One could argue that the first page of your novel is the most important. Not only is it the very maximum you will ever get from a prospective buyer at a bookstore, but many literary agents, as they wade through mountainous piles of submission, will use your opening words to either shuffle you to the reject pile (alongside 99% of the submissions they receive) or, if you executed it well, give you the chance to fulfill your life dream of becoming a published author.
Online organizations like Writer's Digest offer classes with names like "First Page Bootcamp" where you can get a master lesson and even personalized feedback from established agents about crafting a perfect first page. These classes can run as high as $200. Youch! I don't know about you but that's a steep ask from me, and an expense I would have a hard time convincing my wife was necessary. However, there is plenty of advice (some dubious) available on the wide web and in my searches I stumbled across a "first page checklist" from established author C.S. Lakin, who has become an authority figure on novel-writing advice, that I found quite helpful. It includes "must-have" items such as a "Opening Hook: Clever writing and image that grabs the reader," and a "glimpse at character’s personal history, personality—shed light on motivation." (You can read/download the full checklist here). I found this helpful in analyzing the ways my first page might not be living up to its full potential.
I've decided to be harsh with my first page, and part of that means laying it out here for you to read and invite your meanest words. Help me beat it up and make it better. It's like a broken arm that healed crookedly: it needs to be rebroken to get it straight. So without further delay, here is my first page as it stands. Please comment below with your harshest, unadulterated, no-holds-barred criticism.
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Chapter 1: The Offer
The day his wife was taken haunted Molan Apraxas until the moment of his death.
It happened beneath a flawless sky, the rarest type during the jungle rainy season. Six days of unbroken storms abruptly ceased, and the clouds peeled apart to reveal perfect blue, horizon to horizon. Molan took a break from tilling his maize field to roll out his twisted neck and stretch his tattered muscles.
Yields are down, Molan, the village lord’s son had said the day before. If things don't pick up, my father thinks we may need a sacrifice. Get back in the right with the gods.
Molan mopped his brow with the frayed end of his pati and exhaled heavily.
"Xuna," he called to his daughter. She glanced up from the hewn dirt three spans away, leaning heavily on her mattock. Her gangly shadow stretched across the ground between them. "Not too close to the others."
"Yes, father," she said, head sagging.
She’s her mother’s child, thought Molan. Gentle, passive, as sweet as sapodilla. It was good, her taking more after her mother than him.
"You're doing great," he added, feebly.
Turning back to the earth, Molan prayed silently. Breathe life to these seeds, he implored the gods. Let them resurrect the holy maize. Somewhere in the background, Xuna's mattock had fallen silent. Sink my daughter’s roots deep, he added for her. Let her grow tall, proud, and strong, not bent and craven like me.
It was in this precise moment when a scream—one that changed Molan forever—pierced the perfect day. Seren, his wife and greatest love, was in trouble.
“To me Xuna!” he said, casting his mattock aside. “Hurry!”
Molan seized his daughter's hand and they ran for their cottage as fast as Xuna's young legs allowed. There were many terrors in the jungle—monsters and demons, gods and wicked men—whose attention they could draw. Molan imagined every dreadful scenario as the two of them ran and ran, the distances seeming to grow rather than shrink. At long last, they crested the final slope and halted, looking down on their home as dust eddied around them.
Below, festooning the cottage door, were two enormous men, their armor and spears glinting in the flawless sun.
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