Flogging the Quill

Flog a 99¢ BookBubber 340 Terrence McCauley—would you pay to turn the page?

Change in flogging focus:It occurs to me that free books have a very low bar to clear for making a “sale,” and their first pages don’t have to do much to clear that hurdle. But ask me to pay for a book? There’s a challenge. So I’m switching to flogging books that cost, starting with the 99¢ variety. The challenge is not that you would pay 99¢ on the basis of a single page, but if you would go to Amazon in order to turn the page a read more with the idea in mind that you might buy it.

Writers, send your prologue/first chapter to FtQ for a “flogging” critique. Email as an attachment. In your email, include your name, permission to use the first page, and, if it’s okay, permission to post the rest of the prologue/chapter.

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’s educational to take a hard look at their first pages. A poll follows concerning the need for an editor.

When you evaluate today’s opening page, consider how well it uses elements from the checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling.

Donald Maass, literary agent and author of many books on writing, says, “Independent editor Ray Rhamey’s first-page checklist is an excellent yardstick for measuring what makes openings interesting.”

A First-page Checklist

• It begins to engage the reader with the character
• Something is wrong/goes wrong or challenges the character
• The character desires something.
• The character takes action. Can be internal or external action: thoughts, deeds, emotions. This does NOT include musing about whatever.
• 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.
• The one thing it must do: raise a story question.

---

This is the opening page of Chapter One in Get Out of Town. A poll follows the opening page below. If you don’t want to turn the page, then I’m thinking that this author should have hired an editor.

Montana Territory, early spring 1889

It was just after nightfall when Mackey found the Hancock camp. The sounds of their drunken laughter were carried on the night wind.

Mackey brought Adair to a halt and climbed down from the saddle. There were no trees or bushes nearby to tie the horse to, but the black Arabian had been in enough fights at her owner’s side that the sound of gunfire no longer startled her.

He crept up the edge of a box canyon where Henry Hancock and his gang had been hiding out since robbing the First National Bank in Tylerville two days before. They had done a poor job of hiding themselves and seemed to be in no hurry to run. Their camp was spread out beneath a craggy outcropping on the canyon floor about twenty feet below the spot from where Mackey watched them. They had a big fire going and from the way they were staggering, it looked like they had already killed one jug and were starting work on another.

Mackey wondered if the corn liquor helped dull their memory of the two guards they had killed in the bank back in Tylerville. There was some dispute among the locals as to whether or not Henry Hancock had killed both men himself. The dead men’s widows clung to that belief, hoping a death by a dangerous man like Henry Hancock would give some merit to their deaths.

But Aaron Mackey didn’t care. The new U.S. Marshal of the Montana Territory already had a federal warrant from Judge Forester for Hancock’s arrest on murders that had taken place in three other bank robberies elsewhere in the territory. A couple of dead guards tacked on the list of charges would not make the drop at the end of the hangman’s rope any harder on him. If Hancock lived long enough to hang, which was doubtful. The gang was drunk and dug in deep. The odds of them coming along peacefully were slim and the mandate from Mr. Frazer Rice had been simple: kill them all. The Hancocks were proving to be more than a nuisance to (snip)

You can read more here. This novel earned 4.8 stars on Amazon. I’ve been a fan of Westerns since I was a kid and had hopes for this one. While there are good story questions raised, the character doesn’t seem to be in real jeopardy, and his opponents are drunk and unsuspecting. The narrative dips in and out of third person close, and the writing is on the clunky side, with information dumped into what should be a limited point of view. Gets a pass from me. Your thoughts?

Cover critique

The colors and the art are eye-catching. They communicate genre just fine, and the image of a body over a saddle sure says there’s story inside. The “Western” title font is a bit cliché, but it works, and the author name is strong. Works for me. Your thoughts?

Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling

Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy

Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.

Flog a 99¢ BookBubber 339 Cath Staincliffe—would you pay to turn the page?

Change in flogging focus:It occurs to me that free books have a very low bar to clear for making a “sale,” and their first pages don’t have to do much to clear that hurdle. But ask me to pay for a book? There’s a challenge. So I’m switching to flogging books that cost, starting with the 99¢ variety. The challenge is not that you would pay 99¢ on the basis of a single page, but if you would go to Amazon in order to turn the page a read more with the idea in mind that you might buy it.

