VOTING IS CLOSED!! THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO VOTED.
675 beautiful first pages stand before me.
675 first pages who were fierce and who made it work and who cried whenever I asked them tough questions, because that is the best way of advancing in America’s Next Top Model I mean Surprisingly Essential First Page. But only six can continue on in the hopes of becoming America’s Next Top Surprisingly Essential First Page.
But first, let’s review the prizes. The winner of America’s Next Top Surprisingly Essential First Page will win a photo spread in Publishers Weekly with legendary fashion photographer Gilles Bensimon, a $0 cash prize to start their modeling career, and their choice of a query critique, partial critique, 10 minute phone conversation, or one of my clients’ books. Runners-up will receive a query critique or other agreed-upon prize.
You all know our judges, uh, me, and living legend and blogging icon Holly Burns, author of the blog Nothing But Bonfires.
But I only have six photos in my hand. These six photos include two finalists that appeared on both of the judges’ list of favorites, two choices from Holly, and two choices from Nathan. These six photos represent the six who will continue on in the hopes of becoming America’s Next Top Surprisingly Essential First Page.
In no particular order, the first name I’m going to call… is Julianne Douglas.
Julianne, the judges were impressed by the sense of atmosphere and the flow of the conversation. Here is your Surprisingly Essential First Page:
Still Life with Flowers (Women’s fiction)
The afternoon sun sliced the room like scissors through cellophane and exploded against the laminated flipchart in a blast of white light. Elaine shielded her face with an out-turned palm. “The slats,” she interrupted. “Excuse me, Mr. Severson. The slats.” She jerked herself to her feet. Wadded tissues tumbled from her purse like confused sheep. She herded them under the chair with her toe and navigated around the artificial ficus to the window. The room smelled fusty, like last week’s forgotten bagel. She muted the glare with a twist of the dowel, then reached beneath the blinds to raise the sash. Cool air rushed in; she forced a deep breath. The slats clattered into place as she dragged herself back to her chair. “I couldn’t see, Peter.” Over by the door, her husband grunted.
Cars whisked by on Trindle Road. The noise was louder now with the window open. Flashes from passing fenders raked the fuzzy dimness of the ceiling. A steady stream of commuters rushed home to let out their dogs. Defrost pork chops. Hug their kids. Elaine swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on the reedy voice of the man behind the mahogany desk.
“These are our most popular arrangements.” Mr. Severson propped the spiral-bound catalogue upright against his forearm. “Typically, in a closed-casket service, a large floral spray covers the lid. Two matching wreaths flank the casket. An urn decorates the foot of the altar.” His free hand tapped the mock-up with a pen as he listed each element.
She focused on the picture with puzzled fascination. “Lilies.”
“Yes, Mrs. McArdle.” Mr. Severson lowered the book to flip a page. He raised it again, this time displaying a checkerboard of smaller shots. “As you can see, all of our arrangements feature white lilies. Lilies symbolize purity, eternal life. People expect to see them at Christian funerals.” He scratched the side of his nose with the pen.
“I did a painting of lilies once. I’m a painter, you know.” She fumbled for a tissue. “Five white lilies in a golden vase. One for each of Christ’s wounds, though I doubt many people understood the symbolism. Hardly anyone does anymore.” Mr. Severson smiled blandly and glanced at Peter, who, arms crossed in front of his chest, leaned against the wall and examined the weave of the carpet.
Severson sighed. “Of course they do, Mrs. McArdle. Of course they do.” His voice caressed her with well-practiced compassion. “Especially in the case of lilies.” He cleared his throat gently. “Now, there are other options to choose from besides the standard four-piece package. For example, the front pews can be draped with garlands. . .” He ruffled the book, searching for an example.
“It was a difficult painting. Especially the reflections.” Elaine frowned, recalling how hard it had been to capture white on gold. “I never did get it quite right.”
The second name I’m going to call… is Kari.
Kari, the judges were impressed with the sense of style you brought to this first page, and you nailed the dialogue, which is both evocative and worked perfectly with the rest of the page. Here is your surprisingly essential first page:
Possible Happiness
He did not remember her as beautiful and did not find her particularly so that evening.
