Good news! Even though I sent a lousy query letter to agents, I still got a lot of requests for partials and fulls.
If your first ten pages drag them in, the agents are going to overlook the lame summary, the groveling and gushing suck-up paragraphs, the dumb jokes, the misspellings, and the bad punctuation in the query letter. Believe me, I’ve done them all.
Thankfully a great first chapter covers a multitude of sins.
So…first pages are very important.
And, lo and behold, I was fortunate enough to have my first page shredded at the Southern Breeze SpringMingle conference, a mere few hours after I dragged my bruised and bloodied body out of the query critique session.
I wanted to experiment with a new opening to my WIP, so I sent in a new page for the first-page critiques. Um…yeah. I sent one that had never been critiqued. That’s like taking an untried dish to a potluck. Not the smartest thing to do.
Hearing someone read the page aloud really drove home to me that I didn’t like it. It’s amazing how that works. I’ve seen whole audiences almost leaning forward, listening when the first pages were read. This page? It grabbed no one. It felt disjointed and left us struggling to figure out who was present in the scene, what was happening, and what kind of world we were in.
It’s not that there weren’t plenty of clues…
Well, wait, I’ll post it first, then I’ll talk about it, because I want you to go into this cold, the way an editor or agent would go into it.
Chapter One: The Fourteen Feast
The carriage hit a bump, tossing Elena a few inches off the seat and giving her a momentary feeling of weightlessness. “By Reggie’s rear-end, that was the best yet.”
Ayrie, sitting across from her, scowled. “We’re going to our Fourteen Feast. Don’t you think it’s time you stopped speaking like a ten-year-old boy?”
Elena ignored the cut. “You’re sitting on the wrong side. Come over by me so you’ll have the full effect.”
“Every bump loosens my hairdo.” Ayrie pushed at the hair piled on top of her head. “You may find that funny—you don’t have to make a good showing tonight. I think you’re being selfish, though, to laugh while my one chance at happiness is being bounced away by this witless oaf of a driver.”
“I wasn’t laughing about your hair.
That’s as far as they got. It ended in the middle of a paragraph of dialogue.
I originally sent 278 words, then found out that we could only send 150, so I sent a different first page from a different book. One that had been petted and polished and didn’t need critique. The new one was 142 words of gleaming awesomeness.
Trust me. It was.
By God’s grace, my polished second submission wasn’t used (to tell the truth, I’m surprised the long-suffering Claudia used any of my submissions. Almost everything I sent this year had to be sent twice, because I didn’t format it correctly). Yes, I say this is by God’s grace. Because with my first page broken off after 134 words, I saw something very clearly.
In those first few paragraphs there were two girls going to a Fourteen Feast, they were in a carriage going over a bumpy road, the girls had very different personalities, and there was a “witless oaf” of a driver. So in 134 words, the reader got a good picture of who was there and what kind of world they were in.
And yet, two of the people doing the critiques, Mary Kole, and Greg Ferguson, didn’t know who the ten-year-old boy was or what kind of world we were in.
My first reaction to their criticisms was, “Huh? You didn’t read very carefully.”
But the burden is on the writer, not the reader. “By Reggie’s rear end,” is spoken by a fourteen-year-old girl, but it sounds like it’s spoken by a ten-year-old boy (or a boy even younger than ten). That first line of dialogue makes Elena sound like silly child. When we find out in the next paragraph that she’s fourteen and she just talks like a ten-year-old boy, it’s disorienting. We had a picture in our head of a silly child and now we have to readjust and look at her as a fourteen-year-old girl.
Worse than that, I set the wrong tone for the book. The person reading the page aloud (the aforementioned Saint Claudia) took on a middle-grade-silly tone as she read. That isn’t the tone I am going for in this book, but it’s the tone I conveyed with my first paragraph.