Writers, send your prologue/first chapter to FtQ for a “flogging” critique. Email as an attachment. In your email, include your name, permission to use the first page, and, if it’s okay, permission to post the rest of the prologue/chapter.

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’s educational to take a hard look at their first pages. A poll follows concerning the need for an editor.

When you evaluate today’s opening page, consider how well it uses elements from the checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling.

Donald Maass, literary agent and author of many books on writing, says, “Independent editor Ray Rhamey’s first-page checklist is an excellent yardstick for measuring what makes openings interesting.”

A First-page Checklist

• It begins to engage the reader with the character
• Something is wrong/goes wrong or challenges the character
• The character desires something.
• The character takes action. Can be internal or external action: thoughts, deeds, emotions. This does NOT include musing about whatever.
• 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.
• The one thing it must do: raise a story question.

---

This is the opening page of chapter one in Ruthless. A poll follows the opening page below. If you don’t want to turn the page, then I’m thinking that this author should have hired an editor.

Rachel stopped at the brow of the hill to catch her breath, a stitch in her side and sweat trickling down her back. Panting, she bent double, touched her toes then straightened up.

It was almost dark and she watched the streetlights come on in the valley below, delineating the ring road and the motorway and the web of residential streets that sprawled up the sides of the hills. Mills and churches and tower blocks were dotted here and there, rising among the terraced housing.

She hadn’t brought a torch and the track back to the car would be treacherous in the gloom, rutted and riven by tree roots and the gnarled heather that clung to the slope.

Rachel felt something nip her neck and waved a hand to swat it away. Gnats.

As the darkness deepened it seemed to bring a silence with it, an interruption of the distant traffic sounds so she could hear the tick of the ground cooling and something rustle in the foliage behind her.

A flash of black disturbed the air by her face and she cried out then felt like a right tit. A bat, that was all. Fetching its supper.

The glow caught her eyes, down in the west of town. A rich orange that reminded her of bonfire night. Looked too big to be a bonfire, wrong time of year – May. Perhaps a car had been torched, the petrol tank going up in flames. Joyriders, some lowlife toe-rags, getting rid of a (snip)

You can read more here. This novel earned 4.6 stars on Amazon. There's no immediate peril for the character, but as details collect--the nip on her neck, a bat, a large fire out of season--a sense of impending trouble builds. So, as an opener, I think it works. However, I did read on in my sample and by the end of the chapter nothing much had happened to her. She makes it home, her only problem having tripped and bloodied her knees. Sort of a bait and switch, IMO. Your thoughts?

Cover critique

The cover works pretty well in some ways. The color establishes a dark mood, and the running figure suggests story and trouble ahead. On the other hand, the photo of the two people in the circle is ineffective in the thumbnail though it might work on the print cover, and the author name is too slight to help establish her brand. It's acceptable, but could be stronger. Your thoughts?

Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling

Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy

Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.

Change in flogging focus:It occurs to me that free books have a very low bar to clear for making a “sale,” and their first pages don’t have to do much to clear that hurdle. But ask me to pay for a book? There’s a challenge. So I’m switching to flogging books that cost, starting with the 99¢ variety. The challenge is not that you would pay 99¢ on the basis of a single page, but if you would go to Amazon in order to turn the page a read more with the idea in mind that you might buy it.

Writers, send your prologue/first chapter to FtQ for a “flogging” critique. Email as an attachment. In your email, include your name, permission to use the first page, and, if it’s okay, permission to post the rest of the prologue/chapter.

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’s educational to take a hard look at their first pages. A poll follows concerning the need for an editor.

When you evaluate today’s opening page, consider how well it uses elements from the checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling.

Donald Maass, literary agent and author of many books on writing, says, “Independent editor Ray Rhamey’s first-page checklist is an excellent yardstick for measuring what makes openings interesting.”

A First-page Checklist

• It begins to engage the reader with the character
• Something is wrong/goes wrong or challenges the character
• The character desires something.
• The character takes action. Can be internal or external action: thoughts, deeds, emotions. This does NOT include musing about whatever.
• 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.
• The one thing it must do: raise a story question.

