The very cool Nathan Bransford is hosting a contest on his blog RIGHT NOW that everyone with a work in progress should rush over and enter right away. Granted, you’re going up against yours truly and like 700 other entrants, but if you’ve got the chops you’re going to do just fine.
THE CONTEST:
The 4th Sort-of-Annual Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph Challenge
PRIZES: (via Nathan’s blog, please see his blog for full prizes and full rules)
1) The opportunity to have a partial manuscript considered by my utterly fantastic agent, Catherine Drayton of InkWell, whose clients include bestselling authors such as Markus Zusak (THE BOOK THIEF), John Flanagan (THE RANGER’S APPRENTICE series) and Becca Fitzpatrick (HUSH HUSH), among others.
2) A signed advance copy of my novel, JACOB WONDERBAR AND THE COSMIC SPACE KAPOW, which is coming out in May:
RULES (via. See for full list of rules):
Post the first paragraph of any work-in-progress in the comments section of the contest post HERE. Do not email. The deadline for entry is Thursday 4pm Pacific time, at which point entries will be closed. Finalists will be announced…. sometime after that. When the finalists are announced you will exercise your democratic rights to vote for a stupendously ultimate winner.
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Even if you don’t enter (and if you do) your second mission (which I’m assigning you) is to go over and read at least 100 entries. Pick them at random so you get a good sampling across the 700+ entries submitted.
Read. Evaluate for yourself. Keep a short list of dynamite first paragraphs and see if your taste is the same as Nathan’s. Learn from those who are putting themselves out there. Decide what really doesn’t work at why. Figure out why some speak to you louder than others.
Report back what you learned. Don’t repost anyone’s stuff but tell me what you discovered about what you like, what you don’t like, and what works. We’ll compare notes after the finalists are announced. I have already picked 15 I think are pretty fantastic. Now we wait and see.
Good luck to everyone entering! I am in the first 100 posted, if you are interested. I suspect the finalists are going to learn what terror tastes like as soon as they see their names listed. I almost feel bad for them. At least when you query agents it’s just you and the agent judging your writing worth. This contest is going to invite hundreds of other writers into the room to weigh and measure you. I’m pretty sure terrifying doesn’t even cover it.
Sommer
My name is Sommer and I'm a writer from the Midwest. I am currently working on a YA novel about superheroes, reading as much as I can, blogging, and saving the world.
Finished my outline earlier than expected, so yes! I will have time for this. Good luck, Sommer! I won’t be entering this year (I hope he does it next year, though, when I’ll have a more solid MS).
I’ll report back when I’ve read the entries.
That’s very awesome! Congrats on getting done early.
I thought my first paragraph was good but some of the entries are really, really great. I’ve enjoyed reading them.
Ah! Said I’d come back once I’d read some entries, and I did. I didn’t read 100 of them, though, but I hope you’ll forgive me.
I copied good paragraphs in a document and bad ones in another, than I compared.
The main difference? Specifics. My favourites all have details that root us in the world. We have the protagonist’s names. We have a voice. Some of them are downright funny too. ^^
I’m getting a list of favorites together as well. So far, the most common “errors” I’m noticing are a) passive voice, or b) an opening that isn’t exciting. The other issue is a matter of voice, and how unique the sentences are.
I now understand why they say don’t open with dialogue. Some of the dialogue openings are very good dialogue, but they don’t make for strong first paragraphs.
I have also noticed there are a lot of entries using passive voice.