The first five pages… If you aren’t a writer, you may not realize how important those five pieces of paper are. Over and over you hear that agents, editors and even some reviewers only give a book or manuscript five pages (at most) to grab them. That competition is so intense, that if in under 1,500 words or so they don’t think the book/writing is up to par they will move on–slap a rejection in an envelope, or stick the manuscript on the don’t-bother pile. Studies show that readers do the same thing when shopping–they pick up a book, read the back, then flip it open to the first page, scan a bit, then either put it back on the shelf or buy it.
Many writers scream when they hear this. FIVE PAGES! How can anyone decide if they like something in five pages? How can that in any way be a fair test?
I, however, totally understand this. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say I have never read a book that in the first five pages I thought “ugh” and gone on to discover I even somewhat like it. If you are judging a contest, the expectation is that you DO finish the book no matter how much you hate it–but I’m here to tell you, as I slog through prose that just isn’t my thing the score inevitably goes down instead of up. The authors would fare much better if I did put the thing down. I tend to get a bit grumpy when forced to read something I don’t like.
So, how about you? Can you think of a novel that in the first five pages you were sure wasn’t your thing, but went on to read and love? Or are you with the industry professionals who toss a manuscript/book aside if it doesn’t grab them? Is it totally unfair to jump so quickly to judgement? Are some of us missing out on potentially great reads? And exactly how far will you slog through something before giving up and going to clean your grout instead? Are all of us five-page readers, going to burn in book-lover hell?
No related posts.
So funny… I just wrote about hooks on my blog because I’ve started a new WIP and can’t get my brain off of writing a stellar beginning and then came here and saw this… great minds!
One book I read, hated the first few pages, and the LOVED and recommend to anyone who will listen was “The Givenchy Code” by Julie Kenner. It’s all typical chick lit in the beginning (*yawn* not a huge chick lit fan, sorry) but then WHAM! It’s fast, fun and edge of your seat thrills.
Otherwise, I’m like you — I have very little time to read, so I’m not wasting my time. Grab me immediately or lose me forever…
I can think of a lot of books I’ve put down after only a few pages. Myabe they deserved a longer chance, but life is too short and my TBR pile is too big. I’ve also slogged through the beginnings of books that have been recommended to me with, “It’s starts out a little slow but then it gets a lot better, stick with it.” Without a recommendation, though, I’m on to the next one.
Writers have to remember the context and constraints under which agents/editors work – and readers, for that matter.
We may think of it as one-on-one.
It isn’t.
They have lots from which to choose.
Lots of great reads.
Almost infinite quantities of them.
Their world won’t suffer any loss at all if they miss out on a “great read.”
Well first, life isn’t fair. Those first pages have to pop. Just yesterday I picked up a book at Borders and put it right back down again because the author started with three pages of description. I only read one paragraph, it was the same-old, same-old creepiness. I flipped ahead to see if there was dialogue and when there wasn’t, I put it down.
I want action and dialogue. Give me big description later. I can say I did read one book where the first five pages didn’t grab me only because I didn’t like (and couldn’t see how I ever could) the point of view character, but the author was not new to me, so I gave it a chance. It was MAKE HIM LOOK GOOD by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez. I loved the book and eventually did like the character, but I struggled at first.
I’m also with you on the contest entries. I get crankier and crankier as I read because not only do I have to judge, but I have to make comments and that’s hard work. Sometimes so hard as to be impossible. On the flip side, when I find a good one, I’m all over it! It’s like euphoria. I’m sure editors feel exactly the same way.
As a reader, I don’t think you can decide whether or not you’ll like a book by the first 5 pages, but you can tell whether or not you’ll like the authors writing style and voice. And sometimes that’s all you need to know about a book.
If a book is on my TBR pile, I’ll read through the first 25%. I don’t remember if there are books I didn’t like in the first 5 pages and then changed my mind by 25%.
I’ll make a decision to buy based on the first few pages and usually give till the end of the first chapter, if I’m not grabbed I flip to the middle and read a few pages before I decide if it’s worth carrying on with.
I usually read the first couple of pages before I buy a book by an unknown author.
If the voice/writing doesn’t grab me I don’t buy.
If the hero or heroine repulse or irritate me, I don’t buy.
If there is some glaring error (historical, medical, etc.) I don’t buy.