---

This is the opening page of chapter one in Ruthless. A poll follows the opening page below. If you don’t want to turn the page, then I’m thinking that this author should have hired an editor.

Rachel stopped at the brow of the hill to catch her breath, a stitch in her side and sweat trickling down her back. Panting, she bent double, touched her toes then straightened up.

It was almost dark and she watched the streetlights come on in the valley below, delineating the ring road and the motorway and the web of residential streets that sprawled up the sides of the hills. Mills and churches and tower blocks were dotted here and there, rising among the terraced housing.

She hadn’t brought a torch and the track back to the car would be treacherous in the gloom, rutted and riven by tree roots and the gnarled heather that clung to the slope.

Rachel felt something nip her neck and waved a hand to swat it away. Gnats.

As the darkness deepened it seemed to bring a silence with it, an interruption of the distant traffic sounds so she could hear the tick of the ground cooling and something rustle in the foliage behind her.

A flash of black disturbed the air by her face and she cried out then felt like a right tit. A bat, that was all. Fetching its supper.

The glow caught her eyes, down in the west of town. A rich orange that reminded her of bonfire night. Looked too big to be a bonfire, wrong time of year – May. Perhaps a car had been torched, the petrol tank going up in flames. Joyriders, some lowlife toe-rags, getting rid of a (snip)

You can read more here. This novel earned 4.6 stars on Amazon. There's no immediate peril for the character, but as details collect--the nip on her neck, a bat, a large fire out of season--a sense of impending trouble builds. So, as an opener, I think it works. However, I did read on in my sample and by the end of the chapter nothing much had happened to her. She makes it home, her only problem having tripped and bloodied her knees. Sort of a bait and switch, IMO. Your thoughts?

Cover critique

The cover works pretty well in some ways. The color establishes a dark mood, and the running figure suggests story and trouble ahead. On the other hand, the photo of the two people in the circle is ineffective in the thumbnail though it might work on the print cover, and the author name is too slight to help establish her brand. It's acceptable, but could be stronger. Your thoughts?

Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling

Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy

Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.

Flog a 99¢ BookBubber 338 Douglas Jackson—would you pay to turn the page?

Change in flogging focus:It occurs to me that free books have a very low bar to clear for making a “sale,” and their first pages don’t have to do much to clear that hurdle. But ask me to pay for a book? There’s a challenge. So I’m switching to flogging books that cost, starting with the 99¢ variety. The challenge is not that you would pay 99¢ on the basis of a single page, but if you would go to Amazon in order to turn the page a read more with the idea in mind that you might buy it.

Writers, send your prologue/first chapter to FtQ for a “flogging” critique. Email as an attachment. In your email, include your name, permission to use the first page, and, if it’s okay, permission to post the rest of the prologue/chapter.

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’s educational to take a hard look at their first pages. A poll follows concerning the need for an editor.

When you evaluate today’s opening page, consider how well it uses elements from the checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling.

Donald Maass, literary agent and author of many books on writing, says, “Independent editor Ray Rhamey’s first-page checklist is an excellent yardstick for measuring what makes openings interesting.”

A First-page Checklist

• It begins to engage the reader with the character
• Something is wrong/goes wrong or challenges the character
• The character desires something.
• The character takes action. Can be internal or external action: thoughts, deeds, emotions. This does NOT include musing about whatever.
• 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.
• The one thing it must do: raise a story question.

---

This is the opening page of the prologue in Glory of Rome. A poll follows the opening page below. If you don’t want to turn the page, then I’m thinking that this author should have hired an editor.

Owain Lawhir, High King of the Ordovices, suppressed a shudder as he watched the scene unfold. A warrior chief in all his splendour, standing a head taller than most men, with a heavy gold torc at his neck and an iron sword in its gilded scabbard at his waist, even he never felt at ease in this place. The great stones of the circle stood out like rotting teeth against the dying roseate light of the early summer sun. At the precise centre a similar stone, a sword-length deep and four long, lay horizontal, its upper face worn to a uniform surface by countless struggling bodies. Specks of light glittered where tiny chips of a different rock caught the last of the sunlight, but mostly the stone – the altar – was matt black where the blood of the two bulls slaughtered at Beltane had congealed to a stinking, hardened crust. In ages past some long-dead craftsman had embedded a pair of iron rings at each end.

