First Page Friday---What It Is & How It Works

Since we have been getting some questions about what exactly First Page Friday is, I thought I would take a few minutes today to explain it.

I was at a conference in April where there was a panel of national agents and editors. They all said the same thing---that if a manuscript hasn't caught their attention by the first page they reject it. They wanted to see fresh and original writing that drew them in, and of course, one free of typos and grammar errors.

As I talked to my writer friends and my editor friends, we all came to the same conclusion---everyone wanted a clean first page. (Of course it goes without saying that we all want a clean manuscript, but for this purpose, first pages fit.)

So, I asked my national editor friend if she could critique first pages that were submitted to my blog. With her job schedule being so tight, she could only do Fridays and First Page Friday was born. We affectionately named her Ms. Shreditor because she is a tough but fair editor and I knew she would do great.

Along the way, we had some wonderful experiences and we felt like we were really helping writers on their journey, but Ms. Shreditor's job schedule got even tighter and so I asked my former editor, Angela Eschler, if she could come on board. She was more than happy to take the last Friday of every month.

I have been so blessed to have both of these women critique for First Page Friday. They both have different styles and approaches, but I know them both to be incredible editors and very good at their jobs. Ms. Shreditor is known for her talent in the publishing industry and really does love her job. Angela Eschler is well-known for her editing services and now has her own editing business called Eschler Editing.

First Page Friday is about helping writers and we have two of the best editors around to do that. If you want to submit your work to be critiqued by some of the best in the business, all you have to do is submit your double-spaced, 12 pt. font, first page to juliecoulterbellon@gmail.com with First Page Friday in the subject line. I do it on a first come first served basis, and right now we are booked out to mid-February. But don't let that discourage you. I think the critiques are well worth the wait.

First Page Fridays have taught me so much. Even as a published writer I am always learning and both of our editors have given me a lot to think about as I've read their critiques each Friday. I hope it has been the same for you.

I want to thank everyone who submits because it's a hard thing to put yourself out there and have your work critiqued. I want to thank everyone who reads the submission and makes comments for being respectful. And I want to thank our amazing editors for giving of their time to help us writers be the best we can be.

So what are you waiting for? Get your submission in today!

Writing Tip: Dealing With a Slump

I've been thinking a lot about Melanie's comment yesterday, that she's in a "writing depression." There are so many images evoked with the use of the word "depression." We have the Great Depression, depression as an illness, depressions you can make with your fingers when you're making certain cookies, you get my drift.

So, when I hear writing depression all these things crowd into my mind--people looking sadly at a camera with a lot of dust behind them, feeling sad, eating cookies without restraint. But what does this have to do with a writing depression?

Well, when you're in a writing depression, you feel sad, your keyboard gets dusty and you probably do a bit of guilt eating. At least I do.

So how do we snap out of it?

For me, I read more. It's funny how when I'm reading I will come across a turn of phrase that will inspire something in my own writing.

I write in my journal. Writing about my life always seems to give me a little jumpstart. I remember how much I love expressing myself and how freeing writing is for me.

I read what I've written so far. A lot of times I will think that my story is crap, but when I go back and read it I find myself thinking, hey, this isn't too bad, and the ideas for where it could go start flowing.

I make goals. With January 1st coming up, I've definitely got some writing goals that I'm, well, writing down.

I use the little support group we have on Word Count Wednesday to make sure I'm not too hard on myself. Things will get better. And if I have all of you to get me over the tough times, then I know I'm in a good place.

How do you get out of a writing slump?

Word Count Wednesday

I saw this quote and it really fit me right now, so I'm including it in my post today.

"Do not lose hold of your dreams, or aspirations. For if you do, you may still exist, but cease to live." - Henry David Thoreau

I haven't done any writing for two weeks. I have a ton of excuses, but it really comes down to the fact that my brain has been elsewhere. And oddly, I can't seem to write when I can't engage my brain.

I know I'll get back to it. I have a lot of writing goals that I want to share with you next week that will babystep me to where I want to be as a writer. But for this week, my word count was again 0. Yet, writing is a part of me, the part that keeps me sane, and this week, I'm going to make it happen. (Am I implying that I'm not currently sane? You decide.)

How did you do?

Book Review: Enduring Light

Enduring Light by Carla Kelly is a sequel to Borrowed Light. It picks up pretty much where the last one left off, but to be honest, it had been quite a few months since I'd read Borrowed Light and I had forgotten a lot of details. Since those details were pretty pertinent to the plot in Enduring Light, I would definitely recommend that you read Borrowed Light before this one.

