Welcome to the fourth 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, check out the full schedule.
Today I’m opening up the submission form for the first workshop. I will be posting my feedback in two parts: this Friday (August 4) and next Friday (August 11).
Workshop #1: “I stopped reading when…”
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.
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.
Want to know what to expect from the critiques? Check out last year’s workshop.
The Critiques
Your name and the title of the novel will not be included in your critique. 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.
Because this is a free workshop, 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 critique your submissions until time prohibits me from continuing. Thanks for understanding!
***Please include spaces between paragraphs as no other formatting will be preserved after you submit the form. Thanks!***
Comment Question: What was the hardest part of writing your first page?
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Ellen Brock 
So excited (and a little nervous about submitting…)
The hardest part for me is finding the right words to entice the reader and make it flow.
I’ve tried writing the first page for this novel three different ways. Each way had it’s own difficulty.
The hard part of the submitted first page was giving the reader information for a point of reference without becoming an info dump.
The most difficult part in writing a first page is marrying the hook with enough storytelling to tell the reader what and who it will be about. Getting that balance is crucial, and a learning experience, since I usually give a book a few chapters to hook me.
The hardest part of the first page was determining how far into the story I should begin with, so the hook would be near the beginning. I’m still not sure if I nailed it, but perhaps others could be of some assistance. Great workshop, Ellen. Thank you!!!
Yes, that’s always tricky! Thanks for submitting!
I would be happy to be a fresh pair of eyes on your first page!
Thank you, Arlene. Hopefully it’ll be posted here if Ellen critiques it. It’s called, Borders of Love (working title). I’d love to read what you have going on as well. To be honest, the first page will be edited about 1,000x after finishing the novel, hahaha.
The first page is a killer for me! The hardest part in writing the first page is having the reader feel the characters are alive, almost at the beginning.
The hardest part of the first page is getting it to sound right. I find that when I have a short story of hope, it will start with a really grim begging that makes people believe that it’s going to be like that for the rest of the book. Great with stories with plot twists but I can’t always deliver on that. XD
The hardest part of writing the first page is that it is a short section in which I want to include scenic depiction, and communicate a sense of the main character’s outlook on life, motivations and angst. Ideally a good first page would hint at unusual aspects of the world and foreshadow events in the first chapter or two. I must confess, I composed this page only this morning. The earlier attempts evolved into scenes with other characters and amusing events.
This was the second book in a series, so the hardest part was how to balance telling new readers enough about the story whilst keeping it interesting for people who had read the first book.
That’s a unique challenge for sure!
Hardest part for me is choosing point of view.