Five druids in white robes stood facing the twin pillars of the circle’s entrance. Three were men in their prime, tall and forbidding, expressions impassive and emotionless, their stillness a hint of the iron discipline that ruled them. Another was a mere youth, and despite his attempts to emulate his elders he emanated an air of agitation that told the king the part he was to play in this ceremony. These four flanked the fifth priest, a shrunken, stunted figure by comparison. For the moment he kept his face hidden, but a shock of snow-white hair framed the back of his skull like a sunburst and he stood with his back hunched as if a great burden weighed (snip)

You can read more here. This novel earned 4.7 stars on Amazon. Given that it is a historical novel and a certain amount of world building is needed, it seems to me that the author could have generated more story tension than there is here. The character is tense, but we don't know why, nor do we know if there are nasty consequences ahead for him. There was not enough for me to earn a turn of the page on Amazon to see if there was more that would earn 99 cents. Your thoughts?

Cover critique

While the cover is perfectly clear and delivers the genre and other elements, for me there was little energy or "heat" in the image shown. I'm giving it a "meh." Your thoughts?

Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling

Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy

Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.

Away

Traveling today to go see new grandson and help the family. I'll be back.

R

Flog a 99¢ BookBubber 337 Linda Barnes—would you pay to turn the page?

Change in flogging focus:It occurs to me that free books have a very low bar to clear for making a “sale,” and their first pages don’t have to do much to clear that hurdle. But ask me to pay for a book? There’s a challenge. So I’m switching to flogging books that cost, starting with the 99¢ variety. The challenge is not that you would pay 99¢ on the basis of a single page, but if you would go to Amazon in order to turn the page a read more with the idea in mind that you might buy it.

Writers, send your prologue/first chapter to FtQ for a “flogging” critique. Email as an attachment. In your email, include your name, permission to use the first page, and, if it’s okay, permission to post the rest of the prologue/chapter.

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’s educational to take a hard look at their first pages. A poll follows concerning the need for an editor.

When you evaluate today’s opening page, consider how well it uses elements from the checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling.

Donald Maass, literary agent and author of many books on writing, says, “Independent editor Ray Rhamey’s first-page checklist is an excellent yardstick for measuring what makes openings interesting.”

A First-page Checklist

• It begins to engage the reader with the character
• Something is wrong/goes wrong or challenges the character
• The character desires something.
• The character takes action. Can be internal or external action: thoughts, deeds, emotions. This does NOT include musing about whatever.
• 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.
• The one thing it must do: raise a story question.

---

This is the opening page of Chapter One in Deep Pockets, a mystery. A poll follows the opening page below. If you don’t want to turn the page, then I’m thinking that this author should have hired an editor.

I hate running errands. I put them off and put them off, and then one morning the cat’s got no food, there are zero stamps on the roll, and I realize I own no underwear minus holes. I understand some people like to shop for clothes, do it for pure pleasure and entertainment, but I count it as one more damned errand. When the tasks mount up and I can’t put it off any longer, I make a list and set forth to Harvard Square. There are less pricey areas, granted, but the Square has its own post office and lies within spitting distance of my house.

I waited in line at the post office till my feet felt like they’d grow roots. I bought panties on sale at the Gap, mourned the passing of Sage’s, where they’d always carried tons of my cat’s favorite Fancy Feast, bought a few cans of an off-price substitute at the CVS instead. The wind tangled my hair, which helped me recall a shampoo shortage and led to cart-filling thoughts of toothpaste, soap, and lip balm.

I first noticed him as I was waiting, along with thirty-five other assorted students, panhandlers, and shoppers, for the scramble light at the intersection of Brattle and Mass Ave. His gaze lingered a moment too long and I wondered briefly whether I’d met him at a party or exchanged small talk with the man at a bar. He wasn’t especially noticeable, a middle-aged light-skinned black man in a well-cut tweed jacket and charcoal slacks. Didn’t hold a candle fashionwise to the young guy on his left wearing buckskin fringe. Still, I had the feeling I’d seen (snip)

You can read more here. This novel earned 4.3 stars on Amazon. There are times when voice is as much a reason to turn the page as tension, and this opening has that kind of entertaining voice. And there’s the beginning of tension with the man who eyes her. Readers know that will lead to something that likely means trouble for the protagonist. Along with the cover image of a woman with a gun in her hand, for me there was enough to earn a turn of the page on Amazon to see if there was more that would earn 99 cents. Your thoughts?

