Please go to http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com to read blog from here on out
I'm really sorry Myspace friends, but after receiving my 1,578,278,323th Myspace error message while trying to post this blog I've finally had enough. Judging from the dwindling number of comments on the Myspace blog, I know I'm not alone in my frustration. Until further notice I will no longer be posting the blog at Myspace -- I hope you all will continue to read the blog over at http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com.
For those of you who have subscribed to the blog and are accustomed to receiving e-mails when I've posted, you can subscribe to the blog via e-mail on the Blogspot page -- there's a link on the right side of the page.
I hope you'll continue to read the blog and participate in the comments section over on Blogger, and sorry for the inconvenience.
When one is having an extremely busy day in which the e-mails are just pouring in, one does not generally expect that a telephone pole outside one's building will catch on fire, shutting down power for the day. Well, that happened to one ME today. I'm now working from home for the rest of the afternoon, which, trust me, sounds way more awesome than it is.
(Actually it's kind of awesome. I have a laptop and it's 65 degrees outside. You do the math.)
Anyway, this post is going to be brief because of the aforementioned busy day, but I'm getting a bazillion queries lately and I've noticed something kind of interesting about the way different people characterize their accomplishments in query letters.
Put on your agent hat for a moment. Which of these two authors would you be more interested in signing:
Author A has published six books, published numerous articles, and is a an award winning author.... only after some digging you find out the six books were published by a very small press with a sketchy website, the articles were published on the author's blogs, and the award was Citizen of the Year from Nowheresville, Indiana.
Author B has published several works from small presses, has a killer idea for a new novel, and is ready to make the leap to a major publisher. After some digging, this is all turns out to be true.
So who would you choose? Author B, right? Trick question: THEY'RE THE SAME AUTHOR. Also I made them both up. This blog gets trickier and trickier.
Anyway, the moral of this bizarro example is that it is much better to be completely honest about your accomplishments but pitch yourself as being on the rise than it is to try and blow up your accomplishments into something they're not. Agents do not like it when authors try and fool them, and we can smell a turkey sale a mile away.
On the flipside, though, don't undersell yourself either. Don't apologize for a lack of writing credits -- don't fake them, but just make sure you have a great story and you're confident about it. If you do, an agent will come calling. Assuming their telephone pole isn't on fire.
The San Francisco Writer's Conference is fast approaching, and the keynote speakers include Daisy Maryles, Executive Editor of Publishers Weekly, and authors Clive Cussler, April Sinclair, and Tess Gerritsen. Oh, and I'll be there! Maybe I won't "uh" my name this year.
Jessica Faust from BookEnds has a seriously awesome post up about how to choose the best agent. Once you know an agent is reputable, how do you know they're the right agent for you? This is a really difficult question to answer, and she does (I think) a great job of breaking it down.
Jeff Abbott pointed me to this GalleyCat article about how the Kindle is outpacing Amazon's expectations! No word on what those expectations actually were to begin with, but interesting nonetheless.
Also via GalleyCat, now, I'd like to remind you that this isn't a political blog so please don't..... oh what the heck. Bush's budget calls for the elimination of the Inexpensive Book Distribution program at Reading Is Fundamental, which distributes books to the youngest and most at-risk kids. GalleyCat would like to remind us that the First Lady was an ex-librarian. Hmmm...
And finally, remember last week how I told you about the book already up on Amazon about the Patriots going 19-0? Well.... that link doesn't seem to be working anymore. So weird, right?? I wonder why.
Digression. A few years back, the Boston Celtics were really bad. Their star trio Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish had retired, former Kentucky coach Rick Pitino had taken over as coach/GM, and... they were really really bad. But people in Boston still had all these high expectations for the team, and Pitino was fed up with people thinking the Celtics were going to be as good as the old glory days. So at a press conference he blew up on the media and gave a famous rant about how "Larry Bird is not walking through that door, fans. Kevin McHale is not walking through that door and Robert Parish is not walking through that door. And if you expect them to walk through the door they're going to be gray and old." (clip below in all its awesomeness)
Well, I have something to say to aspiring authors out there: Harry Potter is not walking through that door.
I've been getting SO many queries lately talking about the "void" left by the end of the HARRY POTTER series. Inevitably these are queries from children's fantasy writers with varying degrees of similarity to Harry Potter, who feel that people who are no longer buying HARRY POTTER books are pooling their money to spend on the next children's fantasy book featuring wizards.
Yes, to be sure, in the publishing industry we're all wondering and placing bets on what the next "next big thing" is going to be. But when has the "next big thing" ever been like the last big thing?
Aspiring authors do themselves such a disservice by trying to follow the publishing trends or trying to model their book on the ones that have been successful in the past. Trust me -- Harry Potter is not walking through that door, THE DA VINCI CODE is not walking through that door and THE LOVELY BONES is not walking through that door. The next huge hit is not going to resemble the hits of the past.
The best thing to do is what J.K. Rowling did: she wrote a great book that was fresh and original and not at all trying to mimic what was popular at the time.
Before I announce (and congratulate) the winner, please let me first thank everyone who participated in the contest, whether through entering, commenting, voting, or some combination thereof. This has been a lot of fun, you guys are seriously great, and I sense there are more contests in this blog's future (maybe I AM a seer after all).