So, here's a bit of background. Julia Darling had taken a position as a cook for a rancher in Wyoming named Paul Otto. The author did an incredible job with their love story in Borrowed Light and I really enjoyed them. In Enduring Light, the love story continues with their engagement, wedding, and settling down into married life on a ranch. In this book, Julia is still figuring out how to deal with the scars from the fire (that happened in Borrowed Light) and Paul is trying to gather his cattle that scattered, when a new threat comes to their family and causes all sorts of havoc. The author does the setting really well, especially the cow gather scenes and what ranching life is really like, but the thing I liked best is the quirkiness of the ranch family and how the author stays true to the characters we all came to know and love in Borrowed Light.

Overall, it was an enjoyable historical romance, however, there was a lot of sexual innuendo in this book that seemed unnecessary and was quite distracting after a while. I also felt like the tension from Borrowed Light seemed a bit lacking in Enduring Light. Not that married life is boring, but there just wasn't a lot to wonder about and the storyline angle with James that held the tension in the story didn't make sense unless you had read and remembered Borrowed Light, of which I sort of didn't. On a personal note, it probably wouldn't bother anyone else, but the hero, Paul Otto, called Julia "sport" after pretty much every sentence he spoke and it was starting to drive me insane. Nicknames are fine, but when you are doing it after every sentence, it's too much.

So, I'm a little Jekyll and Hyde on this one. I liked knowing more about how things turned out for the characters in Borrowed Light, but I thought Enduring Light needed a little more plot so it would seem less like a really long epilogue.

Here is the back copy for it:

Julia Darling is finally able to marry her Paul for eternity. But it’s a harsh world for a rancher in turn-of-the-century Wyoming, especially a Mormon rancher. When alienation and threats start coming, Julia must prove she’s her husband’s equal in strength and endurance as she learns to let go of scars on the outside and inside. Bestselling author Carla Kelly has woven a new story about the depths of love discovered by enduring to the end.

Happy Boxing Day!

For all my Canadian friends, I hope you're having a relaxing Boxing Day. I know I am!

All my kids are happily playing with the Christmas presents they got yesterday, and I've been puttering around doing nothing really. I got rid of a flower arrangement that I've had for fourteen years. For some reason I woke up today and thought, you know, I think I'm done with that. It's been sort of a freeing thing. Like starting over with a blank wall. Has that ever happened to you?

How was your Christmas? What have you been doing today?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of you! I hope you are able to spend it with your loved ones and that you got everything you wished for.

First Page Friday

This is one of the most amazing critiques I've ever seen for MG fiction. Thank you so much to Jill for submitting and Angela Eschler for critiquing!


The Entry
by Jill Campbell

My name is Ripcord Fire Dragon, but you can call me Rip.  Maybe I have another name, maybe I don’t.  I look average.  But don’t be fooled because I am anything but.  In fact, I am most likely a superhero.  Only I don’t wear tights, usually.  But don’t go blabbing about this because then all the girls will try to kiss me and want my autograph and then how could I save the world?

Your friendly, neighborhood superhero, that’s me.  Only I probably don’t live in your neighborhood, but I bet you wish I did.  Because if I lived in your neighborhood, you wouldn’t have to worry about aliens.  But who knows?  Maybe I didn’t just scare them from my city, but from the whole planet.  You can only hope my friend.  You can only hope.

It all started on an ordinary day when I found something not so ordinary on our front door.  It was a big circle of fruit and the moment I saw it, I knew it was trouble.

Fact:  My mind is superior to average minds.  This means I’m smarter than everyone else.  Don’t take this the wrong way.  I’m just giving you the simple facts.  Fact:  Everybody knows that you don’t eat fruit sticking on a door, especially if the fruit isn’t real.  How did I know the fruit wasn’t real?  Duh, I took a bite. 

I pulled that thing off the door and threw it like a Frisby.  By the way, I am a good thrower of Frisbies and other objects.  It is one of my natural super-abilities.  It sailed into Mr. Herriman’s yard.  I didn’t care because I am pretty sure he is a werewolf.

“Mom, you don’t need to worry, I have saved the day!” I yelled as I ran into the house.  “Aliens put an ugly circle of fruit on our door, but I threw it into Mr. Herriman’s yard.”

Unfortunately aliens had already taken over my mother’s body.  Her face


The Review:

Regarding this fun little story, I decided to consult a couple of editors that specialize in children’s fiction—just to make sure that I was guiding you on the right track (one male editor and one female editor for breadth of perspective/taste). Also, the strengths and the issues to consider in your story are part and parcel of the same package, so I’m just going to address everything all together, rather than break the review down into parts.

So let’s dive in:

The first editor I consulted with agreed that we wouldn’t classify it as early reader. Lack of contractions and the story idea alone won’t qualify it as early reader. There is a lot of contextual reading and tone that would pull this out of that age range. That being said, the voice is strong—very fun and creative. It might be a little too strong and complex for younger middle grade kids though (which seems to be your audience, based on the story content), but more on that later.

