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First Words Matter

First words matter!

 

Opening number one in my WIP “Red Planet Gunsmoke” goes like this:

 

“Approaching the Treaty’s new war cruiser filled Cadet Ramona Keegan with something like religious awe.”

 

This sentence works and is functional. However, it forms part of a very chunky paragraph, spanning seven lines. It’s not typical for me, but it’s a different genre, something I’m trying a little differently.

 

Given that, let’s try a different one. Here’s the opening of chapter one from the same story:

 

“Pirate Captain Ramona Keegan ran a calloused hand over her bald head, palm lingering over the crimson hourglass of a colossal black widow spider tattoo, whose tarsi ended at the corner of the captain’s ice-blue eyes.”

 

The second line follows: “‘I want that ship,’ she said to her crew, ‘and I mean to have it.’”

 

In this version, we already have two paragraphs. The first line, though long, is only three lines. By comparison, the first example is seven lines on my Word document.

 

Neither is necessarily better or worse, but there is an adage in advertising and marketing that you want to attract the right people and repel the wrong ones. The same is true of our fiction.

 

In a bookstore or on a website like Amazon, you have the benefit of a cover and blurb, which help attract readers. On a website, you might also have reviews. But most readers, whether browsing in a store or online, will look inside the book. The first thing they’ll likely see is the first page. While most readers won’t make a decision based solely on the first sentence, it’s beneficial to make that first sentence remarkable.

 

If you’re a writer seeking traditional publishing, that first sentence matters even more. An agent will only read so much, and if the first sentence doesn’t grab them, they might move on. Agents have piles of submissions, both physical and digital. You have mere seconds to capture their attention and compel them to keep reading. For book readers and purchasers, there’s a bit more leeway, but why not make that first sentence exceptional? It can make the difference in hooking your reader.

 

For example, I was working with a student who had a solid opening about a creature in the bushes. It was intriguing, but not as engaging as it could be. A few paragraphs down, the student mentioned the character imagining a gunfight with Jesse James. By moving that line to the top, the opening became much more compelling. Immediately, it created curiosity and made me want to read more. If you’re not interested in Jesse James or the Old West, you can put the book down, which is fine because it means the book isn’t for you.

 

It’s important to realize your book isn’t for everyone.

 

It might appeal to millions, thousands, or even hundreds, but it won’t appeal to everyone. Writers, particularly those pursuing traditional publishing, need to understand this. Telling an agent your book will be a bestseller because “everyone will love it is unrealistic.” Focus on finding your actual audience. Crafting an irresistible first line can help attract the right readers and repel the wrong ones.

 

For instance, starting with “Pirate Captain Ramona Keegan” grabs attention. It hints at a space opera setting without explicitly stating it. Even though the cover might show a spaceship or a woman in a spacesuit, the narrative needs to establish the genre quickly. The first sentence doesn’t need to reveal everything, but it should hook the reader and be honest about what to expect.

 

Consider the difference between the two openings: the first, “Approaching the Treaty’s new war cruiser filled Cadet Ramona Keegan with something like religious awe,” is functional but doesn’t grab you. In contrast, “Pirate Captain Ramona Keegan ran a calloused hand over her bald head, palm lingering over the crimson hourglass of a colossal black widow spider tattoo, whose tarsi ended at the corner of the captain’s ice-blue eyes,” is much more engaging.

 

Take the time to write your story, but also craft that first line, paragraph, and page meticulously. Consider paragraph breaks, word choices, and every detail. A well-crafted first page can attract the right readers and, crucially, literary agents.

 

I hope this advice is helpful. Stay in touch and take care.

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Starting My New Writing Career: Writing A Book Is Not Enough

Here’s what I know.

I’m a good storyteller. I published nine traditional (“trad”) novels for a pretty good chunk of change. I got to write on a popular comic book. I’ve been writing in other universes, and get invited back. So I know how to do that part.

What I and most other authors are not so good at:

Marketing. Getting in front of people. Getting in front of the right people, the people who buy books.

Here’s what else I know:

I know that I’m really good at getting a group of people together to make something creative. A play, an audiobook, a short film. I’ve never had the same kind of success with these formats as I have with novels, but it also depends on what our definition of “success” is.

I have a very specific financial goal.