The whole “my stomach feels funny so I’m laughing and acting like a little kid” deal, paints the wrong picture for the opening of this novel. I want to open with a true picture of my heroine. She’s happy and she enjoys life, but she’s also thoughtful and smart.
Kirby Larson talked at the conference about the way we make a contract with our reader on the opening page. Clearly, my first paragraph is setting up a false contract.
If you want to put 150 words in the comments section, the rest of us can tell you what contract we think you’re making. Give it a shot.
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Have at it!
The notes drifted out of Daniel’s piano through the doorway and into the hall, where they collided with a man who crushed dreams for a living. He loved his job. Daniel played on, shutting his eyes against the inevitable. The footsteps approached. His father entered the room like a sudden thunderstorm on a spring day, reeking of scotch. It overpowered the delicate aroma of the white roses that Daniel’s mother had placed throughout the room earlier. Daniel switched from his composition to Rachmaninoff. Senator Colin Garrett loathed Rachmaninoff.
“Still here?” Colin asked, dropping his briefcase on the Persian rug. “Too bad you can’t fit your piano inside that closet you call an apartment. Why can’t you live here, or at the condo, and use a driver? What’s so damn important about living at that rundown school?”
Daniel slammed his fingers on the keyboard, producing an ugly noise.
Ok I’m getting a promise for some nice figurative writing—notes colliding with a man who crushes dreams for a living.
I’m seeing a young man or a teen (is he at a boarding school or at college?) who is smart, talented, and at odds with his father. I think that Daniel wants peace and the father wants chaos—Daniel plays Rachmaninoff and likes the smell of the roses, while the father drinks and curses—but Daniel is not afraid of a fight. He lives at the rundown school, instead of living with his father’s riches.
I think if this story is about a young man who fights against his father and what his father stands for—a fight against the rich excesses, perhaps—that you are on the right track with this opening. And I think the tension in these 150 words is fantastic.
Oh, and I should add, it’s not just the rich excesses he doesn’t like in his father, I think. It’s that the father crushes dreams for a living and loves his job. The man is rich and powerful and the son lives at a rundown school. That says a bunch about the two of them.
Suzan,
There are some strong images here, and the tension is set up nicely. There were appeals to several senses, so it really places the reader in the scene. I was confused by the line “He loved his job.” Who is that referring to? Also, I would suggest in the first line taking out “through the doorway”. If it is into the hall, it gets out anyway.
Good start though! It caught my attention.
Jason
Jason Joyner´s last [type] ..The Dreaded Revision
Suzan,
I just happened to notice that the sentence about the entrance like a thunderstorm can make the spring day seem like it reeks of scotch. Maybe a simple period instead of a comma will help.
Jason Joyner´s last [type] ..The Dreaded Revision
What story is “The Fourteen Feast” from? I’m guessing you substituted with The Button Girl opening? And that one I’ve seen two different openings… still looking forward to reading that story some day.
Suzan seems to be offering us a drama of a wealthy alcoholic senator who presents conflicting attitudes regarding his teen son (condescending yet expressing the wish that his son would live in his home with him), and this son who plays piano also had conflicting attitudes towards his father (dread but without fear, and intentionally provoking). My guess is that the book will be about this relationship, and probably resolving the tension between these two?
If that is not what the story is about then does that mean Suzan made a false contract with me? It doesn’t really seem fair for the first 150 words to do so much work as to set a contract of what to expect.
I don’t have an opening for my own story yet, or I would offer it.
I’m going to wait a bit to comment on Suzan’s because I’ve read her book and I don’t want to give anything away, but to answer your question, Patrick, I don’t think the contract is as specific as “this book will be about relationship between the senator and his son.” I think the contract you make in the first few pages is about tone. And type.
If Suzan’s book is a middle grade sci-fi, I’m going to say she’s breaking contract. And if the father drops out of the book in the second chapter and the book never deals with the relationship between the father and the son, then, yes, I’d say Suzan deceived us on the first page.