Please also allow me to extend another HUGE MASSIVE thanks to Holly, my illustrious co-judge and author of Nothing But Bonfires (you have checked it out and added it to your blog roll, right?), who took many, many hours out of her busy week to help co-judge the contest. And in fact, she was even kind enough to pass along a message to everyone:
******
Hi everyone, Holly here! I just wanted to introduce myself quickly and thank you all so much for your submissions.
When Nathan originally asked me to be a co-judge in his contest, I leaped at the chance---I mean, really, I think I said yes before he'd even finished asking the question.
"Are you sure you're up for it?" he said. "I mean, I'm not entirely confident you know what you're getting yourself in for. There are going to be quite a few entries, you know."
"Pshaw!" I replied. "Why do you think I wear such strong contact lenses? From reading too much, of course! I devour whole novels in a day! I eat anthologies of short stories for breakfast! I can read a few hundred first pages for your competition, Nathan, no sweat!"
Except it wasn't a few hundred, was it? It was 675. So, uh, thanks for that.
But the truth is, I had a blast. Honestly, I did. And in case there's any doubt in your mind, I absolutely, unequivocally, cross-my-heart-and-swear-on-a-stack-of-Hills-DVDs read every single entry. (No, seriously! As Spencer is my witness!)
And narrowing them down was hard. It was excruciatingly hard. I started by copying and pasting the ones I was immediately impressed with into a Word document I called FINALISTS. But then I had so many finalists that I had to start another document called FOR REAL FINALISTS. After that came FINALISTS! NO, SERIOUSLY THIS TIME, NO KIDDING, and in that document I had about 30 entries. I cut that down to 15. I cut that down to 10, and then I sent those 10 to Nathan, who sent me his 10 back in return. We found we had two in common, so we put those on the master list.
After that, it all got a little Sophie's Choice up in here. Of the two I eventually chose as my picks---Julianne's and Charlotte's, in case you're wondering---both were equally evocative, clever, and just plain well-written. (Both were also about funerals, in case you hadn't noticed, which prompted Nathan to email me and ask if everything was alright.) But the ones I had to leave behind broke my heart: the dead baby in Elladog's story, the twelve-year-old smart talker in Lincoln Highwayman's piece, the tarot card reader in Southern Writer's intro, the newly boob-jobbed protagonist on Len Joy's page. I wanted to bring them all with me onto the shortlist, and I'm hugely sorry that I couldn't.
So thank you to all of you for making my days (and my nights---my long, long nights) that little bit more interesting. Thank you for giving me some truly great stuff to read. Thank you for having the courage to enter the competition and the graciousness to congratulate your peers when it was over.
And now I think it's about time Nathan bought me a shot.
******
Nathan again. And yes, I definitely owe Holly a shot.
I'd also like to extend my own personal congratulations to the authors on my list of final 10 that barely missed the final 6: Eric ("Tweed & Scissors" -- almost completed the contest trifecta having made the finalists of two previous blog contests), Walter (the Generalissimo), LindaBudz (the Potato Baby Dare), Ally (the Brown Shoe Diaries), and Michael Reynolds (disappearing teacher). In case you're further curious, heather!anne! (soup can man) and kari (Possible Happiness) were on both Holly's and my lists of top 10, and after Holly chose Julianne and Charlotte I chose luc and terryd to round out the top six.
PENULTIMATE congratulations are in order to our wonderful finalists: Julianne, kari, Charlotte, terryd, and luc. (Please e-mail me to discuss your prizes.)
And the ULTIMATE GRAND PRIZE SUPER DELUXE WINNER IS... after 675 entries, many votes, a whole lot of comments, and one great week.... I'm pleased to announce that heather!anne! is the winner of the Surprisingly Essential First Page Challenge!
Thanks again everyone, I hope you will stick around and continue to participate in the blog, and I'll be back later in the week with the usual blog programming.
Long story short, some anonymous hecklers and some apparently published authors submitted their first pages in the contest, and since they were not chosen as finalists, they feel that this means that either a) I'm an idiot, b) the publishing process is broken, and/or c) well, I'm sure there may have been a c but I deleted their comments because I loathe anonymous snark (as opposed to the anonymous Miss Snark, whom I love).
First of all, don't you know that Spencer is the enemy? Why are you targeting me?
Second of all, welcome to publishing. Pull up a chair. I hope you'll stay awhile. It's an interesting place.
For the people who apparently believe agents should divine the publishing prospects of a work based solely on the first page of said work: uh, that's not really how it works actually. Over 20 publishers passed on A WRINKLE IN TIME when they had the whole manuscript in their hands, let alone just the few words that came after "It was a dark and stormy night." Publishers passed on [insert any bestseller and/or classic book here] a bunch of times. This is a subjective process in which many wonderful books are passed on. Publishing is all about matching up the right book with the right agent and the right editor at the right time. Even if an agent or editor passed up on the next huge book, it doesn't mean they're stupid -- they might just not have been the right fit. Enthusiasm and fit are everything.
But wait, you might say: don't agents try and divine the publishing prospects of queries all the time? Yes! We do -- but this is why the (admittedly imperfect) query process is in place. A query should give a sense of the overall work, whereas judging a book based on the first page is like trying to determine how awesome the Statue of Liberty is just by looking at her toenail. This is why it's necessary to write a good query and query widely. Subjectivity is the name of the game.