Why your book is more middle grade than early reader: So, the Fry readability measure (essentially similar to Lexile, if you’re familiar with that one) is an academic/research-based measuring tool to figure out the approximate reading/grade level of a piece of text. According to Fry, and assuming your story maintains the complexity level of your opening, your story is written on a 4th grade level, which means the audience is presumably that age or a year or two younger (and maybe even a little older, based on whether the kids read higher or lower than their grade level). If you’re interested, this was determined by the number of syllables (129) and sentences per hundred words (9.5). So I think it’s above the early reader level and is definitely more middle grade. It could be a series for slightly older elementary school kids.

Another factor, as mentioned above, that takes it out of the early reader range is the complexity of the tone. This might possibly be problematic if not tweaked or moderated a bit. I think what the tone creates is what’s sometimes called an “unreliable narrator.” It adds a level of complexity to the story that pushes an understanding of what’s going on out of a younger reader’s grasp. An unreliable narrator means that the narrator doesn’t seem sure of who he is or the state of things, or as if he’s trying to convince the reader of something he’s not sure or truthful about. That’s a very interesting character type, but it’s pretty different for younger readers and might make the story a little confusing. I’m not sure how you’ve decided to deal with this particular issue, but if you haven’t thought about it, you might want to make it clear whether this is a “real” fantastical event or if it’s the narrator’s imagination (aliens, being a superhero, etc.). Adult readers can pick up on slight cues that it’s his imagination (though it took me a couple of reads to figure out that’s what you were implying), but for kids, this might be harder to infer. Professor Ford, one of the editors I consulted, agreed that “The fact that the narrator is telling us that his mom was taken over by aliens is definitely something that needs to be addressed. Kids need very strong clues, maybe even visuals, that tell them that this boy is only pretending, then they’ll be more than capable of telling the difference. Even four-year olds can tell the difference between pretending and ‘reality.’”

Another part of the unreliable narrator voice (that might be a problem if overdone) is a tad too much arrogance. In addition to possibly being a little much for a young kid—unless he really is extremely advanced (like the child narrator of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)—the arrogance contributes to making the reader unable to fully trust the narrator (as we instinctually know boastful people are self-serving and likely dishonest in order to maintain their status, wealth, power, or whatever it is; thus they are “unreliable”). And it can sometimes make a character hard to relate to. This is fun for adult readers to maneuver, but might be simply confusing or annoying to younger readers who don’t get the nuance of such characterization.

As to the arrogance, pretty soon you might need to make sure the character also faces or admits to his Achille’s heel and/or to some emotional vulnerability—at the level an elementary kid would understand. This is generally done in all the MG and early reader books I sampled while reading up to do your review. Eccentric character traits were leveled out by the narrator noting (as in a side comment or whatnot) that the character really was nice at heart, etc., and/or realizing that their eccentric traits often got them into trouble (this eccentricity often created the problem they faced in each book of the series). You may be planning on addressing all of this for the book already, but think about the voice of the narrator in terms of whether it is too complex for younger readers. (Should you decide that MG is what you’re going for. For me, the character and his dilemma read as too young for older kids—so definitely elementary school).

Professor Ford also mentioned something else you might want to pay attention to: “Aside from tone, it is sometimes tricky to write about a kid who is always getting in trouble [which, we assume, this is where the story is going]. This is why, in the reading list below, I am recommending Joey Pigza to you. It’s all about a bad boy, who isn’t really so bad. Actually, now that I think about it, I wonder if reading Artemis Fowl might be helpful, too. It’s for a slightly older group, but the characterization would be really helpful. It is about a 10-year old criminal mastermind. [What to pay attention to with your story is whether the tone complexity and personality/arrogance are too close to the Artemis Fowl variety—which appeals to older kids and is a little beyond many middle graders.]

The following list is compiled from suggestions from both children’s book editors, and I sampled many of these books as I was studying to do your critique: “All that said, depending on which direction you want to go with tone, the early reader series you would compare against would be Time Warp Trio, Captain Underpants, and Junie B. Jones (your book is much more complex than Junie B, for example), as they lean toward sarcasm. Wimpy Kid (and the girl version someone else made to match) are more of your MG readers. You can also look at the older series book section (the one by the Encyclopedia Brown, Sisters Grimm, Warriors, and 39 Clues books). This also reminds me a bit of some boy books like Wayside School is Falling Down or There’s a Girl in the Boy’s Bathroom by Louis Sachar, or The Day My Butt Went Psycho and other books by Andy Griffiths. There are a bunch of fairly recent superhero books, too, if that’s the direction this is going. You might try looking at the Babymouse graphic novels, which are early middle grade. They are a little more advanced than Judy Moody and books about her brother Stink by Megan McDonald, but you’ll want to look at those, too. There’s also Clementine by Marla Frazee (although it is about a girl).  You should definitely try Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key by Jack Gantos or Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. If you are at the bookstore, you can wave a Louis Sachar or Andy Griffiths book at the employee and ask them to find you more boy books at that reading level. Or check out this website by Jon Scieszka: http://guysread.com ”

Couple quick questions on specific lines/parts that were confusing to me:

“You can call me Rip.  Maybe I have another name, maybe I don’t.” As the opening line of the book, I’m not sure this is working. It fits the MG model in terms of introducing the character, but it creates confusion rather than places us clearly in the kid’s world. The reader has no context here for this being a cue that he’s imagining things. Thus it is unclear what this “maybe I have another name, but maybe not” implies. A child reader might not understand what the hidden info here is all about. After reading the story several times I figured out what you were doing here, but I think you need more context to pull this off (see my notes below).