Cover critique

A strong cover with a number of things going for it. The dark silhouette carrying a gun against a bright background is eye-catching. The gun creates an expectation of drama inside. The author name and title are well done, and for me tilting the title and series identifier draw the eye and add tension to the cover. Your thoughts?

Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling

Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy

Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.

Flog a 99¢ BookBubber 335 Claire Allen—would you pay to turn the page?

Change in BookBub flogging focus:It occurs to me that free books have a very low bar to clear for making a “sale,” and their first pages don’t have to do much to clear that hurdle. But ask me to pay for a book? There’s a challenge. So I’m switching to flogging books that cost, starting with the 99¢ variety.

Writers, send your prologue/first chapter to FtQ for a “flogging” critique. Email as an attachment. In your email, include your name, permission to use the first page, and, if it’s okay, permission to post the rest of the prologue/chapter.

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’s educational to take a hard look at their first pages. A poll follows concerning the need for an editor.

When you evaluate today’s opening page, consider how well it uses elements from the checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling.

Donald Maass, literary agent and author of many books on writing, says, “Independent editor Ray Rhamey’s first-page checklist is an excellent yardstick for measuring what makes openings interesting.”

A First-page Checklist

• It begins to engage the reader with the character
• Something is wrong/goes wrong or challenges the character
• The character desires something.
• The character takes action. Can be internal or external action: thoughts, deeds, emotions. This does NOT include musing about whatever.
• 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.
• The one thing it must do: raise a story question.

---

Next is the prologue from Forget Me Not, a mystery. A poll follows the opening page below. If you don’t want to turn the page, then I’m thinking that this author should have hired an editor.

I disappeared on a Wednesday afternoon, in June, right in the middle of the heatwave. I was there one minute and the next I was gone. You might think it hard to disappear in broad daylight. To be visible and then, just seconds later, to be invisible. To have a life, and then moments later to have lost it. It wasn’t hard at all.

It was much too easy.

They found my shoes. Well, one of them, turned upside down and covered in dust. They found my car, unlocked. The driver’s window down. My keys in the ignition. My weekly shop melting and rotting in the boot. Cooking in the unspeakable heat.

They found my bag, my purse, my bank cards. My phone. The memorial card with my mother’s picture on it and some rhyming words of comfort, which were supposed to make me feel better about the fact she’d died of breast cancer in her sixties.

They found traces of blood – mine – on the ground outside. Minute droplets. They found traces of unidentified seminal fluid on the back seat, too. Not my husband’s profile. Evidence of a sexual assault, maybe?

Or maybe not.

Scuff marks on the ground, the ground kicked up. Vomit on the patchy, faded tarmac. Smeared fingerprints – mine. Signs of a struggle. Half a packet of Wotsits crisps, crushed into (snip)

You can read more here. This novel earned 4.5 stars on Amazon. Here’s another prologue that breaks the pattern of being just undramatic backstory/exposition. In a mystery the trope is to have a body on the first page. This goes that one better with the body talking to us. The writing is strong, as is the voice. The use of detail such as the Wotsits crisps create a reality. Story questions are compelling. I thought this worth a page-turn. Interestingly, when you read on into the sample on Amazon, you realize that the murdered woman you learn about in the first chapter is not the person in the prologue. Intriguing. Your thoughts?

Cover critique

Strong, vivid colors and the image of the abandoned shoes next to a knife create both a mood and presents story elements that raise story questions. Nicely done. Your thoughts?

Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling

Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy

Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.

log a 99¢ BookBubber 334 Alison James—would you pay to turn the page?

Change in flogging focus:It occurs to me that free books have a very low bar to clear for making a “sale,” and their first pages don’t have to do much to clear that hurdle. But ask me to pay for a book? There’s a challenge. So I’m switching to flogging books that cost, starting with the 99¢ variety.

Writers, send your prologue/first chapter to FtQ for a “flogging” critique. Email as an attachment. In your email, include your name, permission to use the first page, and, if it’s okay, permission to post the rest of the prologue/chapter.

