran across the street. His head was bent against the rain. His long coat flapped about his legs. As he reached the door of The Three Legged Mare, he lifted up his right hand to open the latch. Water streaming down the wooden planks of the door ran across his fingers. It curled around his knuckle bones. It trickled across the back of his hand. Then it dropped through the hole in the centre of his palm. The latch gave a soft clunk and the door opened.

The pub was quiet. Slung into the dead-end corner of one of the back lanes of Elkesworth, it was habitually quiet. It had a regular clientele, sure enough, but not the sort that wanted to be heard. Or seen. The man crossed the room. Wet footprints stained the blackened floorboards. He nodded curtly at the landlord and ducked beneath a curtain strung up on a beam at the back of the room. There was a brief glimpse of a grubby table and a large man leaning on his elbows. The folds of fabric fell back into place.

William Underwood sat down. Without thinking, he shoved his hand under his coat, surreptitiously rubbing it against his shirt. The hole always ached in the cold, as if the flesh were still there. Haunting him. The wound had never quite healed however, and even now he could still feel the sharp edge of severed bone barely concealed beneath the skin. Where the tissue didn’t quite meet, it weeped slowly. William dabbed at it, with a stained and ragged handkerchief. Then he pushed the cloth swiftly out of sight. He grimaced at the man opposite, (snip)

Were you compelled to turn the page?

Even though there’s too much of the first paragraph, I did find the hole in the man’s hand interesting—but not enough to raise a compelling story question. For me, there were several clarity issues, something to really be concerned about when writing for a younger audience. And there was a fair amount of overwriting. The the signals sent out by this opening page is that the reader can expect to encounter more things they can’t understand and the long way around in description. Notes:

The man ran across the street. His head was bent against the rain. His long coat flapped about his legs. As he reached the door of The Three Legged Mare, he lifted up his right hand to open the latch. Water streaming down the wooden planks of the door ran across his fingers. It curled around his knuckle bones. It trickled across the back of his hand. Then it dropped through the hole in the centre of his palm. The latch gave a soft clunk and the door opened. First, why not give “the man” a name now? You do later, but it would be better now. Names create persons instead of giving us anonymous genders. I found it interesting that he has an open hole in his hand, but I also found the means of learning about it awfully long-winded. All the stuff about the water streaming and curling and trickling took so long to happen. It wasn’t credible for me, either. He’s reaching for the latch. For all that water action to happen he would have to hold his hand perfectly still for a long moment. Doesn’t seem like reasonable action. I just don’t see how the timing works for rain to drop through a hole in his hand. Also, how large is it? If it was made by a knife, for example, it wouldn’t be huge. I think you need a different way to introduce the hole.

The pub was habitually quiet. Slung into the dead-end corner of one of the back lanes of Elkesworth, it was habitually quiet. It had a regular clientele, sure enough, but not the sort that wanted to be heard. Or seen. The man crossed the room. Wet footprints stained the blackened floorboards. He nodded curtly at the landlord and ducked beneath a curtain strung up on a beam at the back of the room. There was a brief glimpse of a grubby table and a large man leaning on his elbows. The folds of fabric fell back into place. Since we don’t know where or what Elkesworth is, it didn’t seem worth the words to include it. The narrative tells us the place was quiet twice, so I cut it to once. The wet footprints are detail minutia that don’t affect or advance the story—overwriting. The “brief glimpse” confused me. It works if the man opened the curtain and then let it drop, but he goes through it into the place where the table and man are. Therefore it wouldn’t be a brief glimpse, seems to me. A clarity issue.

William Underwood sat down. Without thinking, he shoved his hand under his coat, surreptitiously rubbing it against his shirt. The hole always ached in the cold, as if the flesh were still there. Haunting him. The wound had never quite healed however, and even now he could still feel the sharp edge of severed bone barely concealed beneath the skin. Where the tissue didn’t quite meet, it weeped wept slowly. William dabbed at it, with a stained and ragged handkerchief. Then he pushed the cloth swiftly out of sight. He grimaced at the man opposite, (snip) About the “without thinking” cut—if something doesn’t happen in a story, then why include it? Just do the action. Another clarity issue: he slips his hand under his coat and rubs it on his shirt. Then you have him dabbing at it with a cloth and then putting the cloth out of sight. If he is dabbing at a hand that is underneath his coat, it would already be out of sight. You need to think this action through, visualize it thoroughly to make it credible and clear.

For what it's worth.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Continued

. . . who immediately began to speak.

“You said it was urgent.”

“She’s going to leave.”

“How? No one gets to just leave this place. Except me.” The man leaned back, stretching his legs, a smug expression on his face.

“Someone must be helping them. They’ve got a plan. I don’t know when, I don’t know where, but she’s going to leave.”

“Hah! It’s impossible! Bet they’ve been dreaming of that since they got here. But it ain’t going to happen.”

“That’s as maybe, but I believe this time it is. So you can pass that onto your master. If he wants to stop her, he’ll have to come here himself.”

William sounded irritated. These meetings were all well and good, but the man in front of him was a bit too big for his boots. Just because he reported directly to him.

William demanded a bit more respect these days. Since that day at the Bar Moot, he’d learnt to stand up for himself. Maybe it had been the excruciating pain of pulling his hand away. Or the humiliation of his fellow citizens laying bets on his cowardice. Or maybe, it was the silver coins that now lined his pockets, due to him. But William was tougher these days, stronger, cleverer and he wasn’t going to put up with any attitude.

“You tell your master what I said, if you value your life. If she left and he didn’t know about it, he’d kill us both!”

The younger man shifted his feet uncomfortably. He moved as if to get up, but William stood up first, blocking his path. He held out his hand – his good hand. The man scowled and pulled out a purse. He dropped it into William’s palm. Without another word, he pushed past, yanked the curtain to one side and was gone.

William sat down. He thumped his good hand on the table. A moment later, the landlord appeared, clutching a beer mug in one hand.

“A pint of your usual, Mr Underwood?”

William grinned.

“No,” he said. “I’ll have a double whisky this time and a plate of your roast beef.”

He scattered a few coppers on the table, pushed out his feet and settled back against the chair.

Sam stood stock still. He was listening, his ears pressed up against the rock. He held a finger to his lips, waggling the fingers of his other hand at the same time. After a moment, he turned his head away from the rock face.

“I can hear one. Listen!” He cocked his head.

Silas was resting himself against a shovel. His eyes blinked, the only part of him visible in the half-light. They gleamed white against the black coal dust that coated his face, his hands, his clothes.

In the last year he’d lost weight. They all had. Silas noted how Sam looked more like one of the skinny black rats they were hunting, and as caked in coal dust. Silas heard it too – the faint scrabbling and a squeak.

Quick as a flash, Sam pulled on the string. The metal teeth of the trap burst into life. It clamped down on the body of the poor creature. The animal squealed, screamed even. So noisy for such a scrawny little thing, it’s wretched body thrashing from side to side.

“Well, don’t leave it to suffer, lad. Here, use this!”

Silas passed a hammer to Sam. Sam didn’t hesitate. He swung the weight of it down upon the rat’s head and that was it. Dead.

They both stared at the thing. It was barely bigger than a carrot. Its long tail had more fat on it than the body. But it was meat, of a kind. Sam released the catch on the trap, picking up the rat by its tail. Then he tied the tail to his belt. The rat hung down, mouth open, its two front incisors catching the dim light of the passage.

“Well done! A couple more of those and we’ll have a feast!” Silas slapped him on the back.

Sam grimaced. He knew Silas was right. By current standards it was a feast. But all he could think of was his mum’s cooking, old style. A steaming hot beef stew bubbling over the cottage fire, soft fragrant dumplings snug on the top. The teasing smell of freshly baked bread drifting down the streets of Scardale Covert. Home. Or what had once been home. His stomach gave a lurch as the rancid smell of the rat assailed his nostrils and the memory burst apart in his head, like a tiny firework.

That evening, three rats swung from Sam’s hips, as the sirens wailed above. And the mine lift lurched upwards, towards the fast fading daylight.

