Whoa! Interesting topic. I published my first book, The Bad Seed, in 2012 and I haven’t gone back to look at it since. I’m a little nervous. Here’s the first page.
The front and back doors burst open in an explosion of sound. Willa turned to look, her eyes wide and mouth open, knife still in hand, as men in black burst into the kitchen from the back hallway and from the living room.
In shock and hardly breathing, she stood in front of the stove with the knife in the air. They were all shouting, “Drop the knife! Drop the knife! Drop it!” She finally regained enough presence of mind to drop the knife. One of the men came rushing at her from the morning room, around the kitchen island and pushed her to the floor. Before she knew it, he had a knee in her back and both hands pulled painfully behind her. The handcuffs were tight and cold.
She tried to relax even with all of the boots milling around her head. Two of the SWAT team lifted her by her arms to stand.
Willa looked frantically around the room at all the men, “What’s going on?”
“Are you Wilhemina Hayes?” the one in charge asked as he stepped in front of her.
“Yes,” Willa tried to get her fear under control.
He read from a sheet of paper, “You are under arrest for violations of the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2011, “otherwise known as the PIRA Extension Act of 2011.”
He read Willa her rights then looked around the room, pointing at one of the team members.
“You, bag up this stuff on the stove. Mrs. Hayes, do you understand your rights as I’ve read them to you?”
“Yes,” She didn’t think there was any point in dragging this out.
He turned to go to the front door. “Come along with me Mrs. Hayes.”
To be honest, I’m pretty impressed! The opening is actually from later in the story, but I wanted to start the story with a bang and create the tension and reader concern for the main character right off of the bat.
I still want to do that but after my second book, I haven’t used that method of creating that first page hook again. Somehow I have the feeling it’s unfair to the reader to give them a scene out of sequence. I know it’s done in movies and on TV all the time but for some reason, I just don’t want to do that in my books.
The rest, the grammar, punctuation, point of view, and other technical stuff, are pretty good for a first book. I didn’t head hop or change from 1st to 3rd person, and with just one exception in the snippet, stayed in active voice. Yay!
There was some telling and not showing, but overall that first page looks pretty good. I guess I did a fair job after all, no need to be nervous.
What do you think? Were you hooked? Want to read more of the story? It’s up on many of the major ebook retailers. Available in paperback as well. You can use the links below to search for it.
Kindred Spirits released March 14th! I’m so excited about it. You can buy it and my other books at: Apple, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, Gumroads or Chatebooks today! You can also see all of my books on https://conniesrandomthoughts.com/my-books-and-other-published-work/. If you’ve read any of my books, please drop a review on the site where you bought it. It’s a big help to me in the book rankings each vendor uses to promote the books on their sites. Thanks in advance.
The Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour is sponsored by the website Forward Motion (http://www.fmwriters.com). The tour is you, the reader, traveling the world from author’s blog to author’s blog. There are all sorts of writers at all stages in their writing career, so there’s always something new and different to enjoy. Check out the rest of the tour starting at http://margaretmcgaffeyfisk.com/favorite-conventions-2016-merry-go-round-blog-tour/.