And yeah, I can usually tell in the first five pages (heck, I can tell in the opening paragraph most of the time) if I’m going to enjoy the voice enough to read the book. Of course I can’t tell if I’m going to enjoy the story itself in that small amount of space—and sometimes books with a good voice disappoint me story wise—but if the voice doesn’t grab me I know I won’t make it through the book.
I never look at covers. I do read a back blurb and then I flip to the middle of the book and start reading in the middle of the page. If the author’s voice doesn’t grab me in that two or three paragraph read, I don’t buy. I pick the middle rather than the beginning because, if by then the author isn’t into full swing, then they never will be. For me, anyway.
Yes, I think you know you won’t like something a lot of times early on because of voice. I’m big on voice. But it’s impossible to know whether the story will hang together at that point. So, while I don’t think I have ever read a book that I didn’t like in the first five, that I came to like later–I have read books I thought I was going to love in the first five and been majorly disappointed.
There is actually a book called The First Five Pages that addresses the major reasons an agent or editor puts something down after the first five. It’s mainly things like too many adjectives, no variety in sentence length, things like that. But for me it almost always voice–which means nothing bad about the book, except it doesn’t work for me.
Lori
I’ve read at least one book that I hated the first few pages but ended up loving the book. However, there are more books where I forced myself to continue the book to see if it would ever improve for me and it didn’t. I would say about 1 out of every 5 books is not my style even thought they are all in the same genre I normally read. If it’s a genre I I only sometimes read then it’s about 1 out of 2 that I put down in the first few pages.
I vary on this. As a general rule, I try to get through the first chapter when flipping through a book, and if I’m not grabbed by the end of it, I don’t buy it. But then again, some books start out so well that I’ll read half a page and decide to get it…and some just proceed to bore me at the start enough that I can’t finish the first chapter.
But you never know. I thought “Small Mediums At Large” had the best opening chapter I ever saw, and the rest of it was so far below that that I felt cheated for having spent $25 on the damn hardback.
I personally can’t usually tell by the first five pages. I usually have to read a couple of chapters to know if the story and characters will grab me or not. Even if I don’t love a book I still try to finish it, unless I hate it so much. Unfinished books bother me.
[...] I finished the read-through yesterday and now have plenty of notes. Today, I’m going to dive into the text and start tearing it apart — which is why I found myself somewhat amused to find Lori Devoti talking about the first five pages over on Romancing The Blog. Over and over you hear that agents, editors and even some reviewers only give a book or manuscript five pages (at most) to grab them. That competition is so intense, that if in under 1,500 words or so they don’t think the book/writing is up to par they will move on–slap a rejection in an envelope, or stick the manuscript on the don’t-bother pile [...]
At one point in life (when I was younger, had more time, and my TBR stack wasn’t so tall and my to-do list wasn’t so long), I read all of every book I picked up, no matter how I struggled with it.
But then came the day I decided my time was far more important than wasting it on a sub-par book. I still remember the guilty liberation I felt when I set that book in my to-be-returned stack to go back to the library. Now I actually have HARDBACKS that I’ve bought, read a bit of and I have set aside. I grieve over it, and my current rule is that I don’t ever buy a new author — I wait for that debut book to hit the library shelves, check it out and decide if I want to buy her NEXT one (I’m of course talking of hardback here, not paperback).
I think in all my years of reading, I’ve only struggled through the first horrid five pages of two books to discover they were keepers. But they were older books, written in a different time with different expectations — a for instance would be the incredible amount of info-dump we get in the otherwise MARVELOUS Gone With The Wind — remember all the backstory about Scarlett’s mother and father? (and that’s not one of the two books I perservered with to discover they were better — and that info dump wasn’t in the first five pages … it was just a for instance to show you that expectations of writers are different now than they were thirty or forty years ago — and even ten years ago.)
Have to agree with Rebecca, unfinished books upset me. I think in all my years of reading, I have one unfinished book. I always wonder what happened to the people I left in mid-terror.
I usually read the back cover and the short blurb in the beginning of the book; in romances it’s usually part of a love scene. 
If I’ve picked up a new-to-me-book or new-to-me author in a bookstore, read the back blurb and gone as far as opening to the first page to begin reading, I stick with the book longer than five pages. If I get farther in and the author’s writing style doesn’t engage and keep my interest, then chances are I won’t buy the book. If the author’s voice and style hook me, and the back copy plot interested me, too, the book usually makes it home. That said, I have bought a few books over the years that I settled in to read at home and then found out a third of the way through that I’m not interested enough to finish. Thankfully that doesn’t happen very often.