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This may be a new Monday feature. I get daily emails with the latest BookBub offerings in genres I’m interested in. Because many of the folks who utilize BookBub are self-published (I plan to use it), and because we hear over and over about the need for self-published authors to have their work edited, it seemed to me that it could be educational to take a hard look at their first pages. If you don’t know about BookBub, it’s a pretty nifty way to try to build interest in your work. The website is here.

How it will work: I’ll post the first page and a poll. Then, rather than immediately go to my comments, I’ll post them after the fold along with the book cover and the author’s name so you can go take a look for yourself if you wish. At Amazon you can click on the Read More feature to get more of the chapter if you’re interested, and I’ll include a link.

Let me know how this works for you.

First up, a book titled CEO. Note: it opens in Australia.

IT WAS 10am, and the heat was already oppressive, pushing 30 degrees, when Douglas Aspine parked his black BMW Z3 out the front of the Federal Bank branch in South Yarra. He checked his hair in the rear-vision mirror and turned his mobile off, before putting a coin in the parking meter.

As Aspine was shown into the branch manager’s office, a little, balding man with thin pursed lips glanced up before dropping his eyes back to a thick file on the desk in front of him. The branch manager, Jonathan Bardon, got up from a visitor’s chair and said with a tinge of nervousness, “Hello, Doug, I’d like you to meet one of our head office lending managers, Colin Sarll.”

Sarll did not get up or extend his hand, but instead just nodded, “Take a seat, Mr. Aspine,” as he continued to examine the file. An uncomfortable silence descended over the compact room. Bardon stared down at the cheap carpet, and shifted his large overweight body uneasily in his chair before asking, “Coffee, Douglas?”

Before he could respond Sarll looked up. “So you’d like to borrow another $ 100,000, Mr. Aspine?”

“That’s right; I’ve discussed it with Jonathan. I thought I’d get the documentation out of the way today.”

Were you compelled to turn the page?

Have a vote, then go to my editorial notes and vote after the break. There is no "almost" choice in the poll because this is a published novel and the switch can only be on or off.

And don’t forget to let me know if you like this new feature. Thanks.

Should this writer have hired an editor?

The book is The CEO by Peter Ralph. My thoughts, and then my notes. You can read more here.

First, the issue of story questions. There is a clear one here—will he get the loan? And, perhaps, why is the lending manager looking at the file—perhaps there are irregularities? But is there jeopardy with serious stakes? Nope. And I found I didn’t care much about whether or not Doug gets the loan. For me, this opening didn’t engage me with the character and didn’t raise a story question strong enough to make me want to turn the page. In addition, I think a good copyeditor would have been useful. Notes:

IT WAS 10am, and the heat was already oppressive, pushing 30 degrees, when Douglas Aspine parked his black BMW Z3 out the front of the Federal Bank branch in South Yarra. He checked his hair in the rear-vision mirror and turned his mobile off, before putting a coin in the parking meter. I’ve read advice to never open with the weather and, unless the weather impacts the story, I think that’s right. Here, it doesn’t, so words are wasted on the weather. There’s a comma fault in the last sentence. For me, the car is overdescribed—just “BMW” would have been plenty. When you include model numbers it begins to seem like a commercial.

As Aspine was shown into the branch manager’s office, a little, balding man with thin pursed lips glanced up before dropping his eyes back to a thick file on the desk in front of him. The branch manager, Jonathan Bardon, got up from a visitor’s chair and said with a tinge of nervousness, “Hello, Doug, I’d like you to meet one of our head office lending managers, Colin Sarll.” Pet peeve: you don’t drop your eyes to a file, you drop your gaze. Dropping eyes would be painful.

Sarll did not get up or extend his hand, but instead just nodded, as he continued to examine the file. “Take a seat, Mr. Aspine,.” as he continued to examine the file. An uncomfortable silence descended over the compact room. Bardon stared down at the cheap carpet,. and shifted his large overweight body uneasily in his chair before asking, “Coffee, Douglas?” The first sentence is used as a dialogue tag, but it isn’t one (so I shifted narrative to make sense of it. Comma fault in the last sentence. And “large overweight body” is a bit of overkill, I think. Nor, unless the man’s size matters to the story, is it necessary.

Before he could respond, Sarll looked up. “So you’d like to borrow another $ 100,000, Mr. Aspine?” There should be a comma after “respond” to separate the phrase.

“That’s right; I’ve discussed it with Jonathan. I thought I’d get the documentation out of the way today.”

Comments?

Ray

Add a Comment

Getting’ Low. Only one flog for next week. Submissions Welcome. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Jacob sends the first chapter of The Freerunners. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

For my 13^th birthday celebration, my older brother Noah had the truly remarkable idea of taking me out for my first casino excursion. This might seem quite contradictory at first, but I assure you, he had it all planned out. He dressed me up as an elderly gentleman in a pale beige suit that he’d found at the local charity shop, topping off my outfit with a bearded mask and wig.

You’ve probably figured out by now that we’re not normal kids. We’ve both had the same disease since as long as I can remember. It’s not contagious, more of a genetic thing.

They call it insanity. We suffer from it deeply.

“Time to make your move, little fella,” Noah’s voice crackled through the tiny earpiece hidden beneath my facial disguise.

I forgot to mention Noah’s involvement in all of this. His job was quite simple; hack into the casino camera system, tell me what cards everyone was packing and serve as getaway driver in case things went awry. He’s 15 years old.

We liked to keep things straightforward for our first time.

I took a quick peek at my cards before eyeing down the rest of table, like they do in the movies. Each of my opponents eyeballed me back. Emotionless.

Groveville City Casino was an old rundown building on the outside, just like every (snip)

Were you compelled to turn the page?

I like the voice here, and the writing as well—they are nicely involving. But I ran into a credibility gap that I couldn’t rationalize my way past. While I love the line about suffering deeply from insanity, the thing I couldn’t bring myself to believe that this person was in a casino playing a game while wearing a mask. Where does that happen? Later in the chapter the narrator reports a smug grin plastered to his face, but he’s wearing a mask, so how could anyone see it?

As for story questions, I guess the only one that comes to mind is will they get away with the ruse. Is there jeopardy? I don’t know. Unfortunately, the narrative’s last line on this page signals a detour into description of the building instead of continuing with what’s happening and perhaps creating some tension. Not a good idea, IMO. Spoiler alert—things do go south later, but still there isn’t a clue as to consequences for the kid. For me, the whole mask disguise part needs to be motivated/shown/explained so that it’s believable.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Continued:

. . . other building for a kilometre in any direction (you can take your pick). The peeling paint was starting to show the brick foundations of the structure. Dim lights around the entrance flickered on and off, depending on how well the electricity was running. I doubt it had ever successfully passed a health inspection, but that didn’t stop business from chugging along.

Only a few real poker tables remained in the casino, ousted by the jingling slot machines that dominated most of the floor space. Their green velvet coats were pockmarked with cigar burns and permanent sweat stains from the lack of air-conditioning. Some had even been torn from the drunken fights that occurred regularly in the casino. sullied

With a hefty two-handed shove, I thrust over my tower of chips. Like an ocean wave they spilled headlong across the ash-sullied table, and for a moment my opponents lost their cool. They muttered amongst themselves, ogling at the sheer boldness of the move I had just made.

And I’d only been a teenager for less then a day.

Yeah, I know right. Way to celebrate your 13^th birthday. Of course, Groveville City Casino wasn’t in the habit of sussing out bored youngsters like myself. It’s one of the benefits of the insanity thing that I mentioned; no casino would ever actually believe they’d been screwed over for thousands by a couple of minors.

Noah’s voice came through again. “Bet big, little fella, no way you can lose this round.” Sure enough, a large pot was compiled and when the rest of the cards were drawn, my full house sat topping the table.

Maybe the smug grin plastered on my face wasn’t helping my case, but I swear the pit boss had it in for me. He’d first begun circling our table when I’d won a big round an hour or so ago. His black suit, frayed at the edges, looked like it had seen better days. This didn’t surprise me in a city like Groveville. Now, for the past fifteen minutes, he’d been staring unashamedly at the mountain of chips that rested in front of me.