So for the people who are getting worked up about a for-fun contest on an agent blog: simmer down there, hot rod. This all goes with the territory. The purpose of this contest was to find some good first pages and have fun in the process. Aren't we having fun?
And oh by the way -- how about those six finalists? Aren't they good?
Some people requested that I speak a bit more on how I chose my finalists, so here goes. There were many awesome first pages, but I found myself drawn to a particular group, and frankly I'm very happy with the choices.
A first page really can do (basically) four things: reveal the setting, reveal the characters, reveal the plot, and/or reveal the style. There were many first pages (just as there are many wonderful books) that started off with a wonderfully evocative setting, there were many that started off with wonderful characters, an intriguing plot and/or an interesting style. You could find all sorts of wonderful books that start with a combination of one, two, three, or four of these elements (ATONENMENT, for instance, begins with a fascinating character, Briony, organizing a play with McEwan's intricate style).
For the purposes of this contest, perhaps because we're judging the first page and ONLY the first page, I, personally, found myself drawn to works that revealed all four elements.
I also found myself drawn to works with a high degree of difficulty. As I mentioned in the comments of the voting thread, at first blush, some of these finalists might seem very straightforward, but it is VERY difficult to capture a pitch perfect voice and a historical setting like Heather!Anne! did (she even used the word reckon well, which is nearly impossible to do), it's VERY difficult to ease the reader into a world while building some spine-tingling suspense like terryd, VERY difficult to simultaneously introduce a strange futuristic world while at the same time eliciting a response like "yup, I know this family" like luc, VERY difficult to master the impeccable flow of kari's first page and then bring a smile to the reader's face with that dialogue, VERY difficult to elicit a sense of place like Charlotte, and such an impeccable and precisely-constructed mood like Julianne.
At the end of the day, while I can rule out some works objectively because they're far away from publishable quality -- ultimately it's subjective. I picked four out of 675. There were many more that were good, more that I want to see more of, and apparently a few by some excitable authors taking this contest just a tad too seriously.
I went with the ones that really struck me and that I was most enthusiastic about. And at the end of the day, that's the way the publishing process works.
America’s Next Top Surprisingly Essential First Page (The Finalists)
675 beautiful first pages stand before me.
675 first pages who were fierce and who made it work and who cried whenever I asked them tough questions, because that is the best way of advancing in America's Next Top Model I mean Surprisingly Essential First Page. But only six can continue on in the hopes of becoming America's Next Top Surprisingly Essential First Page.
But first, let's review the prizes. The winner of America's Next Top Surprisingly Essential First Page will win a photo spread in Publishers Weekly with legendary fashion photographer Gilles Bensimon, a $0 cash prize to start their modeling career, and their choice of a query critique, partial critique, 10 minute phone conversation, or one of my clients' books. Runners-up will receive a query critique or other agreed-upon prize.
You all know our judges, uh, me, and living legend and blogging icon Holly Burns, author of the blog Nothing But Bonfires.
But I only have six photos in my hand. These six photos include two finalists that appeared on both of the judges' list of favorites, two choices from Holly, and two choices from Nathan. These six photos represent the six who will continue on in the hopes of becoming America's Next Top Surprisingly Essential First Page.
In no particular order, the first name I'm going to call... is Julianne Douglas.
Julianne, the judges were impressed by the sense of atmosphere and the flow of the conversation. Here is your Surprisingly Essential First Page:
Still Life with Flowers (Women's fiction)
The afternoon sun sliced the room like scissors through cellophane and exploded against the laminated flipchart in a blast of white light. Elaine shielded her face with an out-turned palm. "The slats," she interrupted. "Excuse me, Mr. Severson. The slats." She jerked herself to her feet. Wadded tissues tumbled from her purse like confused sheep. She herded them under the chair with her toe and navigated around the artificial ficus to the window. The room smelled fusty, like last week's forgotten bagel. She muted the glare with a twist of the dowel, then reached beneath the blinds to raise the sash. Cool air rushed in; she forced a deep breath. The slats clattered into place as she dragged herself back to her chair. "I couldn't see, Peter." Over by the door, her husband grunted.
Cars whisked by on Trindle Road. The noise was louder now with the window open. Flashes from passing fenders raked the fuzzy dimness of the ceiling. A steady stream of commuters rushed home to let out their dogs. Defrost pork chops. Hug their kids. Elaine swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on the reedy voice of the man behind the mahogany desk.
"These are our most popular arrangements." Mr. Severson propped the spiral-bound catalogue upright against his forearm. "Typically, in a closed-casket service, a large floral spray covers the lid. Two matching wreaths flank the casket. An urn decorates the foot of the altar." His free hand tapped the mock-up with a pen as he listed each element.
She focused on the picture with puzzled fascination. "Lilies."
"Yes, Mrs. McArdle." Mr. Severson lowered the book to flip a page. He raised it again, this time displaying a checkerboard of smaller shots. "As you can see, all of our arrangements feature white lilies. Lilies symbolize purity, eternal life. People expect to see them at Christian funerals." He scratched the side of his nose with the pen.
