Readers and writers blog

Fiction writers, compared with newspaper writers, have a disadvantage: A newspaper writer finding a good story needs only to tell it straight, without embellishment, because it is, after all, a good story. And it is real — at least most readers will accept it as so. Fiction writers have to make up their stories, and making up a good one, pathological liars notwithstanding, is not easy.

But it doesn’t stop there. Now the fiction writer has to convince the reader that the good story is real. And that’s where Ray Rhamey comes in.

Rhamey is an editor who gives novelists advice that is knowledgeable, straightforward and, get this, free. His website, Flogging the Quill, is the latest addition to our blogroll.

The site surely will interest a would-be novelist, but it also has a general appeal as a behind-the-scenes workshop showing just how difficult writing can be and just how determined a writer must remain.

Since the beginning of the year, Rhamey frequently runs a feature he calls the Flogometer that challenges authors to submit a manuscript with a first page that compels him to turn to the second page. About once a week, he reprints the first page of a submission — authors submit the first 15 or 20 pages of their manuscript — and he reviews the page line-by-line, giving his advice with an honesty that can be blunt but not disrespectful.

Still, it’s not for nothing that Rhamey calls these exercises “public floggings.”

A writer named Steve is told in the Feb. 22 entry that the prologue to his novel amounts to little more than “info-dump narrative” that has left Rhamey “stymied”:

I don’t see how a mere description of a man who is, according to this prologue, a person of not much accomplishment, will snare a reader. If the writer had included the ‘few unusual quirks’ (cited in the text), especially if he showed them in a lively scene, then maybe. That would be a character, someone I could be interested in. Sorry, Steve. I suggest you browse through the (Flogging the Quill) archives for posts on storytelling.

To the writer of the Feb. 12 entry, identified only as ‘number 21,’ Rhamey says:

Thanks, but no thanks. If the task for a first page is compelling narrative, for me a phone conversation in which two people I don’t know (read ‘care about’) bicker over which way to turn out of a parking lot doesn’t clear the hurdle.

Still, it’s not all negative. About Steve, he says, “Clearly the author can write — I had few nits.” As for number 21, Rhamey concludes that he or she “has done many things right. Your writing is clean, and the dialogue works (as far as it goes).”

And some entries are clear winners, such as the March 14 entry by Eugenia about a man looking at Egyptian coffins in an antiquities shop. The text is reprinted here.

The entry caused Rhamey to turn the page:

(It) was the promise of an intelligent story with interesting characters and insights. What really did it for me was this dealer’s speech:

‘Yes, we all want kings and queens, don’t we?’ The dealer smiled, revealing small pointy teeth. ‘To remind us that even they can come to this, mere merchandise.’

I really liked the touch of philosophy, and perhaps theme, in the dealer’s speech. And if the dealer could be such an interesting fellow, what must the main characters be? I was interested in finding out . . .. Good, professional stuff.

Rhamey, at one time a top Chicago advertising writer and creative director, then a Hollywood screenwriter, understands the slings and arrows of writing novels — he’s written five himself. As an editor, he does complete manuscripts on a variable per-word basis for clients throughout the world.

The free offerings on his website, besides the Flogometer feature, have included other sample edits, book reviews, guest articles and a wealth of other information and guidance for writers since the site was launched in October 2004.

– Sid Leavitt