It's Thursday Discovering Sarah readers! April showers bring May flowers, and if the the past few days is any indication, Ann Arbor should look like the Garden of Eden by next month.
Yesterday was exciting for me, because I attended my first writer's group meeting! It was a lot of fun to listen to other authors present their work. There is so much I can learn from other talented writers and I am so happy to have the opportunity to perfect my craft with people who are just as committed to perfecting their craft as I am.
In 2009, when I began writing my first novel, I read a book called “The First Five Pages” written by Noah Lukeman, which gave me a lot of insight on what editors are looking for when reading submissions. He said that editors are most likely not going to read a whole manuscript if the first five pages aren't strong. In actuality, it doesn't even take that long to know whether or not someone is a strong writer.
He is 100% correct about that! I once exchanged chapters with a man who claimed to be a writer, and I could tell from the title of the piece that it was going to be horrid. I couldn't get past the first few words let alone the first five pages! It was like watching the beginning of a season of American Idol when most of the people are completely tone deaf, yet convinced that their singing abilities are on point.
Mr. Lukeman points out several things that writers do which would make an editor reject them without reading much of their work. I find his insight into the publishing industry extremely helpful when writing my own novel, and also while listening to the writing of other members in the group.
My advice for the day? If you are serious about writing and would like to one day begin submitting your work to agents and publishers, “The First Five Pages” by Noah Lukeman is a must-read for you.
That's it for today's Writer's Corner. Hope you all have a great Thursday, I will be hard at work on my novel, which I've been seriously neglecting lately. I will have the opportunity to read one of my own pieces at the next group meeting, so I will let you all know how that goes. Hopefully, they won't chew me up and spit me out! Oh, the horror!
Other books by Noah Lukeman:
- The First Five Pages
- A Dash of Style
- The Plot Thickens
- How to Write a Great Query Letter
- How to Land (and keep) a Literary Agent
- Ask a Literary Agent (year one)
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