Where else will you find the Cuban Missile Crisis and wizards in one place?

As writers, we hear all the time that we’ve got to hook readers in just the first few pages or else. We’ve got to hook agents in the first few pages or else.

Whether you’re looking to get published or just hoping to hook your reader, first impressions are vital. Compelling opening scenes are the key to catching an agent or editor’s attention, and are crucial for keeping your reader engaged.
JEFF GERKE, THE FIRST FIFTY PAGES

This month I snagged from the New Release shelf:

The Franchise by Thomas Elrod

Now, this one I stumbled upon while trying to find something a little different from my previous selections. Ironically, I picked The Franchise because it reminds me of something I have read before. But I’ll explain in a second.

“Game of Thrones meets The Truman Show in this epic tale of a Hollywood-owned fantasy world where nothing is quite as it seems to the people who live and die at the studio’s whim.”

This blurb immediately made me think of Diana Wynne Jones’ The Dark Lord of Derkholm, which is about a planet that’s being used as a tourism site where people pay to come and be on the stereotypical fantasy quest. So, Elrod’s giving us another fantasy realm being controlled by others for nefarious reasons. I’ll take it!

I admit I got caught up in the first chapter, even though it’s not about the fantasy world or dealing with Hollywood. Rather, it’s in October of 1962 in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Wendell, who publishes a scifi/fantasy magazine, is contemplating the assured end of the world when a peculiar French-sounding man arrives with a massive manuscript he hopes will be published.

At first, I was bummed we had no allusions to Hollywood, dimensional travel, magic, etc. Nope. Just two guys talking about an unsolicited manuscript. Where’s the excitment in that?

Yet there’s this tug with all that talk about the end of the world that makes one wonder…could this certainty about the end of the world motivate how others choose to control that fantasy world promised in the novel’s premise?

There is a mystery, too,with this Frenchman who insists he’s from Boston and has no money to get home. At the beginning of the meeting Wendell is quite ready to chuck the Frenchman and go back to putting his affairs in order, but by the end of the interaction, he imagines an amazing media empire, all because of this book, this unknown book by this unknown man. Wendell hasn’t looked at a single word, yet is ready to give a large sum and a publishing contract.

Quite the turnaround there, without any reason other than feared doomsday.

Unless, of course, something else is going on….

So yes, I got surprisingly caught up in this little interaction between two characters who may very well not appear in the novel ever again. No flash or whizz-bang spectacle–just a vivid interaction with the undercurrent that something is not quite right.

And when the writing’s strong and premise promising, that’s all one needs for a solid first chapter. If you’re looking for a different avenue into a fantasy realm, something a little dark and weird and odd like The Franchise sounds like a pretty good fit.

Let’s see what next month’s find will teach us, shall we?

Coming up, I want to explore a few sounscapes and interviews, and also say goodbye to an old friend.Stay tuned!

Read on, share on, and write on, my friends!