I also have a very specific emotional goal.

I no longer believe the two have to be exclusive.

The plan:

Write several serials at once. Failing and learning in public, per Gary Vee.

Use paid Facebook advertising to test headlines, images, and story ideas.

Use a social media scheduler to post no less than four times per day across the major platforms, with specific targets in mind for each platform (for me, Twitter/X only has good engagement on one type of post, so that’s what I’ll post. No more wasting time trying to drive traffic from a source that has a low time-ROI.)

Outline the serials to fill five or more complete novels.

Take the novels one at a time to Kickstarter.

Use book #1 in each series as a lead magnet and intro to the series.

Use newsletter swaps and paid newsletter advertising, as well as Facebook ads, to drive readers to the first book in the series.

Release for three months on Kindle Unlimited.

Then release wide, including my own storefront.

Once a book is wide and on my storefront, use that as the only link-in-bio…drive traffic first and foremost directly to my store.

…Repeat?

That’s basically it.

A lot of folks will say that’s too many irons in the fire at once. And I’d agree, except that this is how my brain works. I’ve tried all the other ways. Long gone are the days of a trad publisher offering me high five-figure advances, i.e., living wages.

If I don’t take charge now, I may never.

I’ve tried focusing on one thing at a time. I get excited by the new Shiny Thing and never go back. This way, I’ve got multiple projects that all hold my interest in varying degrees.

I get to tell the stories that have been cooking on back burners for so long.

This plan allows me to put to use many of my mentors’ ideas. For example, The Pumpkin Plan: Plant a shit-ton of seeds and prune the ones that don’t produce.

I don’t know which genre will land, but I’m not about to spend years writing a handful of novels, only to discover no one was interested. I’d rather spend one year or so writing a lot of different things, and then double down on the ones that bear fruit.

This also follows most of Gary Vee’s advice: post, post, post.

And by the way…

God help me….

It’s free.

I’ll have subscription options available for people who want more access and who want early access, yes. But otherwise, the stories will fundamentally be and stay free. My shit’s been pirated so much anyway, it’s not even worth the effort to whack every mole that pops its head up. So I may as well give it away.

I say all this with the enormous caveat that we are a two-income household, so I have a lot more room than most to manevuver. If I fail, our family won’t lose the house. This is not a process I’d recommend for someone who just stormed off the job with no safety net.

I think that’s it.

LFG.

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How Does an Agent Know in 10 Pages If I Am Worthy?

“I can tell from the first page what genre your novel is probably going to be. If I’m wrong about what genre it’s going to be based on the first page, then, honestly . . . there’s probably something with the writing that the writer needs to look at.”

 

I saw this question on Quora the other day: how does a literary agent know from the first 10 pages if the novel is worthy or not?

 

First, let’s discuss the meaning of the word “worthy.” What exactly does the writer mean when she says “worthy?” Presumably “worthy” means worthy to be published: is it a good novel, is it a good story, is it something marketable it’s something that an agent would be interested in, is it something an editor would be interested in?

 

The issue we have here is, your first step in querying agents and editors is to make sure you are querying the correct person for your work. You don’t want to send a horror novel to someone who exclusively represents romance, for example. In this instance, the literary agent knows from the first page, and certainly by 10 pages in, whether or not you have submitted the right genre to that agent or that editor.

 

Most novels are going to be able to establish their genre well within the first 10 pages, and often within the first page. I run a service on Fiverr where I critique the first page of people’s novels, and every once in a while someone will say, “Well, but how can you tell from the first page if it’s any good?” It’s because when you read as many manuscripts as I do, (never mind how many agents read!) and this many books, this many query letters, I can tell from the first page what genre this is probably going to be. If I’m wrong about what genre this is going to be based on the first page, then, honestly, there’s probably something with the writing that the writer needs to look at.

 

Every Sunday night at 6 p.m. Pacific time, we host a live stream called First Page Sunday. We use my first pages or first pages from published novels or first pages that have been submitted to the show, and we read them and give a quick—very friendly but professional—critique about that first page. More often than not you will be able to tell what genre this story is going to be based on the first sentence, certainly in the first page, and never mind 10 pages.