And lets make this clear, I wasn’t clamouring for the attention by any means. It generally wasn’t a good thing in a casino, for all you gambling novices out there. Especially when you’re underage and are over $50’000 in the profit using counterfeit money. Did I mention what we were doing was illegal?

“Nice going Toby, I think we should – ,” Noah’s voice was cut off and replaced with a dull hissing noise. My heart stopped for a second there.

I should have realised that something was up.

But the cards were already being dished out again, and it was my turn to play the big blind. “Sir,” the dealer enquired, “Will you be continuing with us this round?”

Perfect escape opportunity. I can’t believe how stupid I was not to take it. “Why of course, my good friend,” the light Russian accent rolled off my tongue with ease. I tossed in the few chips required.

Worst. Decision. Ever.

At first it seemed I had won the jackpot. I peeked at the cards I’d been given. Double aces! Surely not, I thought, as I tried to gauge the mood of the rest of the table.

Emotionless.

All my game planning disintegrated the moment I looked out the window. There was Noah, trying (and failing) to look inconspicuous, as he stood mouthing something that was probably quite important whilst making a variety vicious looking hand signals.

I got the message pretty clear though. We never communicated on the job unless something had gone seriously wrong. Even then, a subtle nod or a quick glance towards the door was often quite enough.

The flop was already upon us, however. Three cards placed facing upwards by the dealer.

A nine of clubs

A queen of diamonds.

And an ace of spades.

…

*exhales deeply*

I didn’t mean to ignore Noah standing outside in the rain. He happened to be a rather difficult person to ignore, the way he was practically dancing to get my attention. My gut feeling was to fold and get out of there as fast as I could. But how often do you hit triple aces before any bets were made?

Even without Noah to tell me what the others were packing, it was extremely unlikely that anyone would be able to beat me. My head won the internal battle. I would keep playing.

Remind me never to let that happen again.

I betted a casual two grand right off the bat. Nothing too extreme, but enough to get rid of the riff raff.

The ‘riff raff’ turned out to be the rest of the table folded, except for one bloke called Scarface, who was sitting directly opposite me. I had no idea what his actual name was, but he was a local by the looks of it. Around 50 years of age, he had a slight tan, piercing blue eyes and scruffy blonde hair on the verge of turning white. He might have even been handsome not too long ago, if not for the enormous pink scar that stretched diagonally across his left eye.

No one else playing came close to him in chips; he was easily topping close to a hundred thousand. Scarface matched my bet, no questions asked, and the dealer drew the next card.

It was…

A jack of clubs (you thought it was gonna be an ace, didn’t you?).

I decided to play it confidently and pushed $5000 worth of chips into the pot. Once again, Scarface matched my bet.

The final card was flipped over.

Another ace.

You just couldn’t make this stuff up, could you?

Now any doubts of me making the right decision to keep playing were removed. There was literally nothing that could beat me, so I went all out and betted $15’000. The whole casino went silent. I was hoping that Scarface would match me, so I had a bigger pot to take home at the end. Even if he didn’t, it had still been a profitable round.

I wasn’t counting on him to go all in.

But that’s exactly what they did.

I found myself in the cruel position all gambling addicts go through on a nightly basis. If I folded now, I’d be heading home with a 50/50 cut on just over thirty grand. That was enough money to do just about anything in Groveville. I could quit school, get my own apartment, purchase a car, even a fake licence to drive it. If my brother and I both pitched in, mum might even be able to retire early. That’s just about everything I could ever want.

Not that I planned on hanging around in Groveville for much longer. There wasn’t much to live for in this god-forsaken city.

If I matched the bet and lost, I’d be walking home empty handed with an extremely pissed off brother. Not a good outcome for all involved.

But how could I possibly lose? With four aces, this should have been an easy decision. So why was I so hesitant? I took a final glance out the window. Noah looked ready to explode.

I went all in. The total pot was $110’000.

There was an uproar amongst the onlookers now. A small crowd of about fifteen people had gathered to watch. They threw their hands up in the air and cheered loudly, showering those closest in beer and other beverages.

The dealer called out over the noise, “Quiet for the reveal, please.” The onlookers calmed down, and now the dealer was looking at me, “Sir, if you would.”

I flipped over the first ace. An appreciative murmur went up amongst the crowd.

I locked eyes with Scarface. He sneered straight back at me, his scar twinkling whenever he blinked. He didn’t look like he was bluffing.

I showed the second ace.

The crowd went bonkers.

The formerly small group that surrounded our table had grown in size dramatically. They now more closely resembled a full-blown mosh pit in complete rave mode. People were launching their drinks up in the air, flailing their arms out like animals and cuddling up against me in an affectionate show of congratulations. One guy even laid out a waitress who had been walking past.

Once again the dealer called for quiet. Scarface was completely in the zone. His sneer had slowly morphed into a nasty, twisted grin. Those electric eyes hadn’t stopped shooting venom at me since I’d revealed my cards.

It all happened so quickly after that. Scarface stood up and tossed his cards out in the open, before bellowing in a deep voice “You cheater! You have been scamming us the whole time!”

Everyone looked down at the cards in unison.

He had two aces. The exact same as mine, suit and all.

I rose from my chair and ran for the exit.

“So you forgot to mention we were using trick decks as well?” I felt like I was about to burst from all the adrenalin.

Groveville wasn’t exactly renowned for its ‘upper class’ service. The ‘smoky city’, whilst quite large in size, was mostly composed of thrill seeking junkies and the dealers who supplied them. Add in some heavily bribed politicians and a few troubled youths like myself and bam, you’ve got my hometown staring right at you.

Add a Comment

Submissions Welcome. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Jeff sends the first chapter of The Linking. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

The path snaked downward between the prickly pear and tarweed. Weakened footsteps helped body and mind recover from a vicious fever. Well enough they worked until a dog’s yelp jolted nearby birds into flight.

Marc Krause attempted to ignore the plea until the poor creature began an anguished moaning that tightened his muscles until they prevented him from walking further. His profession trained him to be sensitive and generous, but at that moment he had no spare energy and already thought himself foolish for being in the chaparral-lined canyon instead of home in bed.

Marc had taught for four days even with his fever while his students presented their senior projects. He did not want to let them down. If they could just appreciate his dedication. The fifth morning, when the act of sitting upright caused his bedroom to tilt and re-level again only after he lay for a considerable time, he made the call that put his classes in the hands of a substitute. Sleep came upon him until the afternoon when he awoke on drenched sheets, discovering happily his fever had broken. The sun and the fresh air called him with his new-found energy from the house that confined him.

The dog moaned somewhere within the scrub oak and the towering pampas grass. In spite of all the advice he had received against approaching wounded animals, Marc left the trail and (snip)

Were you compelled to turn the page?

I think the writing works in this opening, but I was stopped by things happening that ran counter to the way I understand things to work in the world, basic things like footsteps. Since a writer’s goal is to create a sense of reality in a reader’s mind, those things pulled me out of the story. If these strangenesses had been motivated by some kind of cause, especially in a science fiction story, okay. But this is played for real as if happening in the world you and I know.

There’s a lot of setup, too, all the stuff about teaching and arranging for a substitute. It didn’t seem to bear on what is happening in the now of this character’s life. The story question is mild—will he locate the dog? It all added up to no turn of the page for me, which is too bad because an interesting thing happens later. Unless all the stuff about the moaning dog matters to the story later, I think Jeff needs to start with the interesting thing and then create some trouble for the character from that. Some notes:

The path snaked downward between the prickly pear and tarweed. Weakened footsteps helped body and mind recover from a vicious fever. Well enough they worked until a dog’s yelp jolted nearby birds into flight. A couple of things in this first paragraph, including the first of the things that confused me. This has weakened footsteps somehow helping him recover from a fever. I cannot conceive of any way footsteps can help with a fever. And then we have a twisted phrase—Well enough they worked—that stuck its foot out and tripped me. Is Yoda the Jedi Master writing this story?

