Welcome to the third annual Novel Boot Camp! I’m so excited to be back for another year of writing tips and workshops!
If you participated last year, welcome back to another year of Boot Camp! If this is your first time participating, thanks for joining us! Novel Boot Camp is a ton of fun and a great opportunity to get free feedback on your novel. If you don’t know what Novel Boot Camp is, you can read more about it here.
Because Monday is Independence Day, we won’t start delving into our first topic until Tuesday. Next week is all about protagonists with four video lessons on how to write stronger, better, and more realistic characters.
Today I’m opening up the submission form for the first workshop. For the next two weeks (starting Tuesday, July 5) I will be posting the results. Make sure to submit your opening in the form below and check back every day to see if your submission was chosen for a critique.
If you’d like to see the full schedule for Novel Boot Camp, you can check it out here.
Workshop #1: “I stopped reading when…”
Hooray for Workshop #1! This was my favorite workshop from the last two years of Novel Boot Camp so I’m very excited to bring it back this year.
Agents, editors, and readers make lightning fast decisions about what they want to read. This workshop is intended to simulate the querying experience for writers who are hoping to traditionally publish. For those planning to self-publish, this workshop helps demonstrate what readers might think of your novel excerpt when deciding if they want to buy your book.
Last year I worked through 100 novel openings during this workshop. This year I’m going to run this workshop for two weeks so that I can get through even more. My hope is that the critiques will help you to avoid mistakes that get submissions deleted by agents and that cause readers to put the book down (or click away from the webpage) without buying.
You will also have the opportunity to help your fellow writers by voting whether you would continue reading after the first page.
The Critiques
I will reveal my feedback on your submissions in multiple blog posts throughout the first two weeks of Novel Boot Camp. Each blog post will include excerpts from the submitted first pages. Your name and the title of the novel will not be included. Novels will be identified by genre only.
My feedback will include the text up to the point that I stopped reading along with a few brief comments about why I didn’t continue.
You can read last year’s critiques here.
Results will be posted every weekday from Tuesday July 5th to Friday July 15.
Because this is a free course, I cannot predict how many writers will participate. This means that unfortunately I cannot guarantee everyone will have a chance to participate in every workshop. I will post submissions until time prohibits me from continuing. Thanks for understanding!
Submit your first page below:
Comment Question: What do you think is the biggest problem with your first page?
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Ellen Brock 
Right now, my first page is a bit generic feeling, and my first sentences are not as creative and thoughtful and wonderful as I wish they could be.
So if I felt the same way, I would ask myself, “Why does this feel generic? Am I trying not to give away too much information up front? Am I more focuse don content further ahead n the story?” Maybe isolating why it isn’t what you want may help you find the clues to how to make it what you want it to be. Have fun and good luck with your work.
Pam, I just saw your reply. Thank you for your suggestions. Much appreciated food for thought!
I am new to writing and am having a hard time avoiding cliches.
Do you personally speak in cliches when talking to your friends and coworkers? In writing circles people often talk about “finding your voice.” If it were me, I would start by writing similarly to the way I talk with my friends, and then clean it up from conversational to my “writing voice.”
Thanks Pam, I’ll give that a try.
I think the biggest problem with my first page is getting readers to connect with my protagonist but doing this without trying to hard but not coming off as not trying hard enough. It’s difficult. I don’t expect every one to fall in love with my heroine but I would like most of them to.
That’s a really common problem. I would say from what I’ve seen so far that not creating a connection with the protagonist is the biggest issue most writers are facing. Thanks for participating!
That is so true! It is one of my biggest challenges.
I have two main issues.
The first one is the language barrier. English is my second language and even though I can read and write academic stuff without much trouble, when it comes to creative writing, it gets much harder, specially because there are a lot of words that I just don’t know. I know how to express my thoughts in Spanish (my native language), but when I start writing in English, it becomes a little bit of a challenge. Many times I have to go online and search for the right words, either translate a specific word or search for the synonym that feels the best.
My second biggest issue is point of view. I still struggle a bit with point of view issues. Hopefully I’ll learn more about that topic in the boot camp.
Thanks for all the help Ellen 🙂
Are there enough hooks in my opening page? I keep changing and rewriting my first page because of this. When it would probably be better to keep writing and then once I have the entire first draft, I could edit.
Yes, rewriting the first page without having written the rest of the novel is very tempting and often slows down the process.
I think the biggest problem I have is establishing the important information early on vs peppering it throughout the first chapter. Though the genre of mine is mystery, it’s not a straight up mystery (some supernatural elements in there as well) so I’ve been mulling over how to hint at that on the first page. I’m a bit concerned if it looks like I’m trying to fit everything on the first page -a flavor of the character’s personality and appearance, foreshadowing the mystery, the supernatural elements, etc. I tried interweaving all this info with action so hopefully (fingers crossed) it won’t come across as an info dump. Prose is another thing that might be a problem area, especially since the setting of mine is Victorian era.
My novel is also a mystery, and I think the challenge you mention is significant. I’ve got the murder coming at the end of the very first chapter, at a large gathering, so stage managing most of who will become the suspects while ALSO introducing the main character, establishing the setting, deciding how much physical description to reveal, etc., has been a big task. One of my main goals is to proceed so that the reader doesn’t get lost. I’m a former journalist, so I’m very much attuned to the value of clarity.
Exactly my thoughts. I like to introduce the suspects/culprit early on. My antagonist (a member of Scotland Yard) makes an appearance within the first few pages. Add that with the setting, presenting a strong character right away, introducing other important characters, touching upon their personalities and backgrounds, foreshadowing the main conflict, establishing a theme…and probably a slew of other thing I’m forgetting…well, it’s a lot of set-up to say the least. : )
I’m torn between two settings into which the reader arrives in my first page. The current first page brings the reader into the edge of the climax of the story. My alternate first page would be to start in a location less tied to the climax, but that woudl create a circle between the first page and the conclusion. This might be a structure issue that will resolve itself as the writing progresses, but for now, I’m feeling a bit *meh* about my first page.
Sorry if this comes through as a duplicate comment…
My biggest challenge with my first page is trying to decide if I am starting at the correct starting point for my story. Maybe this will unfold as I write. My current first page starts at the edge of the story climax, and shortly the main character will face her biggest fear (although it will come later in the story). The other approach would be to start midway through the action with a section of the story that loops back around to the conclusion of the story. I’ve written both, but for now, I’ll work from this opening.
In all of my writing, especially the beginning, I find the challenge is making every word count while still relaying clear ideas and hooking the reader.
Hooking the reader is so difficult for me. I am not a fan of gimmicks and flair if my character is a mostly ordinary person. Please share your learnings as we go – I could use them.
One thing I’ve learned so far is that there are few things as beneficial as a reliable writing group. Having others read over my writing, and them giving their feedback from overall comprehension to word choice has helped me tremendously.
I’m envious JRBUPTON, how did you find your writing group?
Trial and error, plus a lot of time reading bulletin boards at libraries and social networking sites.
I’m hoping my first line comes across as a middle grade voice. That’s always a hard one to nail!