Blogger: Rachel Kent
I’ve been asked to serve on a critique panel at a writer’s conference a couple of times. These panels allow for authors to read the first page of a novel out loud to a panel of editors and agents and every panel member responds with whether he or she would read more of the book based on that sample and why. I am not a big fan of these panels because it’s hard for the authors to get up the courage to read the first page to begin with and then many of them are critiqued pretty harshly. For me, it’s hard to think of what to say with so little time to prepare a critique. I always try to be nice, yet truthful. Some editors and agents are just truthful and I’ve even seen an author cry. I hate that!
The point to all of this is that the first pages of your manuscript are crucial! If an editor or agent isn’t drawn into the story quickly, the chance of them continuing to read is very small. The submission pile is always huge and a bad first chapter makes it easy to say no. Don’t make it easy for an editor or agent to say no to your book. Make that first chapter shine.
In the submissions I’ve read recently, I have noticed that many first chapters focus too much on back story and character introductions instead of jumping right in to the plot. It’s great for you to have a thorough understanding of your characters and back story, but you should reveal these details to your audience gradually and naturally as you write. Thankfully, critique partners are great at catching problems like this, so please join a critique group if you aren’t in one already.
Take an honest look at your WIP now. Where does the story actually start? Is your first chapter (or two) necessary to the book?
If you are curious, try an experiment. Send your first page to five friends/acquaintances. Ask them to honestly tell you if they would want to read more based on that first page and why or why not.
TWEETABLES
First Chapter Fail. Watch out for this common flaw in fiction. From lit. agent @RachelLKent Click to tweet.
Will an editor/agent want to read past your first chapter? Blog via lit. agent @RachelLKent Click to tweet.
I agree. Backstory in the opening chapter/s almost always bugs me. It’s like driving a car while watching the rearview mirror, especially when the backstory contains dialogue or story within story. Ugh. I like books that move forward and deftly payout the backstory little by little only as required to keep me going.
Ha! Bill, I have a friend who actually did drive his car while looking in the rear view mirror. (You may know him from Rachelle G’s blog) The nice policeman who stopped him didn’t give him a ticket because the truth was just too stupid to write on the ticket.
I start page one, “Breathless and silent, Natanii slipped behind the outcropping of rock and put an arrow in his bow.”
So we have: a) he’s hiding, b) he’s in self-defense mode, c) he’s not Irish, d)he’s outdoors, e)he’s ready to kill.
I can pretty much promise you’ll be either choked up or crying by the top of page 3.
But it took some heavy duty slashing and burning of back story to get to the point where I was happy with Page One and the grab factor.
Thankfully, I’ve had quite a few people tell me that the first chapter had them hooked. YAY!
AND??? One recently told me she was crying before she got to chapter 2!!! Yeah, baby!!
I really struggle with first chapters. The chapter I end up keeping is usually quite different from my original. Critique partners are an absolute must!!
And I’m with you–it takes so much courage to share our work. Public harshness without encouragement only crushes dreams!
I notice the same thing, Jill! My first chapters are never the same by the time the book is finished.
Glad I’m not alone!
Too much backstory? That’s what flashbacks are for! It never hurts to have a little mystery in your prologue and/or first chapter.
Thanks to My Book Therapy training, I’m fairly confident I started my ms in the right place. But it’s interesting how many books I read that are published and have a ton of backstory up front. 😛
I’ve been reading a lot of different fiction lately, Lindsay, and it’s been fun to pinpoint why I keep reading. Even with too much up-front backstory, I’ve loved a few books because of the author’s voice! I’d probably read anything by them!
I have re written the first page so many times! I just finished Noah Lukeman’s The First Five Pages. Thanks for the encouragement!
I’m with Lindsay. MBT helped me to see backstory isn’t helpful in the beginning of the story, and most helpful in breadcrumb doses through out the story. I like the way Bill described it. I also find critique is more helpful when it’s accompanied by encouragement. Criticism only is depressing.
I try to begin my first chapters in action. My current wip is in action but I need to tighten it up some. 🙂
I love your idea of sending my first page to get people’s perspective on it.
I agree, but with a caveat – sometimes we may be missing depth by a quick jump into action.
Nevil Shute’s novels almost always began with character development, and a bit of backstory, but his books are some of the best character-driven novels ever written.