Marc Krause attempted to ignore the plea until the poor creature began an anguished moaning that tightened his muscles until they prevented him from walking further. His profession trained him to be sensitive and generous, but at that moment he had no spare energy and already thought himself foolish for being in the chaparral-lined canyon instead of home in bed. Another strange thing happening—how can moaning tighten muscles and force a man to stop walking? Fear in the person might do that, but a moan coming from an unseen dog? With no evidence of a threat or attack? I didn’t get it.

Marc had taught for four days even with his fever while his students presented their senior projects. He did not want to let them down. If they could just appreciate his dedication. The fifth morning, when the act of sitting upright caused his bedroom to tilt and re-level again only after he lay for a considerable time, he made the call that put his classes in the hands of a substitute. Sleep came upon him until the afternoon when he awoke on drenched sheets, discovering happily his fever had broken. The sun and the fresh air called him with his new-found energy from the house that confined him. Suddenly we slip into a sure story-stopper, backstory. None of this matters to what’s happening now.

The dog moaned somewhere within the scrub oak and the towering pampas grass. In spite of all the advice he had received against approaching wounded animals, Marc left the trail and (snip)

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Continued

. . . entered the brush.

A sandy clearing opened to him and on its far side lay the black mutt. Marc’s eyes blurred and no longer worked in unison. He leaned forward with his hands braced on his knees until the nausea passed.

“Hey, fella,” he said with his high-pitched, nice-doggy voice, which only made him cough. The dog answered with a burst of growling so severe that Marc retreated into the brush.

“Fine. Be that way.” His eyes acted up again. He frowned, perturbed more by the thorns and dried leaves pricking through his sweaty clothes than with the irritable mutt. He combed back his black hair, still matted from his fitful night, thinking anyone with good judgment would not have ventured into the canyon in his condition.

Half-buried trash accumulated over decades lay along the bottom of the canyon. He pushed through scratchy chaparral to grab an old hub cap. With it in hand, he returned to face the dog. The creature which watched him pour water from his water bottle into the makeshift bowl. Marc crouched down and set it as far into the clearing as he dared.

A rattlesnake buzzed behind him. Marc jerked his legs together, flinging sand and dust into the air. “Get, stupid dog!” Marc stepped into the clearing. A second snake rattled behind him. Marc slid the bowl closer to the dog and spun around to try to see the serpents. He did not want to back from the rattling too far for fear of meeting the dog’s teeth. Upon turning again he was relieved to discover that the dog was gone.

“Finally.”

The shrubbery where the dog had been was thicker than it had been before. Half of Marc’s mind struggled to understand while the other half wanted to run off. The dog should not have been visible through the brush. The sky above him darkened and a deep thumping sound pounded around him with such intensity he felt his hair and clothing move with every beat. It was as if a terrifying force were fast approaching to destroy him.

Panic came upon him and he sprinted down the clearing until the shrubbery closed in and the sand dipped underneath it.

There it lay on the sand. Not a dog or a snake but a metal sphere about the size of a billiard ball. Its mirrored surface stood out in the dusty landscape.

The noises behind him stopped. His fish-eyed reflection looked back as he bent down to pick it. The ball was lighter than he expected and it slipped from his hand like wet soap. He lunged forward to catch it but aimed too low. The sphere took its time in the air before floating to the ground without a sound. Rubbing his fingers together, he was surprised to find them dry.

With cupped hands he tried again and then dropped it on purpose from eye-level. He counted eight seconds before it landed on the sand.

He thought he should get home before something worse happened. Without deciding whether or not it was wise, he slipped the sphere into his shirt pocket and then stood looking down at it, half expecting it to jump out on its own.

Add a Comment

Submissions Welcome. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Brent sends the prologue and first chapter of First Tuesday. The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

Prologue

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Prologue

Call it a coup, call it a revolution, call it restoring the vision.

It began in a New York nanosecond. As with most upheavals, the trigger lay buried amid the minutiae of daily life, long before anyone noticed, long before such a minor alteration could bring forth major transformation.

Coup, revolution, restoration. The woman considered none of those labels as she probed the system, lurking behind firewalls and cutouts, studying her triple monitors, watching her handiwork slip into place.

“JC,” she whispered. An observer might have thought it an oath, a hushed plea, a prayer.

But the woman no more pondered Jesus than the coup, or the revolution, or the restoration that JC would trigger. A job begun, she thought, a job well done.

Were you compelled to turn the prologue's first page?

Chapter 1

“Hey, buddy! You.”

John Garner turned at the tap on his shoulder, stopping amid the hustle of Amsterdam Avenue. The man who’d accosted him was tall, a good four inches longer than John’s own 5’10” frame, with dirty blond hair that rested uneasily on the collar of his olive-drab pseudo-Army-surplus jacket. Or maybe the jacket was the real thing, though John was sure – almost sure – the Army had ditched olive-drab for desert camouflage fifteen years ago.

“Weren’t you just in that coffee shop?”

The man’s words sketched a question in form only – no upturned voice at the end, no doubt, more imperious accusation than query. Two sentences, and already the man reminded him of his second-year torts professor, a frustrated courtroom-wannabe who treated his students as hostile witnesses.

The man assumed the answer – correctly, as it happened – and kept speaking. “Did you pick up a piece of paper there?” Again, it sounded like “Where were you on the night you murdered your wife?”

John felt like shouting, “Objection!” Instead, he took a deep breath, refusing to let the man, a total stranger, spoil one of those unexpectedly warm fall afternoons that made even smart people believe winter would never beset New York. He decided that if the man were going to act (snip)

Were you compelled to turn the chapter's first page?

Clean writing and clear voice recommend this narrative to the reader, but how does it fare in the storytelling department? For me, the prologue was too much tease with vague references to things I don’t know and that aren’t revealed to me. What upheavals? What job? These are information questions, not story questions. So the prologue doesn’t get a page-turn from me.

The chapter opening comes closer. It does seem to have conflict, and there are story questions raised. The aggressive tone of “the man” helps to bring tension and raise questions. But . . .

But there’s so much writing here for what should be a simple and interesting confrontation. All of the time spent in the opening on the nature of the jacket the man is wearing—does that impact the story in any way? And there are descriptive notions such as his hair resting “uneasily” on a collar. What does that mean, exactly? The hair wouldn’t be feeling an emotion.

This is an action scene, essentially, with one person accosting another in an aggressive way. It isn’t the time for long-way-around writing, I believe, but time for pace and movement in what happens. Here’s an example from the next page:

So he took his turn in the role of mime, face a mask of incomprehension, arms bent ten degrees at the elbow, palms upturned halfway in the universal symbol for “Huh?”

That’s a clear signal to me that overwriting is in my future. So, despite the beginnings of a story question, I decided not to move on. Of course, because of the way this works, I did read further, and there may be an interesting story ahead and there was intense action—but, for me, the narrative continued to meander more than I was in the mood for. I think Brent should focus on distilling the story down to what’s happening and then add back in touches of nuance (not gobs) to give it his unique flavor.

Chapter 1 continued

. . . like a litigator, he’d play dumb witness. “Piece of paper?” he asked, trying to sound artless, trying as well to avoid wrinkling his nose at the cigarette odor clinging to the man’s jacket.

“Yeah, paper. Like, you know….” The man gestured with open palms, first held upright in front of him, and then one above the other, with nothing but the November air and thin sunlight between them. The man had the eight-and-a-half-inch width down, but John thought he was off by at least a couple of inches on the height. “Paper,” the man repeated.

John held his gaze. Whatever the paper’s details may have meant to the other man – if it even was his paper – John needed it more, with the precious phone number it now held. So he took his turn in the role of mime, face a mask of incomprehension, arms bent ten degrees at the elbow, palms upturned halfway in the universal symbol for “Huh?” The man had discarded it, after all, a scrap abandoned on an empty table.

The man stared at him, striving for – but not quite achieving – one of those penetrating gazes so beloved of movie directors and novelists. He reminded John instead of a taller version of Jack Nicholson typing away in The Shining.

John shrugged, then turned and continued his walk uptown. He felt the blond man’s eyes on him until he reached the corner and took the left toward Broadway.