You don’t have to tell the whole story in the first 150 words, but you need to build, one sentence upon another, smoothly, without making your reader think one thing and then yanking him back.
I think I broke contract by making my girl, in the very first paragraph sound like a silly, young child, and then yanking the reader back and making her see that the girl is fourteen. It’s jarring—it puts the reader off balance.
And, yes, the page I substituted was from the birth scene opening of THE BUTTON GIRL. The Fourteen Feast chapter is it’s from the novel I wrote after that. This one was called THE JUDAS YEARS, but that title has to change as well as the opening.
Thanks for commenting!
Ooooh, tension. Suzan’s done a good job of setting up the conflict–this brief snippet oozes with a covert hostility. I’d say this promises to be a tightly woven, intense novel–I already have some idea of what the father wants and what the son wants on an emotional level.
And as one who HEARD your first page read (as opposed to reading it) I’d have to say that it reads better. The characters come across better. But I agree with you. We can’t be there, reading into our reader’s ear. The words have to be written to convey the story that’s there.
You know what’s weird? The word “hairdo” bothered me. I don’t know why…did people back in the day refer to the way their hair was styled as a hairdo? It seems kind of modernish to me. So sometimes, just a word can stop the reader. And speaking of words, I didn’t realize that Claudia cut off at 150 words. SO, so, so very glad I was also graced. :-D
Cathy´s last [type] ..With Leap Day, You Get Extra: Editor Kristin Daly Rens
Yes, the conflict is wonderfully done in Suzan’s opening.
And, good point about hairdo. The etymology dictionary I just checked, dates it at 1932. And that kind of thing yanks the reader around so she doesn’t know where to settle. I think hearing “Fourteen Feast” also makes it hard to understand, whereas reading it—seeing it capitalized—makes it easier to understand.
So that’s another good point. Always read your stuff aloud.
Yes, 150 words. I don’t know why mine was cut at 134. Maybe 150 would have been the middle of a sentence.
Sally, I liked it except “hairdo” as well.
I wasn’t confused at all by the opening.
And thanks for your kind words about my novel opening.
Sally,
I’ll bite!
Travis Dawson’s sandal slipped off his foot, and that could cost him his life. He fumbled in the darkness for it, shoving it back on. He jumped a fallen tree, dead branches grabbing for his clothes as he cleared it.
The black night engulfed him, punctuated with lightning flashes at times that gave him a glimpse of his surroundings. The thick jungle fought him at every turn. He pushed drenched leaves out of his face, trying to head away from the sounds of pursuit.
The ground suddenly sloped away. The mud track dropped in front of him and he slid down, pitching forward as he landed. Something sharp sliced his left arm. Reaching for the bicep, he pulled back with the pain it caused. He sniffed his palm. Blood.
Scrambling up again, Travis felt along the ground getting a feel for the terrain. The rain pelted his skin.
There you go. This should be fun.
Jason
Jason Joyner´s last [type] ..Twenty Seven Million
Great Jason. Glad you could join in.
OK. I’m going to guess this is a commercial book, not a lingering literary story. Your character strikes me as strong, but not all brawn and no brain. He’s thinking. He stops to get the sandal, because he needs it. He’s not just running in a blind panic.
I think this will be an action/adventure book.
If I misread the character and genre, you might think about tweaking. Wait until others have a chance to jump in before you tell me if I’m right or wrong.
OK, I’ll jump in too, then come back and comment on the others:
On the basketball court, Jim Thompson expected trash talk. Here in his parents’ beach-side condo, not so much.
“It’s better you got cut sooner than later, Jim.” Kent Tanner, the jet-setting owner of the place next door puffed out his chest as if delivering insider information. “It takes an exceptional athlete to make it big in the pros.”
The hum of conversation from the other reception guests swirled around them, heightened by a bout of laughter. As Jim waited for the din to simmer, he willed his heart rate to slow. Tanner’s kill shot aimed at his career—at his ability as a player—was too much like Jim’s own fear, but that was the last thing he wanted to deal with right now. He backed up a step. “I’m not done with basketball just yet, Kent.”
