Welcome back, my fellow creatives!
Yup, I'm back to looking at the first five pages of various stories, for those five pages can make or break the engagement of a reader--or an agent. So, let's scope out the stories of others to see how they hook an audience!
As an avid Agatha Christie fan, I was immediately drawn to Fiona Davis’ The Stolen Queen. A mystery tied to Egyptian antiquities? Sign me up!
Yet by the end of five pages, I felt…eh. Not that there’s anything wrong with the writing. Fiona Davis efficiently uses her page space to establish the setting (the Met in NYC), the situation of an exciting newly discovered Egyptian temple coming to the Met, and one of the protagonists: a career-driven, knowledgeable, sweet-as-can-be Charlotte. Everyone likes working with her, and no one gives her any credit for helping them make the exhibit possible. The scene ends with Charlotte wistfully thinking of her own legacy and how her research about a forgotten Egyptian pharaoh should change her life at last.
It's a serviceable start, sure. The plot starts moving right away, and there are a couple allusions to 1930s Egypt, which is highlighted on the dust jacket, so we know that time and place will matter in the narrative. But I didn’t feel hooked. I felt like this was the start of a tv movie where we’re watching the quirky-but-cute woman with glasses passed over by everyone until a maaaagical thing happens. And I just can’t bring myself to wait for that thing.
And what will we discover in the following story's pages? We'll have to wait and see. xxxx
Read on, share on, and write on, my friends!