Back in his studio apartment, John unfolded the sheet of paper. He spared a quick glance for its original contents, then turned to the phone number he’d copied onto the other side. Noting that the number carried a Jersey area code, he transferred it to the calendar he kept on his computer, creating an appointment for 10:00 a.m. the next morning. For once, a recruiter had responded to his resume – not just responded, but requested a phone call at a specific time. For once, his overpriced phone with a million features, none of which apparently included crystal-clear reception, had offered a decent connection in the coffee shop. For once, he’d even had a pen at the ready. All he’d lacked was something to write on, and thus he’d claimed the abandoned sheet of simple white paper.

What could be so interesting about a left-behind piece of paper? Curious, he turned back to the printed side.

Half a dozen rows of gobbledygook ran beneath a phone number, each row containing pairs of letters and numbers, a few short rows, two groups of longer ones. This nonsense made the guy so anxious about his forgotten document? Well, legally, it was his no longer, under most states’ laws of abandoned property. John was pretty sure New York was no exception.

He let out a breath. Stop thinking like a lawyer. You’re an unemployed lawyer at best, an unsuccessful unemployed lawyer. Okay, so you passed the bar five years ago – first try, even – but New York seethes with a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately heartbeat. Check the box, thank you, but not much of a selling point on the old resume.

Legal BS aside, did he have an obligation to return the paper? John blew out his cheeks. Yeah, the guy’s arrogance pissed me off, made me pretend I didn’t have the damn thing. But if I’d given it to him, he might not have let me copy down the phone number. No, that’s just another excuse. One incidence of bad behavior shouldn’t have begotten a second. Perhaps the man hadn’t meant to abandon it but had stepped outside for a smoke.

John pulled out his thin blue phone and typed the four-number passcode to unlock it. Nope, missed it. He tried again, got it the second time. Sandy, he thought, I still don’t understand why you insist my phone needs a stupid password.

He found the camera app and took a few quick pictures of each side of the sheet. He checked to be sure they were readable, since the phone’s camera hadn’t flashed. Somewhere there had to be a setting that controlled the painfully bright LED, but John was confident he’d muck up something else about the phone if he fiddled around looking for the flash thingy.

He considered copying the photos to his computer, but he was rarely able to get the device to sync up when he connected the cord. Instead, he opened the photo app that let him email the photos to himself, one of the few smartphone tasks he’d mastered. A few touches of the screen, and the app assured him the pictures were on their way, somehow, without the need for a wand, requiring only the barely breathed incantation, “Please work.”

He looked once more at the sheet of paper. A code, maybe? Clandestine agents and spies and— No, not in the real world. More like a cipher game for some Sunday paper. Well, if so, the secret was safe. He’d never successfully decoded one of those cryptogram puzzles, and wasn’t inclined to start now.

He crossed out the phone number he’d written on the sheet, then folded it in half, with the hieroglyphics inside. He wrote, “For the blond man who lost this around 3PM.” He grabbed his coat and stuck the note in his pocket.

Waiting for a light on Broadway, he retrieved and examined the note again. Other than the now-obscured New Jersey number he’d jotted down, he didn’t understand a word. So no harm, no foul.

He slipped the page back into his jacket, confident he’d seen the last of it.

###

The Indian summer weather held as John began his morning walk around the Central Park reservoir. His knees could no more handle jogging than his temperament could handle rain, but a fast walk – fast even by New Yorker standards – and clear weather together served as an anodyne for the jobless blues.

Jobless? Not technically, just useful-jobless, meaningful-jobless, do-something-with-his-juris-doctor-degree-jobless. Filling in behind the bar in a comfortable and only slightly yuppified tavern off Bleecker brought in a small wage, tips that he reported accurately to the IRS, and once in a while a memorable story that someday he’d tell to his kids, or a lover, or someone.

The Brits described lawyers as “called to the bar.” John suspected they were onto something.

As he approached the turn north, not far from where the 85^th St. Transverse met the West Drive, a jogger approaching from behind bumped into him. He stumbled, and the jogger grabbed his shoulder, spun him around, and hit him in the stomach. John struggled for breath, trying not to fold as he lurched backward off the path. The jogger stepped behind him and looped a muscular forearm around his neck, giving John no time to cry out before slamming butt-first against the ground. He pumped his legs uselessly against the gravel and brush as the assailant dragged him backward, until a small copse of trees entwined with low brush screened them from the jogging path. He tried to roll over, but a fist plunging into his side drew a muffled grunt and forced him to curl against the pain. The attacker used hands and shoulders to force John up to his knees, then once more slipped a forearm around his windpipe.

“I thought you didn’t have that paper.” The sneer was audible with every hissed word.

John visualized the long, dirty blond hair, the cold eyes, the army jacket. Shallow breath, all he could manage, provided enough air for, “I put it….” Another shallow breath let him mumble, “…on the board in….”

“I know. Who’d you show it to?”

“No one.” One more breath, breathing coming slightly easier, the effect of the punches wearing off. “I wrote a phone number—“

“You should have told me on the street,” the man said, ice in his voice. “Before I had to follow you home.”

“I— I—“

The man slapped his other hand over John’s open mouth. “Don’t care. Too late now anyway. You stupid….” He didn’t finish the epithet, letting his voice trail away. John heard a bird chirping in the bush alongside the jogging path, smelled the attacker’s stale cigarette breath, thought he might walk away after all until his head was forced back sharply by a well-muscled hand centered on his Adam’s apple. The man’s other hand slapped against his face, groped once, found his mouth and covered it.

Shit. He was going to die over a stupid mistake, a piece of paper – and it was the guy’s own fault for leaving it behind. Struggling for breath, he clawed at the hand around his neck, squirming, unable to break the overpowering grip. The attacker was trying to crush his windpipe, break his neck, and keep him from screaming all at once.

John twisted his head, and the man’s smothering left hand slipped. John didn’t think, had no time to think, but bit down hard on the finger in front of his face. The knuckle crunched in his teeth.

“Son of a bitch,” the man spat, trying to pull his finger free. John tore at it, a dog attacking a bone. The man released his hold on John’s neck, and in desperation John snapped his head back hard. Bone-to-bone contact transmitted a distinct crunch that John hoped announced a broken nose. The impact had redoubled the force of his bite, as well.

The man tried to repress a yelp, the curse converted to a strained gargle. John realized that the attacker was no longer holding him. The strongest bind between them was the bleeding, battered digit the man was trying to tear from John’s teeth.

John released his bite and stumbled forward. The man swept at John’s feet with his long arms, grabbing him, tripping him. John caught his fall with his hands on the rough ground, pushed forward in desperation with his legs, and staggered on all fours into the brush guarding the jogging trail. His attacker grunted, only a few feet away, shuffling through the leaves. John lashed out backwards with his leg, hoping to catch the man’s head, or at least his arm, but his foot found nothing but air.

More sounds of movement behind him. John crawled on, pushing hard against the ground, tensing against the coming attack. Then, an opening ahead, daylight, push through the bushes, and he sprawled out onto the trail. A passing jogger bumped his shoulder and stumbled through three more steps before regaining his balance. The runner turned and stared down at the man who’d knocked him off stride.

John wondered what he saw. Clumsy runner or potential mugger? On his knees from a loose shoelace, from a tree root across the path, or from too much to drink way too early in the day?

They both said, “Sorry,” at the same time. John offered a sheepish laugh as he looked around for his attacker, certain the man was preparing to jump out at the first opportunity. He rubbed a hand across his mouth. It came away bloody.

“Did I do that?” the man asked.

John shook his head and muttered an apology rather than disclaim the blood as his own, or attempt to explain its origin. There’s a man in the bushes trying to kill me. Even in New York, that explanation might cause a raised eyebrow or two.

The jogger held out his hand. John responded with his own – the one without blood – and worked his way to his feet. Nothing broken, as far as he could tell. He tested his legs with a couple of run-in-place steps, willing his knees to lock at the end of each step, support his body rather than turning to jelly and dumping him back on the ground. One step, another. His stomach churned, but his knees held.

However much John detested running, his temporary companion offered safety in at least small numbers. Ex-military, perhaps, squat and muscular, sporting buzz-cut iron-gray hair framing an unlined face that had missed its morning shave. The logoed pale green jogging suit and $200 sneakers didn’t necessarily fit the picture, but John was grateful for the man’s presence. Right place, right time, lime track suit be damned. He began to jog alongside, on the inside, on the reservoir side, away from the menacing trees, trying not to look over his shoulder. The man wouldn’t attack him from behind with a witness so close, right?