"I did a painting of lilies once. I'm a painter, you know." She fumbled for a tissue. "Five white lilies in a golden vase. One for each of Christ's wounds, though I doubt many people understood the symbolism. Hardly anyone does anymore." Mr. Severson smiled blandly and glanced at Peter, who, arms crossed in front of his chest, leaned against the wall and examined the weave of the carpet.
Severson sighed. "Of course they do, Mrs. McArdle. Of course they do." His voice caressed her with well-practiced compassion. "Especially in the case of lilies." He cleared his throat gently. "Now, there are other options to choose from besides the standard four-piece package. For example, the front pews can be draped with garlands. . ." He ruffled the book, searching for an example.
"It was a difficult painting. Especially the reflections." Elaine frowned, recalling how hard it had been to capture white on gold. "I never did get it quite right."
The second name I'm going to call... is Kari.
Kari, the judges were impressed with the sense of style you brought to this first page, and you nailed the dialogue, which is both evocative and worked perfectly with the rest of the page. Here is your surprisingly essential first page:
Possible Happiness
He did not remember her as beautiful and did not find her particularly so that evening.
Every man at the party would have said the same, would have sworn that their wives and mistresses and secretaries were far lovelier, that they passed twenty women on the street each morning who were more pleasing to the eye. They would have claimed, with little prodding, that she measured just an inch too short, just a year too old, just a hair too wide, and that it was not one but all of these features together that subtracted "beauty" from the perfunctory sum of assets they might otherwise settle on a woman. They did not know her, or know why she was in attendance or which of their hosts might have invited her. No fanfare announced her arrival and she did not directly precede or follow any notable luminaries, so the men could not say with any certainty why—when scores of prettier women wandered in their midst—they each had turned to watch her as she entered the ballroom, only that she seemed to expect it, as though she had lived her whole life in a crowd and it was simply her nature to be appealing. Nor could they explain why their eyes continued to follow her as she weaved her way through them, whether it was the silk of her scarlet gown fluttering around their ankles or the scent of fresh gardenias that made their palms grow damp. Those who stood close enough to brush against her longed to reach out and release her hair from its complicated arrangement, to watch the dark waves tumble to her shoulders in the glow of the chandeliers. She made no sound and yet some imagined they heard the silvery trill of a laugh as she swept past them. When she reached the far edge of the marble dance floor and stopped, these men found themselves peeling away from their partners to lean toward her, eager for her true voice, and they were rewarded. "Schnapps," she commanded of her escort, a tall fellow in a tailcoat whom they had failed to notice until that moment and ceased to recall in the next moment when he stepped away from her.
A minute passed (two? three? they could not be certain) before the women descended to recover their errant prizes. The youngest wives, who would have considered their mates immune, could see very clearly the misguided enthusiasm with which she had applied the rouge to her cheeks, and noted the black lace at the hem of her billowing gown beginning to unravel, just a bit there, just above her left foot. The mistresses smiled as they stroked the mink stoles that curled around their own pale shoulders. They understood the power of distraction and admired her for it.
"Marian said she's some sort of actress Philip used to know. Come now, darling, I'm sure it was nothing like that. Although…yes, perhaps it was something like that."
The third name I'm going to call... is Charlotte.
Charlotte, the judges were impressed by the sense of place you work into this page. It's an evocative setting, and yet the reader does not feel lost because you ground the work in emotion and description. Here is your surprisingly essential first page:
Another Saturday, another funeral. Lindiwe dusts breadcrumbs off her lap, takes a final sip of her sweet tea and places the mug in the sink. She'll wash it later. She takes her coat off the hook and puts it on. She always wears her coat, even though it's the height of summer. Putting on her beret, she leaves the house. Carefully, but conspicuously, Lindiwe locks the front door so that the scabengas who have moved in next door notice just how locked it is, and then she stands on the kerb waiting for her lift to arrive.
She and Sipho do funerals every weekend. Often they organise them; finding the cash to put caskets of different sizes in the ground and to arrange food and drink for the mourners. If they're not organising, then they're attending. Sometimes they are the only attendants. Last Saturday, they buried five-month-old Maria. She'd been dropped at the Mission and had not lived long enough to draw a crowd. Lindiwe mourned her, though. She always mourns, every baby, child and adult who they bury. Every time is like the first time. Sipho knows to have tissues and he passes them to her at the appropriate moment. Such a nice young man. Lindiwe wonders when his time will be.
Sipho drives up in his aging yellow Golf and she climbs in. He drives them past the over-flowing cemetery outside the township, along the dusty road into town and up the hill through the once white-only suburbs. They join the highway and climb an-other, steeper hill, Sipho's car chug-chugging behind articulated lorries. Today Lindiwe has not had to arrange anything, but she has been asked to give a reading. She holds her Bible closely to her heart to muffle its thumping.
They leave the highway and turn right, hugging a road through plantations and farmlands. Saturday shoppers walk along the roadside, carrying babies on their backs and plastic car-ier bags in their hands. Many of them carry on their heads the large fabric bags that supermarkets now force people to buy. Lindiwe opens the car window and allows the cooler hilltop air to fan her face. She sees the faintest outline of the far-off mountains to her left, but much as she is drawn towards them, Sipho's Golf coughs its way forward.