Rebecca LuElla Miller´s last [type] ..You Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine
I’ll wait to comment on the contract you’re making, since I know the story, but I have to say that I like this opening. A lot.
From this opening I’m thinking sports drama, Becky. And with that thought I would read no further. But I’m pretty sure you write fantasy, right? And fantasy is my favorite… but until I can reconcile this tone with my knowledge of this writer I’m still looking for the real contract…
Which makes me wonder about this whole contract concept. Don’t people generally know what genre a book is before they start reading it? Many fantasy stories start in ordinary places with no hint in the first 150 words that there will be anything other than ordinary. But I know when I pick up a Narnia book we aren’t going to be in these ordinary London settings very long before we get to Narnia- but definitely longer than 150 words. In the first 150 words of the Hobbit… I know it is an epic fantasy adventure, but given those first 150 words I’m thinking Documentary on a comfort loving creature who’d never think of adventuring. Think of the first 150 words of The Wizard of OZ, or Alice in Wonderland- if you judged either of these books by the first 150 words you’d not expect fantasy unless you already had some idea of what you were getting into.
Patrick, you’re right that we know the genre by the title and by where we found the book in the store and by the back cover copy. The contract you make with the reader may be about genre, but you’re right: Becky’s opening doesn’t hint that her book is a fantasy. I think that’s OK because, as you say, we’ll know from the cover and the title, what kind of book we have.
But if Becky’s book is really about a young woman who goes to beautician’s school instead of being about basketball player who is nursing some wounded pride and who is wanting to prove himself, I’ll say she broke contract with the reader.
There may be a good reason to start the book with a different tone than you intend to carry through, but generally speaking, you shouldn’t do that. You should write the first page in the tone and voice and POV that you intend to continue through the book.
I’m not saying Becky has to tell me in the first 100 words that her character is going to another world. But she has to tell me something true and she has to build on that with more truth. And the tone of the book has to be consistent.
You break contract with your reader, I think, when you have signaled something that is untrue. And then you jerk him back and make me adjust this understanding of what’s happening.
Take the old trick of using a dream, for instance. You open with a character fighting a dragon and you paint the scene richly, and then on page four, right when the beast is about to fry the hero with a blast of fiery breath, little Jimmy wakes up from his dream and heads down to have oatmeal with his mother. That’s not cool. No one likes that.
Christopher Paolini did this with Eragon. I read the action-packed prologue at Amazon and bought the book right away. But right after the prologue the book slowed way down. I quit reading about ten chapters in, and I thought that Mr. Paolini had broken contract with me.
What about you? Have you ever read a book that you thought would be one way when you started and then found yourself disappointed because you didn’t get what you expected?
I have a general knowledge of where this is going, but I don’t think it breaks any contract. The tension again is set. We want to see what Jim is special at (we know basketball) but how does he really stack up. I thought the sentence “Kent Tanner, the jet-setting owner of the place next door puffed out his chest as if delivering insider information.” tries to do too much. It describes Kent, lets us know he has the place next door, and gives us a picture of his character. It comes across cluttered and hard to read. Just my two cents.
Jason Joyner´s last [type] ..The Dreaded Revision
OK, for yours, Becky, I think your tone is conveying that this is not going to be a super-fast paced action book, but rather a look at a man who has to deal with who he is outside of the basketball court. He has the outer conflict of having been cut from the team and the inner conflict of fearing that his career is over and not being willing to accept that. And that makes me think his identity is tied up with being a ballplayer and he’s going to learn, in the book, that he is more than a ballplayer.
I think your hero is competitive—pro ball player, and seeing Tanner’s trash talk as a kill shot and not done with basketball yet.
That’s quite a bit packed into the first 150 words. Nice job.
If I’m reading you right.