Unless the other jogger was in on it, somehow. Fullback’s build, inappropriate clothing. Lower a shoulder, block him into the reservoir. No, that was crazy. Wasn’t it? But then so was the attack itself, not so much an attempted murder in Central Park – the headlines and news-station crawls made such crimes seem as commonplace as rush-hour subway delays – as the fact that he himself was the intended victim. That stuff happened to other people. Always had, until now.

Or did it happen at all? The mugging, sure. The blood in his mouth bore bitter witness. But murder? Come on. The product of an overzealous imagination, fueled by a fully legitimate fear. Had to be.

When they reached the path exit at 96^th Street, John’s temporary running partner didn’t stop, clearly intending to continue his circuit of the reservoir. John risked a quick look around. Various walkers and bike riders, a couple of other joggers, no blond man in an army jacket. He’d chance it. He said a quick goodbye and turned toward Central Park West. Despite feeling more winded than he had since his law-school days, days perennially on the run, inevitably late to class, he raced at top speed until the pedestrians and cars jumbled at the park entrance offered him cover, and safety.

He didn’t realize his cell phone was missing until he slapped the pockets of his worn blue sweats, feeling for his keys as he climbed the steps to his third-floor walkup.

Add a Comment

Submissions Welcome. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Jacob sends the first chapter of a YA story titledDeep Waters . The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

Acting had always been my great escape. Life’s funny that way, isn’t it? That the place I felt most at home in was when I was pretending to be someone else.

That was before I met Ethan Brooks. Our first meeting was physical to say the least. And it certainly wasn’t an act.

It took place at Manly Beach, which was a ridiculous notion to contemplate in the first place. Anyone who knows me understands that I don’t mix with the ocean. I was dead petrified of sharks, so I’d never bothered to get swimming lessons as a kid. I guess it explained why my technique was known to resemble that of a small puppy’s.

Yet there I was, my supposed ‘best friend’ Karen dragging me out into the surf. I was wearing an outrageously skimpy bikini, one that my parents would never have approved of. It was a sun-drenched day in Manly, with hundreds of people bathing in the heat. They were crammed into every square meter of the shoreline, using towels and umbrellas to mark out their territory. Seagulls dashed along the winds like fighter jets, taking refuge on the broken teeth of rocky outcrops. Newborn swells danced upon the sea surface.

Further away from the water, overpriced coffee shops did a roaring trade as all sorts of people ambled in and out of the cafes that dotted the beachfront. Car spaces were near impossible to come by, with rangers dished out tickets to people who got inventive with (snip)

Were you compelled to turn the page?

We have good, clear writing going for us and a likable voice, but then we have to consider what’s happening and story questions. What’s happening? A girl is going swimming on a beach. Story questions? None. Setup? Lots, including more description of the environment that I think we need.

This opening needs to start much later, IMO. The opening paragraphs refer to acting, yet none of the rest of the chapter has anything to do with her as an actress—so why is it here, leading off the story? As you read on, it would seem that this is a romance story, which is fine with me, I like romances. But, as far as this opening is concerned, it’s a “going swimming” story. I urge you to try to satisfy more of the checklist items to get us involved in the story, whatever it is.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Continued:

. . . their parking.

Volleyball games were also in full swing, and I almost tripped over Karen when I got caught up watching one. The sand was quite toasty under my feet. It made squishing noises every time I took a step, which got annoying after a while.

The sky stood unblemished, except for the sun, which coated the coastline in a bubbly golden tinge. It was the kind of day I could have spent reading a novel at home or doing something reclusive like that. I guess I wouldn’t have met Ethan though, so for the time being, we’ll just pretend that I’m not an introverted bookworm who rarely leaves the house for social occasions.

Karen hauled me deeper and deeper into the water. I’m talking tippy toes barely touching the sand level of deep, so this wasn’t exactly my comfort zone. Karen was acting naïve as always, “Your doing fine Jasmine, seriously, I don’t understand why your so scared of the water.”

As if to prove my point, a colossal six-foot wave burst out in front of us, stretching as far as I could see to the left and to the right. Karen later said she didn’t see the wave coming, or else she would have warned me of the fast approaching surfer upon it. Gee, thanks Karen. Nice to know who I can rely on. Even without a warning, I still had loads of time to move out of the way.

It was his smile that got me. So cheeky, yet seductive at the same time. I came to realise that it matched his personality to perfection.

As anyone could have predicted, the ensuing disaster was something special. The surfer launched himself backwards at the last second, and I ducked underneath his flying board. The wave barrelled over me, and the last thing I heard was Karen’s screams before I was swallowed by the underwater world. I tumbled around like a doll in a washing machine for a while, but to be honest, my head was in another dimension all together. Had he been smiling at me? We’d certainly made eye contact, that’s for sure. Or was he just a happy guy in general?

Everything about him was perfect. His olive skin glistening with the tears of the ocean. And his golden blonde hair, slightly ruffled in the wind, ah, just too cute! But I couldn’t deny, it was mostly his smile that was freaking me out. I mean seriously, I was supposed to be drowning in the ocean for crying out loud, and I all could think about were those sparkling white teeth, flashing like paparazzi cameras straight at me.

Eventually I came back to the surface. I was dazed, but I could just make out Karen shouting before another wave took me under. This time my heart skipped a beat. I couldn’t figure out which way was up or down. I started to thrash outwards in the water, but that only seemed to make things worse. My lungs were beginning to burn inside my chest. How long could you stay underwater before brain damage again? I had no idea, but I could feel myself fading fast. Everything was dark.

Then it went really dark…

I awoke from my slumber with dozens of people surrounding me. I was lying face up on the beach, the sun seeming unnaturally bright. I decided to sit up, which turned out to be a poor career move on my part. My stomach went all squishy, and moments later I was kneeling over, spewing up a significant amount of seawater. C’mon, Jasmine, don’t embarrass yourself too much.

When I was done, I collapsed back onto the sand. I looked up at the sky. Where had the sun gone? Instead, two grey eyes stared unwavering straight back into mine. They had a slight blue tinge to them, but more then that, an overflow of worry and concern. They were like two mini hurricanes, condemned to swirl around and around for the rest of eternity. I zoomed out of my trance, and that’s when I realised; this was the surfer who had gotten me into this whole mess! I should’ve been angry; instead I was captivated. He leaned in closer, so that only I could hear his whisper.

“Is everything alright?”

How could I possibly begin to answer that question.

Add a Comment

Submissions Welcome. If you’d like a fresh look at your opening chapter or prologue, please email your submission to me re the directions at the bottom of this post.

The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.

Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Download a free PDF copy here.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of this list before submitting to the Flogometer. I use it on my own work.

A First-page Checklist

It begins engaging the reader with the character
Something is happening. On a first page, this does NOT include a character musing about whatever.
The character desires something.
The character does something.
There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
It happens in the NOW of the story.
Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
What happens raises a story question.

Caveat: a strong first-person voice with the right content can raise powerful story questions and create page turns without doing all of the above. A recent submission worked wonderfully well and didn't deal with five of the things in the checklist.

Also, if you think about it, the same checklist should apply to the page where you introduce an antagonist.

Dylan sends the first chapter of Raise The Roof . The rest of the chapter follows the break.

Please vote and comment. It helps the writer.

“You didn’t even feed her dinner!” I accused Todd, bringing yet another fight about his lack of effort in our family to a culminating statement. “I have to be able to go out for the evening and trust that you can be here with her! You ignored her, she spent the evening in her room! She had a peanut butter and honey sandwich for dinner because you couldn’t, what...be BOTHERED? How about reaching out and talking to her? But for godsakes, at least fix her dinner!”

“You coddle her too much.” He said quietly, his eyes daring me to argue.

“Don’t make this about me. She has the right to expect --”

“She was being rude to me.”

“I don’t think that’s a legit--”

“She seemed fine and I was --”

“Please stop interrupting me.”

