Opening Pages Intensive Week 5: It's Subscriber Feedback Friday!
Today we are focusing on (not) missing opportunities in our opening pages
For new friends just joining us, here’s a recap of what we’ve been up to in our 6-week opening pages intensive so far:
In the intro to the Intensive, I outlined everything we’d be covering.
Week 1, we worked on Establishing Setting in literary fiction/nonfiction from your very first page.
Week 2, we looked at World-Building in Genre Fiction.
That same week, I shared my first round of feedback on subscribers’ opening pages (in literary fiction and nonfiction).
Week 3, we learned the preoccupation/occupation checkpoint.
Week 4, we looked at voice.
This week, we’ll look at two categories of first page oversights that can cause readers to put your manuscript aside.
Category One: Missed opportunities (places where character, setting or emotions could have been developed, but weren’t).
Category Two: Disordered information (when the reader is being presented with interesting information, facts or backstory about a character—but in the wrong order).
You don’t want your opening pages to fall into either of these categories, because they force a disconnection with your reader which will push them off the page into the distractions of their life (their inbox, their to-do list, other manuscripts they have to read). We want to keep our reader with us from page one. Connection is paramount.
Category One: Missed Opportunities
Every time we write a sentence, we have the chance to make a connection with our reader. As we layer sentences on sentences, the potential and power of each sentence only deepens because a foundation has been set, expectations have been established, we are building a world and introducing characters into our reader’s mind. It is our duty, as writers, to show our sentences respect and to make them live up to their potential. This is especially important in our opening pages, when there is so much weight and pressure on our words. Whether we are applying for a contest or a residency, trying to woo an agent or an editor, or have simply turned our pages over to a beta reader we admire, we want our sentences to sing; we don’t want them to croak.
Which is why we can’t miss opportunities for deeper storytelling in our opening pages.
We’re going to look at a subscriber example from a writer named Meagan that misses just one opportunity in an otherwise extremely well written and exciting first page of a novel. Ready? Let’s visit Meagan’s work.
from “Prosper” (YA, Urban Fantasy)
Chapter One: Juliette
Juliette’s happiness began on a Wednesday. It was the beginning of February, during one of those blizzards that caught New York City by surprise. While everyone else rushed home, fending off the wind with umbrellas and slipping in their dress shoes over snowy sidewalks, Juliette entered Worthington Tower. Silence enveloped her as the thick glass walls and marble floors sealed out the city’s chaos.
“My name is Juliette Walsh.” Juliette stood on tiptoes to see over the hulking reception desk. “I have an appointment at Prosper.”
The receptionist was angular, her eyebrows arched into two disdainful lines. “Will your mother be joining you, Ms. Walsh?”
“I think so.” Juliette checked her phone, but the screen was empty.
Can you spot the missed opportunity in this otherwise strong page? Can you feel it in your gut where you, as a reader, are like, Hold up— I need more?