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 
My concern is that I’m writing for me and not a potential reader. I know my characters and I am excited to “give birth” to them on page, but like showing off your children’s photos to anyone who takes a slight interest can be overzealous, I’m afraid readers won’t think my characters are worth their time. My goal, ultimately, is to create characters that really “click” with readers. My plan on slowly to reveal who these characters are, where they’ve been, and how their past shapes their current decisions.
Grammer? I like my whole first chapter. It sets up all manner of future events, people and attitudes. My MC killed off 7drunk kidnappers with flour combustion. This is the 2nd book of a trilogy, and my MC already learned how to fend off external dangers. Now, she’ll face dangers very close to home and hearth.
I’m excited. My first book is at an editor, now. I’m just plain happy. Can you tell?
I read somewhere that the first pages sell the book, but the last ones sell the next book. I think that advising writers to start with a hook just so they could sell a book (MS) is wrong. The advice should be: write a great hook that fits your story and style and whose voice and pace you can sustain through out the work. Why do I say this? In the last few years, I’ve bought books because they all had great hooks. However, after the first 4-5 pages, the book would always fall into a heap. The writer would get into info dumping, trying to explain events that happened before and during the time of the hook. I have a whole pile of those horrible books in a corner of my room. I haven’t burnt them because I live in a fire prone zone and there are fire restrictions.
I always advocate using a hook that suits your story and style. A false hook is never a good idea. I have a few blog posts that talk about that exact issue. Strong writing and characterization can function as a hook without needing to start with a wild opening.
Since last year’s boot camp I have completed my novel’s first draft, went through the second arduous revision of plot-related and structural issues and tons of rewriting, and now I am reaching the end of the third chapter-by-chapter editing phase. Interestingly enough, I have kept the opening 1000 or so words almost unchanged since I rewrote them for the 2015 Novel Boot Camp. I’ve found out that rewriting and editing for an audience and under the pressure of limited time is very stimulating . I apologize to anyone who already read my opening last year.
Going through the comments in the first discussion, I am impressed by the level of maturity and sharp observations of this year’s participants. This is what actually prompted me to take part again. I have already met some of the fellow participants last year and their feedback has been very useful and revealing. For example, John Dawson’s reviews where spot-on. Hi, John 🙂 I intend to read carefully what other smart people have to say about my writing, while giving in exchange my honest and objective opinion.
Now the comments on my opening 250 words and my first chapter:
– The second, very short sentence in the opening is the single hook for the next, let me check… 842 words. Is this enough for a reader? Don’t know.
– I am risking a casual dialogue, a banter, as a fellow boot camper called it last year, between the protagonist and his best friend and supporting character within these 842 words. Did I manage to convey well their personalities before the main cataclysmic event in the first chapter? Will the reader care about them? Did I pepper out well the information I want to reveal about my MC’s background to avoid info dump? – Questions I hope the colleagues here would help me during the critiquing exercises.
– The POV – I write in omniscient POV, but most of the time I get into the main character’s POV. I find that sticking only to 3rd person POV is too limiting for me, so I need the omniscient to give the bigger picture. Is this a legitimate approach?
In any case, I feel good about my first page and the first chapter exactly because I deliver (still in a draft form) what, I believe, the novel would give the potential reader right through the last page. Is it good enough? Last year, one of the fellow campers made a very good observation in the “I stopped reading when” exercise that the story felt like two people walking and if they stopped there wouldn’t be a story. This was a pretty good observation. I thought a lot about it, but I ultimately decided that, indeed, my story revolves around a journey, an adventure, and this is what it is about.
Last thing, I do remember almost all openings I’ve read during last year’s boot camp and for at least a couple of them I find myself itching to read on these stories. Isn’t that great?
Hi Alex, so glad my (very amateur) comments were useful, I’m sooo envious of your progress! 🙂
My biggest concern is that the action I put in the first chapter will push a reader away instead of hook them on the story. That concern goes hand in hand with the fact that I have to sprinkle secrets to be revealed later in the book and hopefully series. I don’t know if the majority of readers would want to read something began in medias res, but the whole point of the book is to build up to when the reader comprehends the ‘secrets’ and motives in the POV chapters followed by the first one.
Thanks for the opportunity to submit my piece.
My biggest concern is pacing and grammar. Well, and whether anyone would be interested in reading what happens next!
My biggest concern is emotion in the scene and sequel. I just can’t come up with cool, clever was to describe emotions.
I think the biggest problem I have with my first page is how to introduce my protagonist and set up the story without doing a major info dump. 😜
My book is narrated by a character in the story in the form of a flashback. Because of this I’m trying to allow a certain amount license for error in grammar, organization, and reliability (my narrating character is somewhat scatterbrained and extremely biased). My biggest concern is that this will come across as sloppiness.
Thanks for taking a look at my first page!
I’m not starting with an action scene, so I’m afraid I’m not pulling the reader in enough