Jason,
I’m with Sally thinking action/adventure, but if this turned sci-fi/suspense I’m not sure I’d say you broke contract- that would probably depend on what Travis is running from in this scene. From just this bit I’ve got lots of questions and suspense is building… so I think we’d need another hint in there as to whether this is action/adventure or sci-fi/suspense or some combo in that area… unless that would be revealed later in this scene- you’ve got enough hook I’m sure a fan of either genre would hold out a little further for the answer.
I agree. It could be fantasy or sci-fi or suspense. It could be a mystery. It could be horror.
The first 150 words of Chapter One, titled Only The Lonely:
Bruce Joseph Malroye was the most eccentric kid at Hampton High. Nobody paid him much mind anymore. For new attendees, the first sighting brought a rude reaction, ususally a muffled snicker. A few, in whom self-restraint was an unattainable virtue, bellowed a wide-eyed guffaw.
It was probably his hair that jerked one’s attention away. Greased and sporting a doo in which the long black strands were combed back on the sides to meet in the rear where it resembled the posterior view of a mallard, and a flare shooting out over the forehead – Malroye would have put up a fierce competition as an Elvis look-alike.
Stories circulated. The kid was mental, had low self-esteem, wanted to be ‘cool’ like the Fonz whom he worshiped night after night as a tyke; it was a ritual, so the tales went – he sneaked downstairs into the TV room at two
Thomas, like I said in my comment to Becky, I don’t feel I have enough here to determine what genre you are writing. The whole focus is on the oddness of this character, but we don’t know what kind of story this character is going to be part of yet. And it’s all ABOUT the character like second hand information so I still feel like I haven’t actually met this guy yet.
and jumping back to Sally now:
Maybe I’m still not understanding the contract concept. If we meet Sally’s 14 year old girl when she’s acting like a 10 year old boy… we see she has a sense of humor and can be a bit silly for her age. I don’t see a broken contract if this is true of this character. I don’t see how anyone could actually think there was a 10 year old boy in this scene, unless they are just skimming and not really wanting to read it in the first place. I’ve known too many 14 year old girls to believe they are above acting that way. The phrase “Fourteen Feast” is the only thing in that opening that makes me wonder if it is anything other than historical fiction. But like I said, I should know what the genre is before I start shouldn’t I? How did this story come to be in my hands? What does it say on the cover? That’s part of the contract too, right?
I don’t see how anyone could actually think there was a 10 year old boy in this scene, unless they are just skimming and not really wanting to read it in the first place.
I wish I could remember what exactly they said about the ten-year-old boy. I do think in a way they were skimming. It’s hard to listen to the beginning of the pages when they’re being read. I once sat on a panel doing first-page crit session myself, and I know it was hard for me to pull my mind away from the last page and focus on the one being read.
But I wrote this first page and as I heard it, I was in agony, because I thought it was so bad. I started in the wrong place. The first thing I should show about my girl is that she’s smart and thoughtful, and then I should show her fun side. Because the story is not a silly middle-grade. It’s a serious YA.
Thomas, I’m thinking this is somewhat literary, because we’ve got an omniscient narrator. I love storytellers, but the omniscient voice slows the pace a bit, so I’m guessing this isn’t a YA page-turner.
I think this is YA set in the 1980s. At this point the genre could be just about anything, but the conversational tone makes me think it won’t be action/adventure and the kid’s eccentricities and the hair, which looks like the posterior of a duck, suggest a humorous bent to the story.
Let’s see.
This book isn’t going for a lot of tension like a couple of the others. It suggests the main conflict is relational – the odd Malroye vs. the world?
I’m intrigued, but I think I could be more drawn in if I wasn’t told Malroye was the eccentric kid in the first line. What if it was shown?
“It was the hair that first caught people’s eye.” From there the hair can be described, and the reaction can follow. The description of his hair style is a little confusing as well. I had to read it twice to follow the description. The mallard bit was a good image though!