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’s educational to take a hard look at their first pages. A poll follows concerning the need for an editor.

When you evaluate today’s opening page, consider how well it uses elements from the checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling.

Donald Maass, literary agent and author of many books on writing, says, “Independent editor Ray Rhamey’s first-page checklist is an excellent yardstick for measuring what makes openings interesting.”

A First-page Checklist

• It begins to engage the reader with the character
• Something is wrong/goes wrong or challenges the character
• The character desires something.
• The character takes action. Can be internal or external action: thoughts, deeds, emotions. This does NOT include musing about whatever.
• 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.
• The one thing it must do: raise a story question.

---

Next is the prologue from The Man She Married, a psychological thriller. A poll follows the opening page below. If you don’t want to turn the page, then I’m thinking that this author should have hired an editor.

I approach the open coffin, balanced on trestles at the centre of the silent room. Heavy velvet drapes are drawn discreetly over the window, and in the corner a lamp is lit, next to an arrangement of silk flowers on a tall stand.

As I draw closer, I glimpse the tip of his nose against the pleated white satin of the coffin lining. The sight is so odd and other-worldly, it makes my head swim and the carpeted floor feel unsteady under my feet. My heart is pounding as I get close enough to see him; all of him.

I have no idea who gave the undertaker the suit and tie he’s wearing; I only know it wasn’t me. I take in the curve of his mouth, the sweep of hair from his forehead, the angles of his profile. On his left hand is a wedding ring. I remove my own wedding ring and drop it into the coffin.

The only thought in my mind is how this is like one of those riddles you find inside a Christmas cracker. Because the man lying inside my husband’s coffin is not my husband.

He’s a total stranger.

You can read more here. This novel earned 4.4 stars on Amazon. Ordinarily I dislike prologues, but this one is strong. Short and to the point, it raises huge story questions. The writing and voice are professional, promising good storytelling ahead. As an opener, this gets my vote. However, when I read more with Amazon’s Look Inside feature . . .

Inside, the first chapter does a good job of introducing a new element of suspense—it features the protagonist (we assume that since there was no name used in the prologue, but it’s a good bet) and she learns that she’s pregnant. Her husband is on the way home, she’s very happy. Someone arrives at the house. When she opens the door, it’s not her husband standing there. So far, so good. But then . . .

Then we’re plunged into three--three!--chapters of backstory. What a waste. All the tension generated by the prologue and first chapter has vanished. Thus the value of Look Inside—I might have spent 99 cents on this based on the prologue alone, and definitely with the first chapter added in, but not after seeing three chapters of backstory. Your thoughts?

Cover critique

With the exception of the “don’t see me” treatment of the author’s name, this was a strong cover for me. The title is loud and clear, and the bloody ring promises suspense inside. I think this one works. Your thoughts?

Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling

Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy

Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.

Flog a 99¢ BookBubber 333 Mark Edward Langley—would you pay to turn the page?

Change in flogging focus:It occurs to me that free books have a very low bar to clear for making a “sale,” and their first pages don’t have to do much to clear that hurdle. But ask me to pay for a book? There’s a challenge. So I’m switching to flogging books that cost, starting with the 99¢ variety.

Writers, send your prologue/first chapter to FtQ for a “flogging” critique. Email as an attachment. In your email, include your name, permission to use the first page, and, if it’s okay, permission to post the rest of the prologue/chapter.

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’s educational to take a hard look at their first pages. A poll follows concerning the need for an editor.

When you evaluate today’s opening page, consider how well it uses elements from the checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling.

Donald Maass, literary agent and author of many books on writing, says, “Independent editor Ray Rhamey’s first-page checklist is an excellent yardstick for measuring what makes openings interesting.”

A First-page Checklist

• It begins to engage the reader with the character
• Something is wrong/goes wrong or challenges the character
• The character desires something.
• The character takes action. Can be internal or external action: thoughts, deeds, emotions. This does NOT include musing about whatever.
• 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.
• The one thing it must do: raise a story question.

---

Next is the first chapter opening from the man who smiled, a mystery. A poll follows the opening page below. If you don’t want to turn the page, then I’m thinking that this author have hired an editor.

