You know the importance of the first few pages. You’ve been
told over and over. If your first few pages don’t captivate agents and editors,
they won’t read on. If your book is published, readers won’t buy it unless they
love what they read in the sample.
Secretly, you think this is unfair. You’ve got a great
story. Lots of twists. Unique characters. Readers can’t tell all that from the
first few pages.
Sorry. They can, and they do.
For the wrap-up of my writer’s workshop on voice, I pulled
sample chapters from internet postings for my students to critique. I used the
top listings that came up when I searched “sample chapter” plus the
genre—thriller, in this case, because in the workshop I’ve got a few students
writing in and around that genre.
The sample chapters are from authors looking to get noticed.
I hope one day they will. But although they’ve taken the time (and money, if
they’ve hired a proofreader) to make sure their first pages are free from obvious
errors in grammar and punctuation, the samples I pulled showcase problems that
will keep them from attracting a publisher or, if they’re independently
published, from finding the readership that their creative efforts likely
deserve.
Some of these mistakes come from trying too hard to apply writing
principles like the hook that are more nuanced than you might think. Fortunately,
all of these mistakes correctable.
Pull up your first few pages and see how they measure up
against these five common flaws:
- Clichés: From your first few
pages, your readers must decide they trust you as a writer. They want
proof that you’re adept and wise and original. A cliché tells them you’re
sloppy and lazy and derivative. Frankly, most readers don’t have time for
that. A million different
directions. Pretty big stretch. Tear welled up. Tortured expression.
Ghostly reflection. These are a few of the tired expressions that
substitute for original language in the samples I pulled. And on that last
one, the ghostly reflection, you do know, don’t you, that it’s a cliché to
use a mirror (or any reflection) to show us what your character looks like?
Ditto for rhetorical questions. Make it your business to identify clichés
and replace them with original phrasing that earns the trust of your
readers.
- Pacing: One misconception about
the hook is that you’ll captivate readers by piling up action after action
after action in the first few pages: shootouts, bloodshed, that sort of
thing. Rarely does this work. There’s nothing wrong with action, but it’s
not the same of a hook, and piling it all on at the beginning makes the
whole thing seem clichéd.
- Grounding: In your eagerness to
hook the reader, you frontload the narrative like it’s a newspaper
article. The big questions are addressed—who, what, when, where, how, and
why—but the readers aren’t there, in the narrative, because in all your
explaining you’ve neglected the grounding details, those sensory images
that make readers feel like they’re part of the story as it unfolds. This
problem likely stems at least in part from misinterpreting comments made
by early readers who say they want to know more about this or that in the
story. What they really mean is that they want to have a reason to care
about what’s going on. So don’t tell us Jane Doe is your narrator’s
favorite client. Show us Jane Doe in such a compelling, original way that
we’re drawn to her the same way your narrator is.
- Characters: Author Steve Almond
says this best: Your readers have to know who to care about, and they have
to know what that character cares about. Readers don’t care about
characters simply because they materialize on the page. The characters
have to touch them in some way. They’re paradoxical. Complicated. Their
perspective is unique. They have voice. Once we care about your
characters, we’ll care about what they care about—what’s at stake for
them. That, too, should be apparent in the first few pages.
- Dialogue: Dialogue has to be spot
on. Every time someone speaks. No exceptions. That means no dialect that
makes your character more spoof than person. No blah-blah dialogue, like
“Hello, I’m Jane Doe,” or “How is she?” No using dialogue as an expository
tool to convey information to the reader that the characters already know.