Fabulous First Page: The Power of Voice

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For today’s Fabulous First Page showcase I seriously considered Jennette McCurdy’s debut novel, Half His Age. But that first page is not suitable for work, so I decided against it.

Here’s what I’ll say about the opening of Half His Age: starting with a cringey sex scene is a bold move, and not something I’d normally recommend, but it makes sense in the case of McCurdy’s coming-of-age novel. (You’ll have to read the book to understand why). In any case, the first page got my attention, which is the main job of a first page, and then I devoured the entire novel like a two-bite brownie.

Some of you might be thinking hey, I bet McCurdy gets special treatment from the publishing industry because she’s a celebrity. After all, she wrote the bestselling memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died about her fraught relationship with her stage-mother in the years that she was a child star. (That title! Talk about another bold move!) And it probably was a lot easier, as a famous person, for McCurdy to sell her memoir. But now she’s written a novel, it’s not about her acting life, and look, people: the woman can write. Her memoir was unputdownable IMO, and so is her novel.

I am curious what people think about her decision to start with a sex scene, but I’ll stop talking about Half His Age because it’s not the Fabulous First Page we’re discussing today. I chose another novel instead, by an author who has some similarities to Jennette McCurdy.

Today’s Fabulous First Page author, like Jennette McCurdy, is a semi-famous actor. And, like McCurdy, she often writes about obsession and loneliness and the longing for connection, both physical and emotional. Like McCurdy, she writes openly about sex and desire in bold, imaginative (and sometimes TBH gross and weird) ways.

She and McCurdy also both have distinctive narrative voices. To me it’s largely the voice that makes their books so compulsively-readable. Sometimes a strong voice is the thing that pulls a reader in from page one.

Before I reveal the title of today’s novel, I’ll start with a reminder of all the things a first page should try to do:

• Hook the reader right away and invite them into the story. (Of course, this depends on the type of reader you’re trying to attract. What hooks a sci-fi reader might be different from what hooks a romance reader, for example.)

• Set the scene and the overall tone of the novel.

• Introduce a main character (and/or introduce a main setting or theme).

• Hint at a conflict, situation, mystery/secret, or question. (Or, in the words of

  Cecilia Lyra, plant some “curiosity seeds.”)

• Set reader expectations. (For example, a funny book should be funny on page one; a scary book should have hints of spookiness of page one.)

• This post on first pages from Caroline Madden with examples and writing exercises

• This post about first pages from Karin Gillespie.

• This post on Jane Friedman’s blog about first pages.

• This post on novel openings from Devon Halliday

• All the “Books with Hooks” episodes of the podcast The Shit No One Tells You About Writing, in which the two literary agents critique queries and first pages. The Shit About Writing Team

• All my other Fabulous First Page showcases!

Now, without further ado, let’s find out the name of this book and read it’s fabulous first page…