After a deep dip, they drive through an avenue of trees. To the left, Lindiwe sees cows in a hilly meadow, and vervet monkeys walking surefootedly along a barbed-wire fence. Through the trees she glimpses flashes of white: buildings. The funeral is being held in the chapel of his old school; a prestigious academy for boys of the elite, a place with so much money that they can afford the folly of all-white buildings that require constant repainting. Lindiwe has never been here before. She has visited the sick in villages nearby, seen the dying and the dead in shacks on the surrounding farms, but she has never been to this school for rich children.
The fourth name I'm going to call.... is Heather!Anne!.
Heather!Anne!, you took on a high degree of difficulty with a young narrator and a historical setting, but the judges think you nailed it. Here is your Surprisingly Essential First Page:
He was carrying a can of soup and needed to make change for a nickel.
I told him if I had a nickel, or five pennies amounting to a nickel, I'd be out behind the old school house with my brother's friends, gambling on dice. You need two nickels for a Coca-Cola and a Clark Bar, and one really ain't worth having with out the other.
He chuckled in that old man way, which seemed inviting enough, so I asked him what the heck he was doing with that can of soup anyway. He said, "Oh, nothin'," and went on his way.
Over dinner I asked if anybody'd seen an old man wandering around town with a can of soup. My daddy said, "You ought to try reading a book some time instead of sitting outside Mitchell's Pharmacy all day, staring at folks." My mama said, "Sarah Beth, I told you not to talk to strangers." And Tim, my older brother, he said, "You owe me ten cents. Don't be spending any more money at Micthell's 'till you pay me back."
I was quiet for a while, mulling it over in my head, wondering about that soup can a little bit but also about the five pennies that would have made nickel-change. Who needs pennies? They make your hands stink like copper. (Although if I'd had ten pennies, I could have paid Tim so he'd get off my back about that loan.)
Mama must have noticed I was quiet, which she called an 'abnormality,' so she said to my daddy, "Thomas, why don't you tell Sarah Beth to leave it alone? There's no need for her to be off chasin' a strange man."
My mama was always forbidding things by telling my daddy to forbid me to do them. I would have called that an abnormality, but nothing gets you spanked faster than a smart mouth.
"Don't go chasing strange men," my dad said, which caused my mama to give him that gushy smile that always made me feel kind of gross.
One time I was at the dentist and he poured some fluoride in my mouth. "Don't swallow it," he said. And the only thing I could think of was how bad I wanted to swallow that fluoride. It was the dentist's fault, I reckoned. If he'd just put it in my mouth without saying nothing I could have probably kept it in there for a half hour, especially if he bet me I couldn't do it.
But he said don't, so I wanted to, and I did. I swallowed that fluoride.
I was afraid I might die, but the dentist just laughed and said, "You don't die from swallowing fluoride."
That's how I learned that sometimes when grown-ups tell you not to do something, it's just a suggestion. And I guess that's the reason I went looking for that soup can man.
The fifth name I'm going to call... is terryd.
terryd, the judges felt that this is a textbook example of steadily easing a reader into a unique world while building tension, revealing the protagonist's personality, and introducing a plot. Here is your Surprisingly Essential First Page:
JERRY SHARPE - 64,000 words
It's been two weeks since the cars died, and we're walking out. My family is here with me in the Sierra, and I don't know if that's a blessing or a curse. Most electrical devices are dead, and we don't have any reliable information about what happened, but we can guess. We've heard some rumors, and they're all bad, and I can't afford to expect anything good to happen to us, so it takes me by surprise when an airplane flies low over us. We're walking a deer trail that parallels the interstate. The plane is on us very quickly, and I motion for Susan and the kids to get under cover. We run to a thin stand of pines and look up. It's been months since we've seen anything in the sky except military aircraft, but this one is hanging from its prop and flaps, just above stall speed at tree-scraping altitude. It doesn't fly directly overhead, but I catch a gleam of painted aluminum above the pines and I feel the pressure of searching eyes. When the pilot adds power to hold a turn, we run for better cover.
We get into a thicker stand of trees and form our four-person perimeter. It's a sloppy diamond formation but it allows us to cover the road with three guns. Susan gives me a flat look. Her lips are moving, and at first I think she's trying to tell me something, but then I see that she's praying, and I wonder if she knows it.
Our son Scotty is prone with his scoped .22. God help him, the boy looks like he can't wait to shoot somebody. Our eldest, Melanie, is farthest from the interstate. She won't carry a weapon but I'm grateful that she still more-or-less follows my orders, no matter how it must gall her.
The old Cessna drags itself over the freeway and circles above a meadow. The pilot drops something. I watch the lumpy gleam of a bubble-wrapped package falling from the sky. There can't be anything half-assed about it. It's either something very good or something very bad, and I watch its flawed shape pass down through the trees and into God's nature like a gift or a curse. I'm a naturally pessimistic bastard, and my pessimism has stood me well, as of late, so I motion for Susan and the kids to put their heads down. The ground here is dry and it smells clean and infertile. I listen to the soft, buffeting sound of my breath pushing against hard earth, but time passes and there isn't an explosion. It isn't an improvised bomb at all and I hear people cheering, the voices of men, women and children.
Another group is travelling the road. They're on foot too, and we've been trailing them for most of the day.
And the last name I'm going to call... is luc.
