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The Most Largely Indispensable First Paragraph Is…

October 29, 2007 by Nathan Bransford 56 Comments

Thank you so much to everyone who entered in and voted in the Largely Indispensable First Paragraph Challenge! Turnout was unprecedented, quality was high, and livers were destroyed. Thanks again also to May Vanderbilt for her help picking the finalists.

The people have spoken, and while the voting was extremely close, we have a winner. The author of the most largely indispensable first paragraph is….

EMILY RYAN-DAVIS. Whose last name I initially transposed when I announced the finalists (sorry about that!). Emily’s winning paragraph is:

Life inside a piano isn’t all knitting cobweb sweaters and napping. It’s dangerous. Every time a clumsy student flings himself at the bench and bangs on the ivories, just to see his fingers walk across the black and whites, I face death. The action’s unpredictable. If I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time, I could lose my head.

Whew! And that concludes the Largely Indispensable First Paragraph Challenge. Please stay tuned this week as we return to our regularly scheduled blog programming.

Filed Under: Contests Tagged With: contests

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Emily Ryan-Davis says

    October 30, 2007 at 12:26 pm

    Thanks again for congratulations. 🙂

    Reply
  2. Dwight's Writing Manifesto says

    October 30, 2007 at 1:30 pm

    Sorry Emily. I was in bed sick yesterday. I missed the party.

    Belated congratulations.

    Reply
  3. SzélsőFa says

    October 30, 2007 at 3:37 pm

    Congratulations, Emily, I’m joining the ‘I would like to read further’-clubbers here, too.

    Reply
  4. Emily Ryan-Davis says

    October 30, 2007 at 4:23 pm

    For those of you who wanted a little more, I’ve posted a first page on my blog. 🙂

    https://www.emilyryandavis.com/blog/

    Reply
  5. Anonymous says

    October 30, 2007 at 6:32 pm

    Congrats, Emily! 🙂

    And thanks to everyone who contributed a paragraph.

    ~Nancy (who’s too lazy to log into her blogger account)
    https://writerlystuff.blogspot.com

    Reply
  6. Neptoon says

    October 30, 2007 at 9:26 pm

    Aloha Emily,

    Nice imagination and nicely done!

    To further sweeten the Winner’s pot of treasures Nathan is giving you…I would like to add one free surf lesson on the north shore of Kauai next time you are on island.

    Aloha nui loa

    Reply
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Hi, I’m Nathan. I’m the author of How to Write a Novel and the Jacob Wonderbar series, which was published by Penguin. I used to be a literary agent at Curtis Brown Ltd. and I’m dedicated to helping authors achieve their dreams. Let me help you with your book!

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