Another example is Herman Wouk’s “The Caine Mutiny”. Wouk takes quite a bit of time to introduce Willie Keith, the central figure in the story – because, as he describes it, Willie’s character is like a jeweled bearing on which the massive door of a vault turns. Omitting Willie’s introduction would have left a good book – but certainly not the classic novel of WW2 that we have.
I do understand that the market has changed with readers’ tastes, and the accelerated pace of life – but I wonder sometimes where the classics of tomorrow will come from? (This isn’t a paean to literary fiction – I would consider neither Wouk nor Shute to be part of that genre.)
Also – I took seven years’ worth of creative writing from Marvin Mudrick, and his practice was to read students’ submissions aloud, himself, and then opening up to comments from the class.
It was a better method than having the writers read their own work, because he approached it dispassionately, and read with dignity.
He also presented the work without giving the writer’s name, which made it easier for the folks who submitted something really, really bad.
As a writer, it’s a challenge to drop the reader into a moment of action that they may not understand yet. We’ve sweat bullets compiling the tortured back story of our characters, and we have to contain ourselves to keep from splaying it out immediately, all robust and enticing in its brilliance. 🙂
But I think this is one of the aspects of writing I love the most. Organizing the layers of discovery. The small moments that the reader will look back on as they remember where the unraveling of a secret began.
Although a true friend will dare to be honest about my writing, I fear most friends will still say it’s good even if it not.
Sometimes it’s because they don’t know any better, eh? 🙂
Rachel, in terms of jumping right into the plot with a fiction novel that has and needs a prologue…how do you view that? If the prologue is used to establish the setting and set up a fictional memoir from another voice? In Chapter One, I get straight to the plot…the death, and my narrator’s suspicions.
My novel starts at Chapter 3, where the action/adventure and the rest of the “good stuff” starts.
Interesting to hear how other conferences handle first pages. We allow people to submit ahead of time. A random group is selected and read aloud to the agents and the audience at the same time. The agents then talk about what they liked and where they wanted to see improvements. The only person who knows the submission is his is the person who sent it in.
As for first chapters, I’m big on dropping right into the middle of things when I read, so I try to do that when I write. For a recent project, I wrote Cinderella’s story from the point of view of one of her sisters. It starts by telling readers the story of Cinderella as they know it isn’t true. I’m hoping that piques a reader’s interest.
A teacher in a class I attended at a conference gave this advice: “Write your first chapter and do the best you can. After you finish the last chapter, go back and rewrite the first.”
That’s really good advice. 🙂
Hi, Rachel. This is one of those pieces of advice with which I have such a problem. The experience I’m going to share should show why. I hope you can shed some light on…anything about this first chapter business. Here goes….
I had an agent tell me with one cozy mystery manuscript that I spent too many pages getting to the murder; there was not enough action. Another agent told me me cozies are not about action; they’re about presenting and solving a mystery.
On my next MS, I got right to the murder by the end of chapter 1 (not a long chapter either); critique group members gave me glowing comments for that chapter and told me they couldn’t wait to read more.
When I sent that chapter to a professional editor (who is also a multi-published author whom I trust), one of her primary–and strong–criticisms was that it got to the murder too soon. There was not enough time or material to get to know and care about the main character, also the sleuth.
I get that you have to grab your reader–especially an agent or publisher–with the first few pages. But grab them with what? If each one expects something different, isn’t it still a game of chance–as in hit or miss? In which case, Thor’s hammer might be a good investment!
Just kidding. More advice appreciated!
It’s hard to guess how your manuscript should start without having read any. Watch out for overdoing back story and character descriptions, but I’d trust your critique partners. They’re going to spend more time with it than an agent who is not offering representation.
I attended a writing retreat a couple of weekends ago where we were invited to bring our first pages for critique. A faculty member read them aloud so the writer could remain anonymous. It was so helpful to hear the comments from the authors who provided critiques. They were truthful, but also encouraging and supportive. A great learning experience.
Thanks Rachel, that sounds like some very good advice that I plan to take. :0)
Reba
I wonder if it is a disservice to the literary world that so many agents are backlogged. How many great works of fiction from history would have been rejected today based on that first page ‘grab’ factor?
Perhaps instead of requesting a first pages, it would be better to evaluate a synopsis and a ‘representative page’?
If the story sounds interesting to us because of the initial query letter we request a proposal and proposals do include a synopsis and the first 50 pages.
I always read the synopsis first.