There was always something he liked about the stillness of a high-desert night, black as pitch and scattered with stars. Its stillness seemed to allow other people’s minds to run wild with all sorts of imaginative notions. Either the night was cool and magical, filled with the serenity people dreamed of attaining, or it was inhabited by a litany of creepy-crawlies, ancient ghosts and demons that terrified the mind into a kind of supernatural rigor mortis. But that, he imagined, depended on which godforsaken sandbox you were being forced to play the game of survival in and in what clusterfucked part of the world it was located.

He navigated his way through the sandy terrain’s juniper bushes, buckwheat tufts, and uneven footing, creating his own path leading from the vehicle he had tucked safely away in a small wash a few klicks away. Sprouts of Mormon tea and rice grass crunched under his boots as he made his way toward a tall sandstone ledge he had determined would give him the best viewpoint and angle of fire. He climbed over large chunks of rock that remained where they had fallen centuries before, picking his hand- and footholds carefully, as he lurched his way up the craggy wall, all the time trying to keep the battle rattle to a minimum— not that these kids would even know what that was or what it sounded like. Hell, they weren’t even old enough to enlist. But they were old enough to be a problem.

When he reached the top of the ledge, he let his biceps carry all of his weight as he lifted (snip)

You can read more here. This novel earned 4.3 stars on Amazon. Why do authors like to start a novel, in this case a mystery novel, with musing? It might lend a little to character, but what about story? I think mystery readers are here for story first, at least at the start.

There is a story question here—they guy is hunting, and it seems that kids are his target. Feels like we’re opening with a bad guy. There’s a lot of finely tuned detail in the description, a bit much for me. I looked ahead, and the description is voluminous at a micro level. There’s that, and the story question wasn’t strong enough to get me to reach into my pocket. I’m keeping my money. Your thoughts?

Cover critique

It's a good title, and I think it works nicely against that background, and the author name is miserably small. The trouble with an image of darkness is that it’s darned hard to understand what you’re looking at. This is, I think, a desert scene . . . but is it? Who knows. So I’d give this one a pass. Your thoughts?

Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling

Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy

Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.

Flog a 99¢ BookBubber 332 Henning Mankell—would you pay to turn the page?

Change in flogging focus:It occurs to me that free books have a very low bar to clear for making a “sale,” and their first pages don’t have to do much to clear that hurdle. But ask me to pay for a book? There’s a challenge. So I’m switching to flogging books that cost, starting with the 99¢ variety.

Writers, send your prologue/first chapter to FtQ for a “flogging” critique. Email as an attachment. In your email, include your name, permission to use the first page, and, if it’s okay, permission to post the rest of the prologue/chapter.

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’s educational to take a hard look at their first pages. A poll follows concerning the need for an editor.

When you evaluate today’s opening page, consider how well it uses elements from the checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling.

Donald Maass, literary agent and author of many books on writing, says, “Independent editor Ray Rhamey’s first-page checklist is an excellent yardstick for measuring what makes openings interesting.”

A First-page Checklist

• It begins to engage the reader with the character
• Something is wrong/goes wrong or challenges the character
• The character desires something.
• The character takes action. Can be internal or external action: thoughts, deeds, emotions. This does NOT include musing about whatever.
• 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.
• The one thing it must do: raise a story question.

---

Next is the first chapter opening from the man who smiled, a mystery. A poll follows the opening page below. If you don’t want to turn the page, then I’m thinking that this author have hired an editor.

Fog.

A silent, stealthy beast of prey. Even though I have lived all my life in Skåne, where fog is forever closing in and shutting out the world, I’ll never get used to it.

9 p.m., October 11, 1993.

Fog came rolling in from the sea. He was driving home to Ystad and had just passed Brösarp Hills when he found himself in the thick of the white mass.

Fear overcame him right away.

I’m frightened of fog, he thought. I should be scared of the man I have just been to see at Farnholm Castle instead. The friendly man whose menacing staff always lurk in the background, their faces in the shadows. I should be thinking about him and what I now know is hidden behind that friendly smile. His impeccable standing in the community, above the very least suspicion. He is the one I should be frightened of, not the fog drifting in from Hanö Bay. Not now that I have discovered that he would not hesitate to kill anyone who gets in his way.