A poor family in space? Where can I read more? luc, even when you were referencing things the reader doesn't know about, you made. this. work. Here is your Surprisingly Essential First Page:
Deana Horsehead Chidder:
Our whole stinking family lived on a half-derelict salvage ship that floated so far from the space station, we sometimes had trouble telling it from the stars. There was Ma and Da and seven of us whelps, rattling around in an 80-year-old narrowcruiser with only one working rocket. Phyllis and Wyoming were born deformed from Ma not taking precautions against radiation during pregnancy, but Phyllis--with one eye glued permanently shut and a forehead like an old man's backside--had all her faculties.
At the station they figured us for morons, because none of us would go to that school they had. Why should we, when they wasted your time making you learn about the primary commerce drivers in Procyon A system and how to use a proto-language translation program--who needed it? No Chidder, that's for sure. We'd rather wallow on the ship in our own filth, God's honest truth, and make what living we could from salvaging burned-out probes and trash and the occasional derelict starship.
Except for me. I'd been wallowing with the rest of them all my life, but at sixteen years old I figured I was old enough to run away. Which is why I was on my way to Bay C to meet a Luytenite and a Centipede. Bay C because the airlock there didn't work right and if you hit the wrong button you could get spat out into space like a piece of bad meat. We usually kept away from Bay C, so it was a good place to keep out of sight.
I was taking extra care, because Ma was a certifiable paranoid and she did security sweeps all the time. She once accused me of being a robot spy and tried to poke me with a power probe to prove it. If she'd got me, I would have been dead that much earlier, and maybe I wouldn't have ended up in the Valley of the Dead and dealt with all those demons and everything. I'll get to that later. Anyway, I got clear of her and hid 'til she came to her senses, that time.
So I'd told the Centipede and the Luytenite they had to boost just once, at the station, and then they had to power down and use chemical brakes to dock. Chemical brakes are expensive because of all the wasted gas, but they don't show up on the sensors, so that was the only way I could have them do it. See, I had to be careful about Ma all the time, even when I wasn't up to something. Now that there was really something going on, I wasn't about to give it away and lose my chance.
I'd been hoping Ma would be in the middle of a security audit, or in bed with one of her headaches, but she must have smelled something was up: she was prowling the corridor outside the shuttle ports. She stared at the wall there, at
Voting rules: please vote for your favorite in the comments section of the Blogger post. Anonymous votes will not be counted. Please feel free to spread word around the Internet about the voting, but please do not campaign for any particular nominee(s). Voting will be open until Tuesday at 5:00 PM Pacific.
Who will become America's Next Top Surprisingly Essential First Page? Let's find out.
Still reading! I tell you what, reading 675 entries while also having a job is quite a task. Holly and I hope to have finalists for you soon, but meanwhile, there was a week in publishing, and it was an eventful one.
In perhaps the biggest publishing news, Publishers Lunch is reporting that, hot on the heels of acquiring Brilliance Audio, Amazon is making an offer to purchase digital audio distributor Audible. My mind? BLOWN. Audible has been the 1 player in the digital audio marketplace in part because of their popular subscription plans and due to their exclusive arrangement with iTunes. Many had thought that Amazon would develop a rival non-DRM model (background on DRM here) to compete with Audible/iTunes, but this seems to signal a different strategy. Should this happen, what does this mean for Audible's relationship with iTunes given that iTunes is a competitor of Amazon's? What does this mean for the non-Amazon/Audible/iTunes digital marketplace? And WHO IN THE HECK WAS IN JACOB'S CABIN ON LOST LAST NIGHT?? This inquiring mind wants to know.
Back when I asked people to propose contest ideas, one of said ideas was to have a Shakespearean query contest. Reader Scott Rhoades was kind (and brave) enough to run with this contest, so grab your quill and make like Will Shakespeare trying to find an agent!
For all you Wire fans out there, May Vanderbilt from Good Girl Lit has a post on seeing God in the Wire. Did I tell you that show is awesome or what?
And finally, remember last week how I linked to a New York Times article on the popularity of cell phone novels in Japan? Well, leave it to the brilliant people at The Millions to translate an excerpt from one of the cell phone novels so you don't have to. My reaction: Either something is lost in translation or I'm just getting old.
Holly and I are still very hard at work poring over the entries in the Surprisingly Essential First Page Challenge, so I don't have an update on when we'll have finalists. Instead, I know there are a lot of new visitors to the blog, and I want to encourage everyone to stick around! Consider this a pledge drive. If you enjoy your local Nathan Bransford programming, please, add the blog to your RSS reader or subscribe to the blog via e-mail. Every little bit counts. We depend on reader pledges for 100% of our operating budget of $0, so please show your support for programming like This Week in Publishing and You Tell Me and our many contests.
And seriously, you guys are some talented writers! Reading over the entries has been a pleasure, and can I thank everyone again for entering? I think I can.
Meanwhile, an interesting debate sparked in the comment section of last night's time-calling post, and I thought I'd expand on it a bit here.
One of the things you always hear when you're a writer is that you really have to grab an agent with your opening. And this is true -- we read a whole lot of manuscripts, and if we're not grabbed right away we're going to move onto the next project.
