Those First Ten Pages (or so) - YIKES!

When we envisioned Inkblots, Sandy and I hoped to offer writers an aid to help them write better. An honest critique is an important tool in any author’s arsenal. We all hope to be read, and readers want to read good writing – right?  Of course! 

Writing is a process:

Step one is the idea.

Step two is the writing.

Step three is selling the idea.

In order for readers to appreciate your wonderful idea, you must sell it.  AND, (here is the crux of my ramblings) the conventional method for selling writing is to secure an agent. So once you’ve reached a point where you think you’ve done just about enough editing and might be ready to begin sending out queries, you’ll read those agency submission guidelines and discover that they want to see only about  ten (or so) pages of your novel or short story. Those first few pages, your ‘hook’, is the bit that will represent your novel to a prospective agent.

YIKES!

Is it fair that your entire novel of roughly 400 pages will be judged based upon so small a sample? It may not seem so, yet that’s the way of the industry. For, in the way a doctor might be able to tell if a patient is well or ill by a quick glance, so agents feel they can sort novels they wish to represent from those they don’t, based on a very small sample of writing. This means that our first pages must be AMAZING, COMPELLING and VIBRANT. 

Here is where Inkblots comes in. You can use our site as a ‘proving ground’ for your opening chapter; a place to develop that masterful appetizer which will grab a reader’s attention and make them crave more. 

With my current novel, I struggled over two possible openings. One was viscerally stronger, and one was more solid, providing more background. By working with other writers, I was able to figure out how to incorporate both into that first chapter, making it much better than it would otherwise have been.

So, we're hoping you’ll post your opening chapters in the Inkblots Forum and allow our members to help you achieve the perfect mood, character interaction and setting to open your story. If you are concerned about the ‘published’ status of work you post at Inkblots, please breathe easy. Only members may view postings (no guests allowed), so your postings are ‘work in progress’ in the spirit of any writing/critique group, with the advantage that you don’t need to go out at night in the cold to your local library to participate. Stay all wrapped up in your jammies, at home, and post your work. Helpful critiques will follow!