Writers: How to Reach Your Goals with the First Two Pages

originally posted on STET November 8, 2010

By Tamara Girardi - The Girardi Diner

On Thursday and Friday afternoon, Backspace Agent-Author Seminar attendees will share their first two with roomfuls of agents and authors. The experience can be daunting and invaluable. Again, though, the conference is not necessarily the place to learn how to write your opening pages.

Attendees will learn at the sessions, without a doubt. But a little pre-conference homework can go a long way.

Homework Assignment #1: Field Research

I bet you’re thinking, “Wait, is this crazy lady really giving me homework?” The answer is, “Yes.” I’m a teacher. It’s what I do.

So, go to your bookshelf and retrieve five books in your genre. I write young adult, so I’ll be looking at young adult books. In each book, turn to the opening page. Read the first line. What do you think? Does it grab you? Is it filled with action? Voice?

Continue reading. Are you doing so because the page is well-written, and you want to continue reading? Or because I said so? If it’s the former, what makes you want more? Take some notes.

Continue reading, evaluating, and note-taking. After you read the first two pages of Book #1, move on to Book #2, and start over. Continue through Book #5 or Book #15 if you wish.

For instance, I’ll go first.

I’m reading Kody Keplinger’s THE DUFF. The opening line is: “This was getting old.”

Immediately, I wonder, “What’s getting old?” Likewise, the narrator’s voice is strong. Moving on.

“Once again, Casey and Jessica were making complete fools of themselves, shaking their asses like dancers in a rap video. But I guess guys eat that shit up, don’t they? I could honestly feel my IQ dropping as I wondered, for the hundredth time that night, why I’d let them drag me in here again.”

The voice continues to sing. I meet two other characters and get an entertaining, striking image of them. And I’m still intrigued. Where did they bring the narrator? What would make her come if she really didn’t want to? Why isn’t she out their shaking her ass like a dancer in a rap video?

I would read on. Would you? Remember that personal preference has a lot to do with whether agents will request pages from an author in the same way personal preference dictates my book shelf is holding titles that are different from those on your bookshelf.

Homework Assignment #2: Expert Advice

Head back to your bookshelf, and this time retrieve a book on writing. Since it seems to fit, I’m going with Noah Lukeman’s THE FIRST FIVE PAGES: A WRITER’S GUIDE TO STAYING OUT OF THE REJECTION PILE.

Scan through your book to see what the writer says specifically about or could generally be applied to the opening pages. As Lukeman writes, “[This book] assumes by scrutinizing a few pages closely enough – particularly the first few – you can make a determination for the whole. It assumes that if you find one line of extraneous dialogue on page 1, you will likely find one line of extraneous dialogue on each page to come.” 

So if the book in your hands focuses on how to write well, then it applies to the first two pages.

Now look for specific tips you can apply to your opening pages. Lukeman offers “more is less.” He is specifically talking about a string of adverbs or adjectives, a violation I have noticed in workshopping many first pages. The solution is to “cut back your usage. Amazingly, you can improve your prose simply by going through your manuscript (with an eye for this) and reducing the sheer number of adjectives and adverbs,” Lukeman says.

Lukeman warns against telling and advocates for showing. Regarding characters, he warns against using names that are too cliché or outlandish, introducing too many characters at once, and creating a protagonist who is unsympathetic.

What did you find in your book? How might you apply this to your manuscript?

If you do not have a book on writing handy or if you want further reading on the subject (good for you!), take a look at the three web sites below. Good luck on tightening up your first few pages, and don’t forget, as Lukeman says, to apply those tips to the whole of your manuscript as well.

How to Impress an Agent With the First Page of Your Novel
http://www.ehow.com/how_4875798_impress-agent-first-of-novel.html

Miss Snark Critiques Opening Pages
http://misssnark.blogspot.com/search/label/Crapometer-first%20pages

The Opening or Making the Average Joe Unaverage http://backspacewriters.blogspot.com/2010/06/opening-or-making-average-joe-unaverage.html

Tomorrow: Last-minute conference planning and celebrating success.

*****

Tamara Girardi is a PhD student in Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Composition and TESOL program and earned a Master of Letters in Creative Writing from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland in 2005. She teaches literature and composition and freelances for Pittsburgh area newspapers. She has been a member of Backspace since 2007 and will share her query and first two pages from her young adult paranormal novel THESE WALLS CAN TALK at the upcoming Agent-Author Seminar.

Follow her on Twitter (@TamaraGirardi) for up to the moment conference news.