Jason Joyner´s last [type] ..The Dreaded Revision
FUN! Too bad I’m always late to the commenting party.
First I’ll post the first 150 words of my contemporary YA novel (in epistolary format), then come back to comment on others:
Friday June 3, 1977
Dear Cassie,
Maybe it’s stupid to write this letter. I can’t possibly mail it without an address, but sleep is a million miles away and I’m sick of rolling around in sweaty sheets trying to make my brain stop screaming. So I pulled my old daisy bedspread out on the porch roof to look for cooler air and shooting stars. Suddenly, it seemed like a good idea to write down everything that’s happened since you left.
It’s been four awful days since I last saw you. I miss you so much! Where are you now? Does the sky look different there? Are you wondering what is going on back here?
Don’t worry, I haven’t told your father anything that will help him or the Sheriff track you down. I just wish they didn’t know I saw you that night. It was such a stupid mistake!
Trisha Slay´s last [type] ..Forget Forbidden Foods
Your letter writer is a bit of a poet—looking for cooler air and shooting stars. Once you got the daisy bedspread I knew she was a girl. I’m assuming she’s a teen or a smart middle grade student. I don’t think she’s grown, because she’s worried about Cassie’s dad and because her second paragraph sounds like something a young person would say.
The tone makes me think this will be literary/commercial. I think it will move fast and be suspenseful because you’re starting with a secret and a runaway, but I don’t think it will move too fast, because your language suggests you like to slow down and watch the shooting stars.
I’m thinking this girl is going to be blamed for Cassie’s disappearance. But maybe if this didn’t end right where it does, I wouldn’t think that. Because your excerpt ends there, it puts more weight on this and it makes me think the letter-writer might be in danger.
Love this opening! Thanks for posting it.
Trisha, Thanks to your intro I’m expecting a series of letters. This letter writer is youthful, and must have had a close daily relationship with the addressee, to already be missing her so badly after 4 days. It sounds like Cassie is on an adventure- honestly I’d rather be traveling with her than reading letters to her. Maybe we will be getting letters from her back to this writer (that we currently know little about) to tell us of her adventures? I wanted to guess the writer is a younger sister, until I read they have different fathers, so now I’m thinking female best friend. Gender of the writer hasn’t been stated, but it sounds female to me. This writer has a serious dramatic tone, so unless something about the cover hinted otherwise that is what I would expect throughout.
Sally – I promise you, I fully understand the contract with the reader & the concept of breaking that contract (Yes, Eragon was painful). That said, I like your opening and don’t really feel you’ve broken the contract with the reader. That’s too extreme. Perhaps you have not brought Elena to life in the best possible way. That I’ll buy. I’ll also say that I’ve read this 2 people in a carriage going somewhere opening scene in many stories. Usually it’s a period romance. This is certainly a tried and true way of starting a story…but I do think that you need to make it sparkle a bit more to stand above the rest. Not a dramatic change, just some tweaks. The tickle in Elena’s belly that isn’t 100% the bumpy ride. Her real thoughts about Ayrie’s hair…to steal from Thomas, does it look more like a bird’s back end than the current fashion she was hoping to achieve? You get the idea.
Suzan – Love, love, love this opening. The first two sentences are just about magical. One wee thing that perturbed me…the first time The Senator speaks, he’s tagged as only as Colin. His first name. I think he should be tagged as The Senator or something really sarcastic such as “His Highnessness” Even though Daniel isn’t telling us this in first person, you can still use the sort of snarky language Daniel would use to refer to his father. Helps us align firmly with the son’s POV.
Jason – Fantastic opening line & first 150. Whether it is Sci-fi, Fantasy, Horror, Action Adventure, Mystery, Thriller or whatever, I know you are going to take me on a ride and this going to be a tense page-turner. Great details with the sandal and the smell of his own blood (which is a genius way of letting us know just how dark it is out there). If this is not a plot-driven story and you spend the next 60 pages telling us how Daniel came to terms with the fact his best friend died of brain cancer….well, then you’ve broken the contract. But, of course, I think you know what you’re doing.