BUT. This does not mean that you have to go out and try and grab the reader by the throat. Perhaps the most common shortcoming I'm seeing in some of the entries is that they try too hard to be surprising or shocking or pulling one over the reader. This is a common problem. Writers I talk to even sometimes tell me that they wanted to start with a more gradual opening, but their writing group said it was too quiet, so they went with the "bigger" opening instead. For instance, at least 7 openings in the SEFPC involve burnt and/or rotting flesh.
To be sure, this can be done well. But look at the openings of your favorite novels. Herman Melville did not begin MOBY DICK with Ishmael staring at the rotting carcass of a whale, Charles Dickens did not begin A TALE OF TWO CITIES by describing what guillotined heads look like. Even suspense novels that do begin with a shocking opener, like Jeff Abbott's FEAR, which starts with the seriously awesome first line "I killed my best friend.", double-back to gradually reveal details about the characters and world of the book.
This is because the purpose of an opening isn't to grab a reader and start punching them in the face, but rather to draw them into the world of the book. A "shocking" event in the very beginning isn't usually very shocking because it's not earned -- the reader doesn't yet care enough about the characters or know enough about the world for it to resonate properly -- so it feels more like a parlor trick. Even if it's an action-packed beginning, it's still necessary to orient the reader. So there are some definite dos and don'ts in the beginning, and I'd point you to Kami's great comment from last night's post for a breakdown.
The purpose of a first page is to begin to get to know a character, world, or plot in such a way that the reader wants to know more. It's a taste. And great characters, a great plot, and/or great setting (and of course great writing) grab me a lot more than an opening that tries too hard to be surprising or shocking.
Thank you so much to everyone who entered the Surprisingly Essential First Page Challenge!! Time is up, and frankly, not a moment too soon. 645 comments on Blogger, 29 on Myspace.... wow. I'm really blown away both by the quality of the entries and the fact that there are SO MANY OF THEM.
Holly and I definitely have our work cut out for us. I'm honestly have no idea how long it's going to take us to read through the entries and decide upon finalists. BUT. At some point in the near or distant future we will somehow settle upon a list of finalists and you will be able to vote on the ultimate super grand prize deluxe winner. So keep checking back.
And seriously, one big round of applause for Holly for agreeing to judge. She is a champ, and I hope you are all enjoying her awesome blog.
Thank you again to everyone who participated!! This has been a lot of fun, I'm really looking forward to reading all the entries, and in fact...
Thank you very very much for everyone who has entered the Surprisingly Essential First Page Challenge! There are many a Surprisingly Essential entry (around 400 between Blogger and Myspace), and the thread will be open for entries until tomorrow at 5:00 PM Pacific. Please continue to enter in the original contest thread and only in the original contest thread. Some people have missed the mark. I know the original post is getting so large that some people (especially those who are on dialup) are having some trouble entering. If you absolutely cannot make it work, you can e-mail me your entries and I'll post for you. But for the sake of my inbox, please try everything short of summoning the entire Geek Squad of America to your house before you take that last resort!
In other news, I hope Holly will be speaking to me by the end of the week! Have you checked out her blog? Promised her cat toys and ski encouragement? I hope so! I seriously cannot thank Holly enough for agreeing to help out. This is quite a task.
And in other news, I hate to mar what has otherwise been an extremely fun contest that I am still very excited about (despite the morale meter dipping), but I think I need to address this, so here goes. Some people have expressed concern that their entries are being critiqued on other blogs, and that this isn't something they signed on for. I'm sympathetic to these concerns -- while this is a public forum and people can see their entries, they might not have known that others would be critiquing their efforts, and ultimately I'd just like everyone to feel good about participating. Yes, being critiqued is something that happens when you're a writer, but this contest is just supposed to be fun. It's not like anyone is getting paid for this.
So I proposed what I feel like is a very fair compromise: I asked people who were critiquing to please refrain from critiques for the moment, but since I know there are many people who would love to hear feedback, I'd be happy to mention their blog on tonight's update to send people their way if people want critiques. That way, the people who want critiques can get critiques, and the people who don't want critiques don't have to be critiqued. Everyone wins! Even the monkeys, and they never win.
Unfortunately, while one critiquer was extremely gracious about bowing out (I really can't thank her enough, she was very kind about it), another has disagreed, I haven't heard from the third, and ultimately I can't really enforce this compromise. The critiquers aren't excerpting material, and besides offering a compromise, my hands are somewhat tied here. People are going to do what they're going to do, apparently. So I apologize to those who are uncomfortable with what's happening, but I hope it won't mar their enjoyment of the contest. I tried!
Ultimately, I hope we can move on from this -- I hesitate to say there's a lesson in this (there isn't!), but from here on out I'm going to be deleting further comments that relate to this issue (I'm serious about this). Let's just all enjoy the contest and let's all just get along, and really: we need to remember that Spencer is the real problem here.
Thanks again to everyone who entered! Keep on entering (I didn't plan on sleeping tomorrow night anyway... or the next day), and I'm seriously amazed and impressed by all the talent out there. You guys are awesome.
It's that time. I'm pleased to announce the opening of THE SURPRISINGLY ESSENTIAL FIRST PAGE CHALLENGE!
