Tag Archive - first page elements

First Pages of Best-Selling Novels: Menagerie

Mangerie by Rachel Vincent is a novel that fits into a number of genres: contemporary fantasy, magical realism, romance. It features a fascinating premise: a woman who goes to see a carnival that’s come to town discovers a fierce, sharp-clawed creature lurking just beneath her human veneer. Captured and put on exhibition, Delilah is stripped of her worldly possessions, including her own name, as she’s forced to “perform” in town after town.

As we’ve been doing every Wednesday since the New Year rushed in, let’s look at this first page of this novel by best-selling author Vincent and see how it measures up to my first-page checklist

Note that first pages carry a heavy burden in a novel. It’s the make-or-break page for the reader. Many people won’t read past the first page if it fails to engage their interest. So writers need to pay huge attention to the first page—maybe not so much at the first-draft stage, but at some point before that novel is submitted to agents or published.

First pages need to be tight, with concise description, and jump right into dynamic action and hint of conflict. Every word counts, so excess verbiage and unimportant movement and speech must be eliminated. Continue Reading…

First Pages of Best-Selling Novels: Closer to the Heart

I couldn’t resist including one of my favorite fantasy author’s novels. I’ve read most of Mercedes Lackey’s books, as have both my daughters. While they were teenagers, I think we passed her novels around the way we passed the chips and salsa. She is a master at creating believable fantasy worlds, and her world of Valdemar long stays in my mind, decades after reading dozens of her novels those many years ago.

Lackey has a very distinct, simple storytelling style, and does a great job at getting into character.  I thought Closer to the Heart would be a nice first-page example from this prolific author.

So let’s jump in, and then we’ll use my first-page checklist to examine what elements she’s nailed on this first page.

Note this is book 2 in one of her (many) series, and as we discussed in last week’s post, it’s important in a series to ensure new readers won’t have trouble getting into the story, as well as avoid too much “catching up” and telling what’s happened before the present action of the new installment. Continue Reading…

First Pages of Best-Selling Novels: The Adventuress

Today, for our first-page analysis, we’re going to look at The Adventuress by Tasha Alexander. This novel is the tenth installment in a historical mystery series. Reminiscent of Raybourn’s Lady Julia series, Alexander’s series introduces a widowed, precocious Victorian lady-sleuth who finds love and romance and displays her sharp sleuthing skills with each novel.

Emily and husband, Colin, have come to the French Riviera for what should be a joyous occasion—the engagement party of her lifelong friend Jeremy, Duke of Bainbridge, and Amity Wells, an American heiress. But the merrymaking is cut short with the shocking death of one of the party in an apparent suicide. Not convinced by the coroner’s verdict, Emily must employ all of her investigative skills to discover the truth and avert another tragedy.

Opening Pages of Series

While it can be presumed that most readers of a series have read some or all of the previous novels and know the characters, writers should keep in mind that some readers won’t have. Which means those opening pages should be easy for anyone to understand and follow (I’ll soon be doing some posts on writing a series and what’s important to know).

On occasion, I’ve started to read a novel that was part of a series (not the first book) and found it too hard to make sense of. Frustrated, and unwilling to put out the effort to stick with the story (in hopes everything would soon be made clear) or go find the first book and read that before resuming, I give up. Continue Reading…

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