I read the back cover and the inside excerpt, then proceed to the first page. If the voice grabs me, then I buy the book. As for the books I’ve purchased in the past, I used to give every book until page fifty before I set it aside. The problem is I read so slow that I can’t afford to invest time in a book that strikes me as so-so. If it doesn’t have me by the second chapter, I tend to flip to the back and read the end, then I get rid of it.
Actually, I’ve read stuff that didn’t “grab” me in the first five pages that I managed to slog through and ended up loving. Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Dart, Anne Bishop’s Daughter of the Blood, and George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones. (Yes, I realise they’re all fantasy, but it’s only been recently I’ve read more romance than otherwise.)
I have a very difficult time with “slow” beginnings. If there’s more narrative than dialogue, I’m liable to pitch it — but if I’ve heard very good things about the book, I’ll keep reading anyway. If, though, after three chapters or so, it hasn’t caught my interest, I toss it.
One in particular – Dorothy Dunnett’s “The Game of Kings.” I didn’t get it. I just didn’t get it.
But I got to page 150 and couldn’t get enough. I’ve been obsessed by the books ever since.
Worth it because GOK is the first in a six novel sequence, not a series, but a continuing story that has to be read in order.
Worth it because it’s one of the most intense, fulfilling series I have ever read.
Worth it because re-reads just add more and more to the read.
Nope, I do the first few pages (not even 5!) rule too. I figure, if I’m getting judged by it, I’m doing the same darn thing. Life is short, catch my attention.
I very rarely give up on books, even if I don’t like them. Heck, I slogged through Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby when I knew within the first page that I was going to hate it. And I did. Every blasted paragraph, but I kept reading and feel a sense of triumph I finished the darn thing.
Since I read a lot of historical fiction as well as romance, I’m not usually bothered by a slow beginning and generally give the book 50 pages to get interesting, then I give up. Leon Uris’s Trinity started off painfully slowly, at an Irish wake in the 1800s, and didn’t pick up for about 75 pages, but when it did, it was the most powerful, emotional read I’d done in a long time. It’s one of my all time favorite reads now. I’ve started the first 20 pages or so of Thomas French’s Year of the French, which has been recommended to me but is hard to follow to begin with. Hopefully it’ll pick up soon.
People shouldn’t be so quick to judge a book in the first five pages.
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon didn’t grab me for about 100 pages. Hyperion by Dan Simmons took a while to get into also, and I probably reread the first chapter several times before going further.
I doubt I’d have stuck with either if I hadn’t been told that they had a slow start and to stick with them. Now they are two of my favorite books.
Timing is everything for me when I read. I’ve picked up some books and put them down because I couldn’t seem to get into them, picked them up at another time and loved them. No matter what, fair or not, readers decide quickly if they’ll stick with it. Grab em early and don’t let go.
I’m bad. I rarely start with the first five pages. I’ve been known to start from the last five pages and work myself backwards. And then restart from the beginning afterwards because, obviously, I liked the book A LOT to read it backwards like!
The hardest book I’ve ever started that I stuck with is Leon Uris’ Trinity. Trust me. Best book evah. Kick ass heroine to the max. Broodiest hero. I’ve read that book backwards and forward many times, but those first fifty pages were killer.
And oh. Don’t. Read. The. Sequel. I warned you here first.
There are books that I didn’t like immediately and I forced myself to continue, to give them a chance. Sometimes it was worth the effort; sometimes I put the book down after 10 pages. I’ve put books down in 2 pages, when there were enough clunky sentences and/or editorial errors to turn me off.
I’m judging entries for a writing competition now. 25 pages each. Believe me, you can definitely tell whether a story has something going on in the 1st five pages. These are only 25 and I’ve had to make myself continue on at least one of the entries. Another switched POV so many times in the first 3 pages, I got a headache. Too bad because the plot had potential.
So as a writer, my judging experience makes me think a lot harder about those first few pages.
If it’s really well written (as in interesting voice and/or prose and/or style, etc.) I’ll manage dull slow opening pages. Otherwise, no. I’m too busy to waste my time on books I won’t enjoy reading since I rarely do w/ those I found lacking in the beginning.
The five page rule works for me too. I’ve been stung by too many books with great descriptions and covers, only to discover the writing isn’t good enough. If the author is new to me, i always read the first few pages before buying.