Before I get to the guidelines, I'm also pleased to introduce the contest's co-judge, my very good friend Holly Burns, author of the wonderful and hilarious blog Nothing But Bonfires. I conned, er, persuaded Holly to participate because: 1) she's British (I mean, they invented the darn language), 2) she's an extremely talented writer (did I mention her wonderful and hilarious blog that you should already be reading?), and 3) I thought it would be helpful to have a judge from outside the publishing industry, the type of person who might pick up your book in the bookstore after reading the first page -- in other words, THIS IS YOUR READER.
So a massive thank you in advance to Holly for agreeing to participate.
And now for the contest guidelines:
1) All may participate. First pages may be from your work in progress or one you invented solely for the SEFPC. I've learned my lesson from contests past, and am limiting entries to one (1) per person.
b) Leave your first page in the comments section of this post. People who subscribe to the blog via e-mail: please click through to the site and leave your pages on the actual blog. Entries that are e-mailed to me will not be counted.
4.6) First pages are limited to 500 words. Use them wisely. Paragraphs should be single-spaced with double-spaces between paragraphs (like how this blog post is formatted). Please do not get crazy with your formatting.
+) The preliminary deadline for entries is Wednesday at 5:00 PM Pacific time although for some reason I always end up changing my mind about these deadlines, so please keep checking back. Nominees will be announced whenever Holly and I have had a chance to decide upon them, and you will have a chance to vote on the ultimate winner.
£) Spreading word about the contest on the Internet is encouraged. I am ready to judge this contest. No matter what. Even a million entries will not faze me. My voice only quivered a little when I said that.
X) And the prizes! The ultimate grand prize deluxe winner will receive the satisfaction of knowing they have a seriously awesome first page, and will have a choice of a query critique, partial critique, 10 minute phone conversation, or one of my clients' books. Runners-up will receive a query critique or other agreed-upon prize.
And that is it! Keep checking back for updates because these guidelines may be changed on a whim. Thank you again to Holly (here's her blog one more time) and good luck!
Who has the most surprisingly essential first page? Let's find out.
Well, the votes for what-contest-we-should-have are in, and it's official: you all want me dead. Er. You want to have a first page content. I was never good at math, but let's see... 1 page x 500+ entries = hmm... carry the one... equals... well, multiple organ failure if I've calculated correctly. So tune in next week for that! Just to recap, we've had a title contest, then a first line contest, then first paragraph, now first page. At this rate we'll have a "first three finished manuscripts" contest before the year is out. Rules, regulations, and hyperbolic title will be posted on Monday. It's gonna be fun!
Meanwhile, in publishing:
OMG, my bff reader Diana Williams sent me dis article from da Times re cell phone novels n Japan. Thr ttly kool. LMAO! N e body like em? TTYL
The Wall Street Journal went on a hunt across the globe for DA VINCI CODE AUTHOR Dan Brown's next novel. The verdict: unknown. Also no albinos. But they did interview the grand master of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the District of Columbia. How's THAT for thorough?
Reader Christina Parker sent me a link to an article on the website bookcrossing.com, in which people drop books off in random places and then track them on the website to see where they've been. Apparently 625,000 people in 145 countries have signed on, and there are all kinds of maps and things like that. The techie part of me thinks: cool! The agent part of me thinks: the poor authors don't get royalties when the same book is read 20 times. And that's kind of a shame.
Via GalleyCat, author A.L. Kennedy has won the Costa Award (formerly known as the Whitbread). Given the number of awards that are being announced this month I'm sure I'm missing some, so if I haven't mentioned it: congratulations!
And finally, Sacramento Kings fans know Bob Delaney as one of the three referees on the court during Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals in 2002, when the Kings were SO COMPLETELY OBVIOUSLY JOBBED by the refs that Ralph Nader of all people sent a letter to the NBA urging them to review their refereeing policies. Think I'm kidding? Click here . Hmph. Where was I? Oh, Bob Delaney has a book coming out! You see, way before he was a ref, Bob Delaney was an undercover informant who infiltrated the mob. Crazy, right? I guess I'll forgive him. Someday.
Thanks so much for all of the great contest ideas! I'm so ready for this contest. You know. Once we decide what it's going to be.
I've whittled down some of the suggestions into a handy-dandy poll. Vote today, and whatever is winning when I write the This Week in Publishing post tomorrow will be the contest.
Oh -- and as for the prize, I'll let the winner(s) choose one of a query critique, partial critique, 10 minute phone conversation (I'm really not that interesting, but ok), or one of my clients' books. Hopefully the winner(s) will find something useful out of those prizes.
Here are the contest choice finalists:
- Short short fiction (thanks to Cam for suggesting first) - Dialogue (thanks to Steve Axelrod) - Elevator pitch/hook (thanks to Heidi) - Prompt contest where I provide the start and everyone has to work with it (multiple variations suggested, thanks to everyone) - First page (thanks to Chris)
You Tell Me: What Kind of a Contest Should We Have Next Week?
Much like a new mother, I have sufficiently forgotten the pain of birthing the past few blog contests and am ready for another. So..... contest next week! Who can stop me? No one! (Remind me of my bravado next week when I'm nursing a drink and a shot of good old-fashioned remorse).
But since this is your blog and you have been kind enough to let me write here for a while, I'm wondering: what kind of a contest should it be? A hook contest? Another title contest? A worst contest? Book covers? Short fiction? Random lottery?
And, for that matter, short of an outright offer of representation (which I can't do) or money (which I don't have), what should the winner receive?