When the narrator says he’s scared aliens away from the planet, I assume you’re referring to something that will happen later in the book that we haven’t read on this first page? If the Frisbee-throwing fruit-circle incident is what you meant by scaring aliens away, you’ll have a chronology problem. You have the “it all started when” structure set up. So you’ll have to make sure that you don’t get to the big reveals till the end of the story. Just wanted to make sure you’re clear on the story arc. The reason I ask, is because it was a little bit confusing, in the beginning, if we were getting the story from the immediate present or told as if looking back on it. I think the potential/slight confusion is caused by your interrupting the narrative to give asides about the character. Like interrupting the “It all started when I found the fruit” bit by the commentary on the character’s above-average intelligence. These types of interruptions make us lose our place in the story chronology, so to speak, and after the narrative interruption we have to mentally scramble to re-enter the story and place ourselves in it at the right spot in order to fend off confusion. You might want to save the interruptions to the narrative for a little further in when we have a good sense of setting, what’s at stake, and where we are in the chronology—interrupting in a downtime moment, if possible.

“It was a big circle of fruit . . .” Sort of a vague image. What’s a “circle” of fruit? A plate of it? A bunch of fruit stuck together in a ring? Something that he can’t name that looks like an apple or orange—round?

The section where the narrator is listing “facts”: The style is a little fast-paced and transition-less. It requires a fair bit of reader inference, which I’m not sure is a good thing for young middle grade or early readers. This is an example of where you might need to trim the exuberance of the voice a little so that readers can follow what’s going on. Here’s another example where the implications are thrown in and quickly abandoned without enough context for younger readers to be sure of the meaning: “It sailed into Mr. Herriman’s yard.  I didn’t care because I am pretty sure he is a werewolf.” My question: why would you not care that it’s in his yard because he’s a werewolf? Meaning, werewolves don’t deserve respect? Or meaning something else? I think you should clarify the implication.

The character’s name: Given that the narrator has introduced us to a world that has werewolves, aliens, and superheroes all within one page, I wasn’t entirely sure if his name implied that he was an actual dragon, or that he’s a human kid using that code name. It makes sense after reading the intro several times that the bit about the “maybe I have another name” means this is the boy’s made-up name, but I don’t know that kids are going to get that right away. If I had to read the piece several times, build up an understanding of context, and then realize everything you were doing it, I think kids would likely have to do the same. And I don’t know that they’d read it several times in order to be sure what literary tricks you were handing them. Perhaps start the story out with the voice you’ve created, but save the imagination tricks for a little later when we understand his personality, world view, whether he’s pretending or not, etc. That extra page of context or so will make it more clear what’s going on so we can enjoy the narrator as opposed to working too hard to figure him out. Another tactic would be to include a little context in the opening. He can introduce his fake name, then we can get a line of dialogue of his mom calling him (by his real name—asking him to do the dishes or whatever), and then he can say “maybe I have another name, maybe I don’t.” This bit of context immediately helps us see he’s pretending, which provides a framework for the rest of what we read. Just some thoughts on ways to keep the voice but lose the confusion. A little physical setting, along with a bit from his mom like that, would really help I think.

Finally, editorially we agree that the writing is compelling and the voice is energetic. Professor Ford’s final thoughts: “I would need to know a bit more about the plot and how the character grows, but the voice isn’t bad. The question is, can you sustain this level of writing? Do you think you’d be willing to trim a bit and round a bit in other places? The core is pretty stable, I think.”

Conclusion: This is a great idea (from what we have seen), but making it work for middle grade is an issue of finessing the tone so that it matches the age group you are trying to target. The best way to do that is to study the books above, dividing them into early reader vs middle grade, and determine what common denominators each category bears, as well as studying what agents are saying about the distinctions, then choose a tone complexity level that fits what your goals are. There will always be kids that read above and below their grade level, so there’s no exact science to defining middle grade vs early reader, but there are some notable differences in tone, complexity, and content you will see as you study different examples in the list above.

Best of luck—it’s a great time to be writing middle grade scifi (if that’s what this ends up to be, anyway, with the aliens and all). That’s one thing agents and editors would like to see more of these days; even if just imaginary scifi!