“--busy trying to manage a --”

“Please. Let me speak!”

“--that YOU caused, and since you can’t be bothered to do any work --”

“THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME. Will you LISTEN?”

He kept talking so I raised my hand up threatening to hit him, to get his attention so he would stop talking and let me finish telling him what I expected from him with regards to my (snip)

Were you compelled to turn the page?

Well, this opening page certainly starts with conflict. And, in a sense, the machine-gun dialogue does capture a nasty, yelling argument. Yet . . . what does this opening raise in story questions? Who’s right? Do I care? Somebody didn’t fix dinner for a child, but the child is apparently okay, having had a sandwich. If, instead, the maltreatment had created a problem for the child, then I'd be motivated to be more involved.

Give more thought to how you're delivering what is happening. This is an action scene, yet I felt that the opening paragraph leaned too much toward the “telling” side of things and used complicated wording. I could have also used just a tiny bit of scene-setting. Where are they? When are they? Notes:

“You didn’t even feed her dinner!” I accused Todd, bringing yet another fight about his lack of effort in our family to a culminating statement. “I have to be able to go out for the evening and trust that you can be here with her! You ignored her, she spent the evening in her room! She had a peanut butter and honey sandwich for dinner because you couldn’t, what...be BOTHERED? How about reaching out and talking to her? But for godsakes, at least fix her dinner!” The “accused” isn’t needed to explain the dialogue, it’s clear that what she says is an accusation. Better to show yelling or something such as that. The long part about a culminating statement didn’t seem like a natural thought for someone in the middle of a raging argument, it’s more of a summary and setup. Also, I got the point pretty quickly and the accusations began to feel redundant.

“You coddle her too much.” He said quietly, his eyes daring me to argue.

“Don’t make this about me. She has the right to expect --”

“She was being rude to me.”

“I don’t think that’s a legit--”

“She seemed fine and I was --”

“Please stop interrupting me.”

“--busy trying to manage a --”

“Please. Let me speak!”

“--that YOU caused, and since you can’t be bothered to do any work --” For me, there’s really no need to keep going with the point/counter-point, I get it. So why not cut it short and get going on story?

“THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME. Will you LISTEN?”

He kept talking so I raised my hand up threatening to hit him, to get his attention so he would stop talking and let me finish telling him what I expected from him with regards to my (snip) The narrative has a tendency to overexplain. This is a fight. When in action mode, you get more energy and movement when you keep the sentences short and active.

Comments, please?

For what it’s worth.

Ray

Submitting to the Flogometer:

Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):

your title
your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.

Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.

Continued:

. . . eleven-year-old daughter. Quick as lightning he grabbed my wrist, and then my other one as I reached for the hand holding tightly to my wrist. He pushed me up against the orange formica countertop and had me pinned.

“Let go of me.” I felt my eyes harden and my lips seal shut in a hard line as I suppressed the urge to shout. My jaw tightened and I attempted to wrestle my wrists free from Todd’s grip, but he was bigger and stronger and my arms were immobilized. Instinctively, I fell back on the defense I used as a preschooler. Once a biter, always a biter, I guess. I pulled my arms toward myself, and he didn’t resist or let go as I quickly leaned over and like an animal freeing itself from a trap, tried to bite his hand.

He let go to avoid being bit. We stood in a face-off, me leaning up against the countertops and him inches away from me, looming with barely contained anger for a moment that seemed to last a lifetime.

I started to explain again. “PLEASE to listen to me. I need to tell —“

“No. All you are going to do is try and explain something that isn’t even —“

“STOP TALKING. She is only elev—”

“You are being completely unreas—“

“LET. ME. TALK.” He went on.

I reached up to try and pinch his lips together. I was startled by my own impulse, so desperately childish, but I couldn’t take it anymore. As he dodged my attempt, he kept on talking, calling me names, and I felt myself expand with a rush of rage, not hearing a word. I didn’t care what he said. It was not my fault, or my daughter’s fault, that he didn’t make her dinner last night while I was at choir practice. There is no way he could justify that to me, and apparently no way I could get him to see that he was destroying our relationship every time he acted like a child regarding his stepdaughter.

I tried to push him away. I was flooded with anger and being prevented from expressing myself verbally. I was resorting to physical violence for the first time in the history of our conflicted relationship. This was not me!

He grabbed my wrists again but I yanked them away from him and bolted around the corner, and up the stairs to the master bedroom that overlooked the cove. The stairway was narrow, and covered in a dark red-and-maroon patterned carpet that was probably on clearance sometime in the 1970’s. Pine needles threaded through the weave, tracked in along with mud. It was impossible to fully keep the outside from coming in, living as close to it and within it as we did. I took the narrow steps two at a time, heart pounding. Get away get away get away my heart seemed to chant. At the top of the stairs I turned left into our bedroom and swung open the panel door in the two-foot high wall that led to the storage space in the eaves. I pulled out my old duffle bag, shook it to check for mice, and tossed it on to the bed once I was satisfied it was empty. Then I paused to take a breath. I loved this room. I loved the skylight over the king-sized bed, with the giant fir trees visible, and sometimes even the stars when it was clear. The stars were bright and went deep here on the island where there were no lights to outshine them at night.

I contemplated the empty duffle bag. I was done. Seriously. All the way done. I couldn’t take another day, another couples counseling appointment, or another fight with this toxic man. Apparently all the couples therapy in the world couldn’t take care of toxic waste. I’ll get my things together and then help Rae pack hers.

My whole body, every cell, felt like it was vibrating, but I was somewhat more calm as I rifled through drawers to choose the clothes I wore most often. I didn’t know where we were going to go. I didn’t know how we would be able to stay on the island without him. There wasn’t work here, not enough to support me as a single mother, and going off-island meant that I’d be away for twelve hours a day due to the ferry commute, so my daughter would be alone far too long. Either that or we move to the mainland. But I wanted to stay in British Columbia. I knew that much. I was four months from being eligible for citizenship in Canada. I loved this chosen country, I wasn’t going to give that up.

I felt the familiar trembling of the floor with each footstep as Todd came up the stairs and stood behind me. I kept folding and stuffing clothes.

“What are you doing.” His voice was quiet, softer but still chilly and I could feel my shoulders tense up in habitual bracing for what would come next.

“I’m leaving.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“I mean it this time.”

“You’ve said that before too.”

I stopped what I was doing, turned, and looked up at him. “You can’t seem to listen to me. You won’t let me talk to you. All you do is inter—”

“You don’t get it, do you? Your daughter is a snotty, lazy little bitch! And you don’t even SEE IT. She’s the reason you and I fight. She’s the reason I’m nearly bankrupt. She’s the reason nothing goes right. She’s a whiny, entitled little bitch and she’s going to cost me. I will not support her when she’s a good-for-nothing adult that just sits around all day. I won’t do it.”

I went still. Numb. He was so off the mark I was frozen with incredulity. How could it all be her fault? She’s a child. Speechless, I just stared at him, my throat getting tighter as my eyebrows drew together in complete awe that he could say such a thing.

A movement caught my attention and my eyes shifted from his piercing blue ones to my daughter’s, standing behind him in the doorway of her room across the hall. Her face was drained of color and she was as if made of stone.

If someone had told me that stopping time was possible, I would have believed them in that moment. Everything seemed to freeze and I could see it all. Everything I had put her through, the divorce from her dad, then moving here, and back and forth as I broke up and reunited with this tortured and wounded man I thought I loved, and now this. I knew any chance of them developing a relationship had been crushed just now, beyond any doubt. And I saw her spirit break. In that moment, all the cracks I had put in her heart in the past seven years came apart in slow motion. How could I have put her through it all? I was the worst mother in the world. I was sure of it.

I had to get out, and save my daughter’s spirit, and mine too. “Rae, pack up some clothes. We’re leaving.” I wish I could kick Todd out instead, but it was his house. And I wasn’t even going to fight for it. That was the biggest fear he had - that I would take everything he worked for in a divorce, because I could. That wasn’t me, though. I had no interest in fighting him for any of it. I just wanted out.