 

By 10 pages into any book we should be well-established into what kind of book this is going to be, because in those first 10 pages, you’re establishing character; you’re establishing tone; you’re establishing voice; and a really good writer is probably even going to introduce the main conflict of the story. We may not know what it is for sure, but it’s probably going to be there at least in the background if not introduced outright.

 

If you think about some of your favorite stories and go back and read the first 10 pages, you will probably start to see that we know who the main character is; we know that they are headed into some kind of trouble, and hopefully (more often than not) they’re headed into trouble because of a choice they have just made that is going to forever alter the trajectory of their life. All of these things, generally speaking, are going to occur in the first 10 pages. If none of those things occur in the first 10 pages, then that’s how a literary agent is going to say “This isn’t ‘worthy.’”

 

Using the word “worthy” here makes me feel as though the writer believes that something can be objectively good or objectively bad; objectively worthy or objectively unworthy. That’s simply not true. There is, simply and frankly, no accounting for taste. That’s something writers will face when submitting to any agent.

 

Maybe you have written a romance novel, a traditional contemporary romance, and it has a happily-ever-after (HEA) ending. All of your friends say it’s good, your beta readers, your critique partners . . . everybody says it’s great. You send it off to 20 or 30 or 50 agents and they all reject you. Oh my god, you’re not worthy!!!

 

Right?

 

Of course not! That’s absurd. Don’t ever think that.

 

(aside: Do as I say not as I do…)

 

The fact that your awesome romance novel has been rejected by 20 or 30 or 50 agents doesn’t mean you’re not worthy; it doesn’t mean the story isn’t worthy of being published. It means a million different things that you have zero control over. Maybe the agent was having a bad day. Maybe she just got five other manuscripts that sound a lot like yours. Maybe she’s not sure if she’s gonna be keeping her job or not. Maybe her mom and dad are really p.m. sick and she has to care for them and so she’s more focused on that at the moment.

 

There are so many different things that go into an agent choosing to represent or not represent a novel. One of them—and please listen carefully to this—that you cannot ever control is simply this: maybe it wasn’t a good fit.

 

I promise at some point in your career, if you’re going in the traditional market, you will get rejection letters that say “It just wasn’t a good fit.” Every writer who gets that rejection says, “Oh my god! What on earth does that mean??”

 

It means it wasn’t a good fit.

 

There were agents who p.m. passed on Harry Potter. Who said, “This isn’t a good fit.” You might hear that story and say, “That shows them! They didn’t pick up this smash hit! I bet they wish they’d picked up Harry Potter, hahaha!”

 

The reality: In terms of wishing they had that kind of money? Sure, of course they wish they had that.

 

Do they wish they’d picked up Harry Potter? Probably not. They said no because it wasn’t a good fit.

 

That is something we writers and authors need to accept and really get into our bloodstream. Sometimes it is literally that simple. I’ve gotten rejection letters from agents and editors like, “This is awesome, I love it, you’ve got a great voice! . . . It’s just not for me.” So you move on. You can’t bother getting upset by it.

 

By page 10 we ought to know who the main character is, an idea of what the conflict is going to be, and the voice and tone of the novel. The lesson here is to make sure that your tone and your voice is consistent. That’s one of the takeaways I want you to have when you start your novel, wherever you end up choosing to start it. You’re establishing a world and you establish that world on the first page. There’s no escaping it. Whatever it is you’re establishing on that first page needs to carry through the rest of the book.

 

I opened up my science-fiction book club novel—Hounded, by Kevin Hearne—and on page one, there is no question what type of book this is going to be. (The link will take you to the book’s Amazon page, where you can Look Inside.) I don’t know the main conflict on page one but I know the tone, I know the protagonist, I know what he’s capable of, I know the world that we’re getting into. Hearne is able to put all of that into the first page. By page 10, we absolutely know where the story is going.

 

That’s just good writing. Whether you subjectively feel it’s a good book is up to you. I’m going to finish the book, and I may end up not liking the book; that’s up to me as the reader. But was the job accomplished? Yes, I think you can critically look at the book and critically determine whether or not Kevin Hearne has done his job as the writer.

 

Keep writing!

 

(And if you need more advice and feedback on your work, consider joining us at Patreon for only $5 a month.)