Becky – This is a solid opening scene with tension/conflict on the first page. You’re not launching us into a story just yet and that’s fine. You’re firmly launching us into the POV character – Jim. My only recommendation is to delete the phrase “but that was the last thing he wanted to deal with right now.” You’re not telling us anything about what he DOES want to deal with right now, so that phrase is unnecessary and sort of clunky.
Thomas – Like Becky, you’re launching us into a compelling, rather quirky character instead of a conflict or action scene. And I love this type of opening. I love the character you’ve created. I love the duck butt hairdo. However, I am curious about the point of view in your novel. If Malroye is the star of this novel, I’d re-write this to make the POV much closer and more personal for him. If your POV character is another student at Hampton High, then I assume Malroye is going to play an important role in our narrator’s life. (If that is not the case, then this would be one of those pesky broken contracts.) If this is a story involving Malroye told by a third person narrator, then I would recommend bringing your narrator’s voice, personality & presence right into this opening scene. I assume the narrator is not a ghost floating through the halls? (though that could be a fun story) If s/he is a student, tell us how s/he reacted the first time s/he saw Malroye and give us some hint as to why s/he’s telling us about Malroye. (“Something always told me there was more to Malroye than the funky hair).
Trisha Slay´s last [type] ..Forget Forbidden Foods
Thanks, Trisha! I haven’t read carriage opening scenes, that I can remember. I don’t read much romance. Thanks for telling me. I really love playing with openings. So I will be sure to get rid of the carriage in the rewrite.
Maybe I’ll open it in the razor and ink booth (tattoo shop). Or somewhere that is a little more interesting the her bedroom (1st try) or the carriage. Yes, it needs work. It’s white bread, for sure. But that’s why seeing other people’s openings is helpful. I’m learning a lot more here than contract with the reader stuff. I’m also seeing how you all build tension into your openings.
I didn’t see an extra 10 year old boy in there at all. I got what you were trying to say with that.
I thought it was entertaining, but it did seem like a younger, lighter tone. If that’s not what you were going for, then I can see redoing it.
Jason Joyner´s last [type] ..The Dreaded Revision
Thanks, Jason. I appreciate your thoughts on these.
Okay, I’ll bite
. This is a fairly untested opening. It’s the beginning of the first chapter, so a question: What do you consider if there’s also a prologue? Is that actually the first 150 words? Here ’tis:
She gazed up at her father in disbelief, her eyes snapping with growing anger.
“No Father, I will not,” she insisted, trying to sound firm.
“My dear Maleen, it is not a matter of what you will or will not do.” King Darrick rubbed his face and graying beard wearily. “I have decided that both in your interest and the future of the kingdom, it would be best if you married Prince Jared–”
“But he’s so ugly!” Maleen interrupted. She tossed her chestnut curls so the evening sun shimmering through the tall windows of the hall would catch her hair and bring out its fire. she took a step toward the dais and clenched her hands. “You know what people who have seen him say–’Such a great nose, such wild hair’–Why, he probably hasn’t changed a bit from the peasant-dressed boy I met when he was fourteen!”
Loren Warnemuende´s last [type] ..Since Valentine’s Day Was Last Week….
Fairy-tale. With a judgmental strong-willed young lady, being forced to marry against her will. The wise old king stays calm and firm in his decision. I’m expecting a romantic fantasy story, that will likely be dramatic but could still be open to an adventure.
Yep, definitely on target, Patrick. The funny thing is, the fairy tale romance is what I started with, but thanks to early-on input from my husband it exploded into more of an epic adventure. The only problem with that is that I haven’t figured out if my resolution is still strong enough.
Loren Warnemuende´s last [type] ..Since Valentine’s Day Was Last Week….