It would be heartbreaking to leave this old house, however. It had been built haphazardly, with rooms added on over the years by previous owners so that it was a kind of maze with mismatched flooring, various styles of interior doors, and plenty of access for the island’s rodent population. The house had settled into the lot, and grew moss on the outside walls and roof, and blended with the tall fir trees that rose all around it. It might not have been much to look at, but this house, and this place, gave me peace. There was never a time when I didn’t gaze out the windows, or step out onto the deck to smell the sea air, taking it all in with all my senses, that I worried I had made the wrong decision to come here to live with this man, marry him, and make a life here. Even though I had to put my career on hold during the two year immigration period, and become financially dependent on him, and even though we had the kind of relationship that took a lot of work, I always felt it was worth it for the bliss of living on this island.

My daughter was able to make her faerie houses in secret, hidden spots all over the two-and-a-half acres, was able to walk without worry and in perfect safety to the small school, where the kids got to play in the forest adjacent to the school grounds during recess. I was giving her the opportunity to grow up with a crime-free, small town life, with wildlife and nature right outside her door.

But four years living with Todd had taken a toll. I didn’t even know who I was anymore. I had just tried to bite my husband and had been close to hitting him a moment before that. What had I become?

Just then the land-line rang and everything snapped back into motion. Rae ran down the stairs to answer it and I pushed past Todd and followed. I had nothing more to say to Todd. Something snapped in me. I felt it happen. I had nothing left for him.

Rae was on her way back to me with the handset when I got to the bottom of the stairs. “It’s Grandma. Something’s wrong.”

“What!?” I took the phone and put it up to my ear as I went out the back door at the bottom of the stairs to get some privacy. “Mom? What’s wrong?”

My mother’s voice was hard to understand. She had the strained, high voice she gets when she is trying to talk through tears. “Oh honey! It’s Christopher!”

“Chrissy? What? What happened?”

“I don’t know. You’re sister called me...something happened and he’s at Harborview!” Her sobs overtook her and all the questions I had dissipated as my brain went into crisis-mode. Harborview was the trauma hospital. I knew I had to catch the next ferry and drive to Seattle. “Okay mom. I’m on my way.” Todd was right there and I handed the phone to him. “Here. Talk to my mom. Something’s happened to my nephew. I gotta pack and get the noon ferry.” I called to Rae as I came back inside.

“What’s going on?” She was scared and didn’t move. “MOM. Tell me what happened!”

I was already halfway back up the stairs to finish throwing things in my duffle. “I don’t know, sweetie. Chrissy is hurt. He’s at the hospital. We gotta go. Go get some things together, quick. The ferry leaves in an hour.”

Todd had gotten more information from my mom and he started packing a bag too. “I’m driving. You’re in no condition to make that trip.” I didn’t protest. He was right. And in this moment, I needed him. I nodded, putting our break up on hold for at least the weekend. While he packed he told me what my mom was able to share, “I guess he went unconscious this morning, he was fine and then he wasn’t. He’s on life support but they don’t think he’ll make it. Your sister and Charles are there with Bailey and Kaitlin, and your mom is on the way. They’re deciding whether or not to donate his organs.”

Jesus. “Wait…so he’s DEAD?”

“Honey, I’m so sorry….”

I couldn’t even cry. I went frozen. Chrissy’s dead. How does this happen? My sweet, funny, caring, curly-haired nephew that was the comic relief in our fucked-up family was gone.

Bags packed, we loaded us all into the van, including the dog. I had no idea how long we would be gone for, and no idea where we were going to stay, but there was no time to find a dog-sitter so our one-hundred-and-thirty-five-pound Newfie was coming with. It occurred to me that it was a good thing she rolled in a dead sea star yesterday, because she’s freshly bathed and brushed, and ready to be a visitor in someone’s house.

The drive took six silent hours because of afternoon traffic at the border. We drove straight to Harborview, and found the room, packed with Chrissy’s pre-pubescent friends, his twin sister and older sister, and flanking his either side were my sister and her husband.

My mom was in the far corner, alone, standing as if being punished, and when she saw me she weaved through the people and held me tight, sobbing. Internally I rolled my eyes. When was there ever a time when I didn’t have to put my mom’s care first? I couldn’t fall apart here, not with my sister having her life ripped away from her right in front of us, and my mom putting on this display in front of everyone was embarrassing. Did she not understand how to put it all on the back burner until she was not in front of those in worse pain that she was? So I held my mom, apologized with a knowing look filled with pain and compassion as my sister caught my glance. “Okay mom. C’mon. Take a breath.” I pulled away from her. “Mom can you just…it’s going to be okay. Just…let’s be here for Jayne, okay?”

She took a shaky breath. “I just don’t know how I’m going to get through this…first your dad, and now Christopher…I just….” I held her some more, and whispered reassurance until her sobs quieted again.

She pulled away and wiped at her eyes, chin continuing to tremble, and spoke too loud for the quiet, still room. “Happy Birthday, Anna!” Oh, crap. It was my birthday tomorrow.

“MOM!” I couldn’t believe this. I tried to keep my voice low while still putting anger in my tone. “Not the right time or place, Mom! GOD.” I had completely forgotten. And didn’t want to remember my birthday now. “It doesn’t matter!”

The room might have gotten more silent except for the rhythmic whoosh of the ventilator. Chrissy looked like he was sleeping, but far too still for even that. I tiptoed my way over kids sitting on the floor towards my sister. “Oh Jaynie. I’m so sorry.” She said nothing, as I pulled her to me, but her tears fell and I could feel her body shake as she buried her head in my shoulder. “What the hell happened? I mean, you don’t have to tell me now, but…” I hoped she would, even though I couldn’t imagine she’d be able to. I looked back towards Rae and Todd to see them still in the doorway, awkwardly looking around. My mom had gone to Rae and was stroking her head. Rae leaned back into her grandma and took comfort from her. Good. Mom needed to be needed and that was one relationship that hadn’t been rocked to its core in the last seven years. Todd looked uncomfortable, and I just didn’t care. I turned back to my sister who was explaining that early that morning, Chrissy had gotten up early to finish his math homework, but when she had gotten up an hour later, he was on the couch, unconscious, with blood seeping from his ear. She’d called the ambulance, and they’d been here since. The doctors told her he’d had an aneurysm burst in his brain and suffered a stroke. He had a 2% chance of survival but all indications were that he was dead. They’d decided to donate his organs because they felt that’s what Chrissy would have wanted. He was always rooting for the underdog, and wanting to help people. They were waiting for me and Rae to get there to say good bye before sending him off to harvest his organs.

It was a lot to take in. She moved away so I could move closer. I touched Chrissy’s arm, and felt it’s solid, heaviness and it felt so…dead…I was surprised his skin was still warm.

“Chrissy, sweet boy. I love you. I wish….I wish you could stay. I will miss watching you grow, I will miss you making me laugh, and I wish you could stay to be Rae’s best cousin. I love you….peaceful journey, kiddo.” I kissed him, and then the tears came. The quiet, racking sobs that wouldn’t be stopped. I turned and Rae was right there. I clung to her, for a moment and then guided her to her cousin. Birthday’s within two months of each other, they had grown up together until we moved to Canada, so the last four years they had not been as close, but I knew this would be the second great loss - after my dad - of my young daughter’s life. My heart was breaking with it all. Too much loss. Just too much.

I left Rae in the arms of her Aunt Jayne, and ran out of the room, and down the emergency stairway three flights to the exit to the parking garage. Out of breath, comforted by my heart pounding adrenaline rush, I found the car and opened the van door and threw myself into the comfort of my big, lovable dog. “Oh Morgan. Chrissy’s dead!” And the sobs renewed. Her sweet dog smell comforted my senses as I let it all go.

My mind was swirling with what was happening. It was all surreal. I felt like there was a curtain between me and reality and I was floating through this experience like it was a dream.

But I didn’t wake up. The week continued. We stayed at my sister’s best friends’ house and helped with logistical things, planning the service, and being a buffer between my sister and my mom. They never did get along well. I understood them both, and fit right back into my role as peacemaker. Todd stepped in and was supportive and loving and kind and practical. It was all back to normal, but with everything changed.

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