Before we get started today, the second round of voting in the 2012 RONE awards is open and you can vote for my book
All Fall Down. (You do have to register to vote, but it's free and easy). If you are so inclined, please go
here to vote for me! (We're on Week 5, the thriller/suspense category).
It's finally Friday and I'm so glad. Today on First Page Friday we're learning about looking for audience and pulling your readers in. Thank you to Ms. Shreditor and our author for all their hard work. See you next week!
The Entry
The Sex Stone of Agassia
by Richard Maitland
[NOTE: In view of your submission requirements about "no sex", I should mention this is a British comedy, and so the nudity on the first page is intended humorously]Detective Constable William Lilley shuffled his feet and gave a nervous cough. “You absolutely sure about this? Seems a very funny way of getting into the Freemasons if you ask me.”
In the darkened Briefing Room of a north London police station thirteen candles flickered. The lambent light played over a pentagram inside a circle, the wobbly outlines drawn with sand on the linoleum floor. A trail of gritty debris and cigarette butts led back to the shadows where a plundered fire bucket lay on its side. Desks had been shoved against walls; chairs stacked in corners; telephones unplugged; tea-trolley pushed under the window. Gray venetian blinds barricaded the windows.
“Get on with it”, snapped Detective Inspector Marigold Bateman from the centre of the pentagram. “We haven’t got all night.”
Bill slowly removed his tie and stepped into the circle, unbuttoning his shirt with reluctant fingers.
D.I. Bateman advanced. Pounced. In a lightning movement unzipped his fly – yanked his trousers and underpants down to his ankles – threw off her raincoat – stood before him. Naked.
Too shocked to react, Bill could only stand open-mouthed as Inspector Bateman wrapped herself around him, pressing her ample flesh against his fear-shrivelled member.
A moment later he came to his senses. Prising her fingers from his outraged buttocks, he fought to break her grip. But D.I. Bateman was strong. And slippery. And with no clothes to give him purchase, Bill had only handfuls of Metropolitan Police flesh to grapple with. In a silence broken only by harsh panting they struggled together as Bill tried to fend her off and at the same time reach down to grab her coat and wrap it round her shoulders.
The room blazed with light. Detective Chief Inspector Bradshaw stood framed in the doorway, his hand on the light switch. He took in the terrible scene with one sweep of his eyes.
“You two. My office. Tomorrow morning.” The door slammed shut.
Ms. Shreditor's Comments
This sample ran longer than a page
when I double-spaced it (in keeping with Julie’s submission guidelines).
Several of the samples lately have run long, and I don’t want to keep beating this
poor horse to death. It may seem nitpicky for me to take a submission to task
for running a paragraph or two over the allotted length, but I’m trying to give
you all the best chance for success when you submit to an agent or publisher.
Submission guidelines are, among many other things, a litmus test of your
ability to follow directions, which will become increasingly vital as you move
through the various editorial and production phases.
I wanted to address the note that
accompanied this sample because it raises a crucial point: NOTE: In view of your submission requirements about
“no sex”, I should mention this is a British comedy, and so the nudity on the
first page is intended humorously. The disclaimer gives us some
context, but
the problem here is audience. I’m not offended by raunchy humor or
occasional nudity, but that’s neither here nor there because I’m not
really the target audience for this blog. Julie’s “clean” guidelines
echo the preferences of her
readership. An audience of clean readers will find the paragraph that
begins “Too
shocked to react...” jarring.
You don’t want to submit your piece
to the wrong agent or publisher, so here’s a good rule of thumb: if you have to
insert a disclaimer explaining why your piece doesn’t quite jive with the
guidelines, you might not be submitting to the right person. Make sure that,
if/when you submit this for publication, you submit to a publisher for whom the
disclaimer would be unnecessary.
If you are looking to publish in a
clean market, you might reconsider your approach to the nudity on this first
page. In a national market, this scene would likely be an attention grabber,
but in a niche market of clean readers, it might be offensive. Perhaps there’s
a way to tone down the nudity so that the narrative doesn’t pause too long to
gape at the “ample flesh” and “outraged buttocks.”
I do have a few important questions
about the story itself. What exactly do Bill and Marigold need to do to enter
the Freemasons? Why do they need to enter in the first place? Is the
nudity/attempted seduction part of the ritual, or does Marigold spring that on
him out of the blue? It seems as though they’ve gone to great pains to prepare
the room for it, and then Bill suddenly chickens out moments before their boss
enters the room. I’m not all that familiar with Freemasonry, so forgive me if I’ve
missed something.
A brief word about semicolons: they’re
not necessary in the list that begins “desks had been shoved against the
walls...” Commas will suffice here because 1) the list isn’t made up of
independent clauses, and 2) the list doesn’t contain compound items (i.e.,
individual items that contain commas or other punctuation). You might recast
the passage to eliminate the list structure if the commas seem awkward.
It took me several paragraphs to
get here, but here it is: I really do like this first page. Audience issues
aside, it grabbed my attention. A sentence or two made me laugh. The author has
a strong sense of setting and is able to paint a vivid scene for the reader
without stopping too long to smell the discarded cigarette butts. As I
mentioned above, the premise is still a little foggy to me; I’m not sure
exactly why the two main characters end up naked. But I sure am curious to find
out.