He turned on the wipers to try to clear the windshield. He did not like driving in the dark. He particularly disliked it when rabbits scurried this way and that in the headlights.

Once, more than thirty years ago, he had run over a hare. It was on the Tomelilla road, one evening in early spring. He could still remember stamping his foot down on the brake pedal, (snip)

You can read more here. This novel earned 4.4 stars on Amazon. The peril is not immediate and only possible. That might have been enough, but when we took a detour to 30 years in the past, I parked the car. It’s a mystery, so how about some mystery on the first page? I’m keeping my money. Your thoughts?

Cover critique

The colors are nice, the author name treated suitably for a best-selling author, and the title treatment forces your attention there. But they could have done without what is, upon VERY close scrutiny, a car in the dark. Doesn’t do much more than set a dark mood. Your thoughts?

Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling

Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy

Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.

Flog a 99¢ BookBubber 331 B P Walter—would you pay to turn the page?

Change in flogging focus: It occurs to me that free books have a very low bar to clear for making a “sale,” and their first pages don’t have to do much to clear that hurdle. But ask me to pay for a book? There’s a challenge. So I’m switching to flogging books that cost, starting with the 99¢ variety.

Writers, send your prologue/first chapter to FtQ for a “flogging” critique. Email as an attachment. In your email, include your name, permission to use the first page, and, if it’s okay, permission to post the rest of the prologue/chapter.

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’s educational to take a hard look at their first pages. A poll follows concerning the need for an editor.

When you evaluate today’s opening page, consider how well it uses elements from the checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling.

Donald Maass, literary agent and author of many books on writing, says, “Independent editor Ray Rhamey’s first-page checklist is an excellent yardstick for measuring what makes openings interesting.”

A First-page Checklist

• It begins to engage the reader with the character
• Something is wrong/goes wrong or challenges the character
• The character desires something.
• The character takes action. Can be internal or external action: thoughts, deeds, emotions. This does NOT include musing about whatever.
• 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.
• The one thing it must do: raise a story question.

---

Next is the first chapter opening from Hold Your Breath, a thriller. A poll follows the opening page below. If you don’t want to turn the page, then I’m thinking that this author have hired an editor.

London passes me in a grey blur. I keep thinking it’s going to snow. Part of me would like that – to be stranded here on a train in a snow drift, unable to move forward or backward. Trapped in a vague sort of limbo; a physical manifestation of the state I’ve been in for most of my adult life. But I’ve shifted into an unsettling, uncharted realm since I got the phone call yesterday morning.

The voice of the woman at the other end of the line had cut through the dullness of my sleep-muffled brain. Part of me had been waiting for her call, and another part was sure that it would never come; that this sort of thing happened to other people, not me. How stupid that sounds, thinking about it now.

‘Am I speaking to Katherine Marchland?’ she’d asked in her businesslike tone. ‘Formerly known as Katherine Carlson?’ I’d told her she was, and she had continued as I’d sunk down onto my bed, clutching at the duvet, hoping it would protect me. ‘Ms Marchland, my name is Detective Inspector Cousins of Northumbria Police. I need to ask you to present yourself at Wickton Close Police Station, Newcastle tomorrow afternoon at 3 p.m. to be interviewed under police caution. You are not under arrest at this time, but I have to inform you that you may be liable to arrest if you fail to turn up at the appointed time. You are of course free to bring legal representation with you, or you can access free legal advice through a duty solicitor if you (snip)

You can read more here. This novel earned 4.3 stars on Amazon. There’s a little more musing than I like here, but the writing and voice are strong. And I’ll admit that there is strong mood here, a dark one. Then the recall of the police inspector brings up a pretty strong story question or two, and the dark mood of the opening gives them strength. What has this person done to warrant such a call from police? There’s jeopardy ahead—will she be arrested. For me, this works, and I’m thinking about pulling out my 99 cents. Your thoughts?

Cover critique

The strong title using a phrase common to children over the silhouette of a child in a mysterious woods in the dark does a lot to communicate mood and the thriller nature of this story. The title rightfully dominates with the font and color. The author name, though, is weak and needs boosting. But it’s a strong cover, IMO. Your thoughts?

Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling

Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy

Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.