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7 Things I’ve Learned Since Publication of my First Novel

I’ve learned approximately 11.6 billion things since my first novel was published. Here instead are the biggies apprentice authors should know.

 

  1. Adore booksellers.

 

Most aspiring novelists don’t grasp how instrumental hand-selling at brick and mortar bookstores is to their career. Booksellers, if they like your book, will push it at checkout. (It’s called “hand selling” and I’ve seen it in action. These folks are uh-mazing.) They are asked their opinions all day by people coming to the store for one purpose: to buy books. Treat booksellers—from district managers to cashiers—like emissaries of the One True God, because as far as your career goes, they just might be. Don’t kiss up or be a boor (or bore); be yourself, but be your best self.

Also–buy from their stores and urge others to do so.

 

This advice applies to trad and indie authors alike. You want bookstores on your side.

 

  1. Make appearances. Free. At first.

 

Hand in hand with publishing YA and MG novels in particular are school and library appearances. Accept every opportunity to present your book or teach a class.

 

For free. Other authors disagree with me on this, and they are right to an extent.

 

The argument goes like this:  Every hour you spend not writing is potentially lost income. Make an English teacher happy, however, and you’ve earned a lifetime fan, with potential “little” fans coming in each year. Word of mouth may be more valuable than an appearance honorarium. My novels have ended up in classroom curricula after school visits, and you know what that means? Book sales.

 

Getting paid for school visits is comes toward the middle part of a career. For a first novel, it’s free advertising and PR. Books two, three, or four may be another story.

 

Local bookstores often can arrange school visits, and have a set amount of books the school must purchase; say, 10 to 25 copies. You may not walk away with cash in hand, but you just sold ten or more copies, and many potential fans—who blog and tweet about books and authors—just met you face to face. You can’t top that.

 

  1. Calm down.

 

Nothing moves more slowly than waiting to hear from an agent or editor. I lost many hours my first year in being overwrought, overdramatic, and overwhelmed by the fact that I controlled next to nothing. My advice:  Suck it up. Move on to the next project. Sooner or later your agent/editor will get back to you.

 

There is nothing wrong, however, with a polite email to ask how things are going. Underscore polite.

 

If they are straight-up not getting back to you…that’s a topic for another post…

 

  1. Push your novel.

 

Wanna sell a million copies of your novel?! Here’s the secret:

 

Tell people it exists.

 

Selling your book comes down to letting people know it’s available. Be your own best cheerleader. Have postcards and business cards on your person at all times. Be ready with an “elevator pitch” to give at a moment’s notice. Answer the question, “What is your book about?” in thirty seconds or less in a compelling way. Go back to your query letter and condense it yet again into a logline: “All X wanted was Y, but Z wouldn’t let her.” That’s a good framework to start with.

 

  1. Network.

 

Publishing is not a game of “who you know.”

 

But it is not bad to Know People.

 

I’ve never gotten a writing or speaking job because I happened to know the CEO of AAA Publishing Company or what-have-you. I have had doors open up because someone who knew me heard about a possible thing and let me know, or made an introduction, or gave someone a recommendation. That’s not that same thing as “My daddy owns Random House!”

 

Get to know your fellow authors, inside and outside of your genre. Go to conferences and conventions and introduce yourself around with an eye toward how you can help others. It pays off.

 

  1. Write more books. No, more.

 

Imagine submitting your opus to Dream Agent, who writes back, “Loved your voice, but this story isn’t for me. Do you have anything else?” This is your shot! Except . . . uh-oh, you don’t have another book to send her? Bummer. (And I don’t mean book two in that series you just sent her.)

 

So on that note: don’t put all your creative eggs in one vampire-urban-fantasy-romance-YA-with-series-potential basket. You are a writer; write. Write novels in other genres. Maybe your first won’t land you an agent, but your second—or fifth—might.

 

  1. Have something to say.

 

We all (hopefully) have something we are passionate about. Have something to say, and be able to say it well in public, like your book signing. Passion is more infectious than a stale reading from your novel, which is like reverse Shakespeare:  it was meant to be read silently, not performed aloud.

 

Consider skipping a reading in favor of talking about something that makes your whole face light up, and tie it to the plot or theme of your novel. More people will pay attention, and the applause may move from polite to thunderous.

 

Want to learn more? Climb this tree.