Nice, Loren. I like this girl, despite her pride over her looks and her shallow way of judging others. I mean, who wants to be told to marry, and worse, who wants to be forced to marry an ugly man?
In regards to your contract, I’m with Patrick. Fairy tale. And I think your princess is strong-willed and and prideful, and I suspect she’ll learn to be less so as the story goes on. Because her name is Maleen, I’m wondering if this is going to be a remake of Maid Maleen.
Your tone is formal, fairy tale language.
I think if you have a prologue and someone asks for the first hundred words or the first chapter, it’s up to you to decide what you’ll send. It’s not going to make or break a deal if an agent falls in love with your first chapter and you later tell her you have a prologue.
That’s one thing I think I’d like to tell all writers who have queried yet…well maybe I’ll save it for a post.
Thanks, Sally. You and Patrick are right on, though as I mentioned to him it’s much more than a fairy tale romance now. That’s where the prologue helps, though 150 words would probably leave a reader confused.
Now if I could get on to actually writing the ending I’d have a better idea how the epic aspect can play out.
Loren Warnemuende´s last [type] ..Since Valentine’s Day Was Last Week….
I intended to come back here and comment sooner.
Sally, I really like how you delineate the difference between what genre a work is and what contract those opening paragraphs create with the reader. I actually was wondering about that point because mine is a fantasy but it isn’t apparent at the beginning.
If I’m understanding correctly, the contract is more about tone, character, and conflict. So Suzan’s is relational and confrontational and involves father/son differences.
Jason’s is suspenseful, dangerous, a fight-for-your-life kind of story.
Thomas’s is somewhat aloof, almost light-hearted in its treatment of another relational situation — an unusual boy not fitting in with his peers.
Trisha’s seems wistful, a little fearful, about a passionate, thoughtful girl wanting to be connected, stay connected and not knowing how. Or, if the book is what she will write next — what’s happened in the four days since Cassie left, it actually could have a different conflict. I don’t think I’d feel the contract was broken either way because I can see elements of both and I’m curious to see which way it would head.
Loren’s seems a bit aristocratic, her character a little snobbish and headstrong, the conflict both a daughter/father and the girl’s need to get over herself.
But, see, I may be reading my own values into that.
So my question is, can a reader’s expectations actually break the contract as much as the writer’s words?
Anyway, thanks for this approach to beginnings, Sally. Very interesting, indeed.
I appreciated the discussion about my work, too. It was helpful to see what others see. Thanks all.
Rebecca LuElla Miller´s last [type] ..My Turn To Tell
I don’t think a reader can break contract with an author. I mean…I guess he can fail to pay attention when he’s reading. But he doesn’t owe the writer anything. The writer owes the reader a smooth, entertaining ride. Or an educational journey. Or whatever it is she has promised him in her opening pages. If she doesn’t deliver the reader won’t come back.
Readers can read poorly. We can miss the point. I’m sure I’ve missed much in every book I’ve read. So there are times when a reader might think the author broke the contract when she really didn’t. Maybe the reader just missed the clues. But we are reading carefully in this comment thread, so if we all see something the writer didn’t intend to convey then she should rework the opening.
“…A girl’s need to get over herself”–yep! Gotta have a character who can mature, right? Though I found early on how hard it is to make sure the character is still likable, but doesn’t mature too quickly. Still not sure if I’ve managed that.
I hope to read your full book someday, Becky!
Loren Warnemuende´s last [type] ..Since Valentine’s Day Was Last Week….
Thanks, Loren, very kind of you. Yes, having a character that needs to change and yet is still likable, or at least someone the reader cares about, is not as easy as it looks in all those books I love.
Rebecca LuElla Miller´s last [type] ..Science Fiction On Fantasy Friday
[...] == "undefined"){ addthis_share = [];}Two weeks ago, I mentioned that I had sent in a first page for critique that was making a false contract with my reader. The page I sent in made the reader assume the book had a silly tone. That was not the [...]