Every man at the party would have said the same, would have sworn that their wives and mistresses and secretaries were far lovelier, that they passed twenty women on the street each morning who were more pleasing to the eye. They would have claimed, with little prodding, that she measured just an inch too short, just a year too old, just a hair too wide, and that it was not one but all of these features together that subtracted “beauty” from the perfunctory sum of assets they might otherwise settle on a woman. They did not know her, or know why she was in attendance or which of their hosts might have invited her. No fanfare announced her arrival and she did not directly precede or follow any notable luminaries, so the men could not say with any certainty why—when scores of prettier women wandered in their midst—they each had turned to watch her as she entered the ballroom, only that she seemed to expect it, as though she had lived her whole life in a crowd and it was simply her nature to be appealing. Nor could they explain why their eyes continued to follow her as she weaved her way through them, whether it was the silk of her scarlet gown fluttering around their ankles or the scent of fresh gardenias that made their palms grow damp. Those who stood close enough to brush against her longed to reach out and release her hair from its complicated arrangement, to watch the dark waves tumble to her shoulders in the glow of the chandeliers. She made no sound and yet some imagined they heard the silvery trill of a laugh as she swept past them. When she reached the far edge of the marble dance floor and stopped, these men found themselves peeling away from their partners to lean toward her, eager for her true voice, and they were rewarded. “Schnapps,” she commanded of her escort, a tall fellow in a tailcoat whom they had failed to notice until that moment and ceased to recall in the next moment when he stepped away from her.
A minute passed (two? three? they could not be certain) before the women descended to recover their errant prizes. The youngest wives, who would have considered their mates immune, could see very clearly the misguided enthusiasm with which she had applied the rouge to her cheeks, and noted the black lace at the hem of her billowing gown beginning to unravel, just a bit there, just above her left foot. The mistresses smiled as they stroked the mink stoles that curled around their own pale shoulders. They understood the power of distraction and admired her for it.
“Marian said she’s some sort of actress Philip used to know. Come now, darling, I’m sure it was nothing like that. Although…yes, perhaps it was something like that.”
The third name I’m going to call… is Charlotte.
Charlotte, the judges were impressed by the sense of place you work into this page. It’s an evocative setting, and yet the reader does not feel lost because you ground the work in emotion and description. Here is your surprisingly essential first page:
Another Saturday, another funeral. Lindiwe dusts breadcrumbs off her lap, takes a final sip of her sweet tea and places the mug in the sink. She’ll wash it later. She takes her coat off the hook and puts it on. She always wears her coat, even though it’s the height of summer. Putting on her beret, she leaves the house. Carefully, but conspicuously, Lindiwe locks the front door so that the scabengas who have moved in next door notice just how locked it is, and then she stands on the kerb waiting for her lift to arrive.
She and Sipho do funerals every weekend. Often they organise them; finding the cash to put caskets of different sizes in the ground and to arrange food and drink for the mourners. If they’re not organising, then they’re attending. Sometimes they are the only attendants. Last Saturday, they buried five-month-old Maria. She’d been dropped at the Mission and had not lived long enough to draw a crowd. Lindiwe mourned her, though. She always mourns, every baby, child and adult who they bury. Every time is like the first time. Sipho knows to have tissues and he passes them to her at the appropriate moment. Such a nice young man. Lindiwe wonders when his time will be.
Sipho drives up in his aging yellow Golf and she climbs in. He drives them past the over-flowing cemetery outside the township, along the dusty road into town and up the hill through the once white-only suburbs. They join the highway and climb an-other, steeper hill, Sipho’s car chug-chugging behind articulated lorries. Today Lindiwe has not had to arrange anything, but she has been asked to give a reading. She holds her Bible closely to her heart to muffle its thumping.
They leave the highway and turn right, hugging a road through plantations and farmlands. Saturday shoppers walk along the roadside, carrying babies on their backs and plastic car-ier bags in their hands. Many of them carry on their heads the large fabric bags that supermarkets now force people to buy. Lindiwe opens the car window and allows the cooler hilltop air to fan her face. She sees the faintest outline of the far-off mountains to her left, but much as she is drawn towards them, Sipho’s Golf coughs its way forward.
After a deep dip, they drive through an avenue of trees. To the left, Lindiwe sees cows in a hilly meadow, and vervet monkeys walking surefootedly along a barbed-wire fence. Through the trees she glimpses flashes of white: buildings. The funeral is being held in the chapel of his old school; a prestigious academy for boys of the elite, a place with so much money that they can afford the folly of all-white buildings that require constant repainting. Lindiwe has never been here before. She has visited the sick in villages nearby, seen the dying and the dead in shacks on the surrounding farms, but she has never been to this school for rich children.
The fourth name I’m going to call…. is Heather!Anne!.
Heather!Anne!, you took on a high degree of difficulty with a young narrator and a historical setting, but the judges think you nailed it. Here is your Surprisingly Essential First Page:
He was carrying a can of soup and needed to make change for a nickel.
I told him if I had a nickel, or five pennies amounting to a nickel, I’d be out behind the old school house with my brother’s friends, gambling on dice. You need two nickels for a Coca-Cola and a Clark Bar, and one really ain’t worth having with out the other.
He chuckled in that old man way, which seemed inviting enough, so I asked him what the heck he was doing with that can of soup anyway. He said, “Oh, nothin’,” and went on his way.
Over dinner I asked if anybody’d seen an old man wandering around town with a can of soup. My daddy said, “You ought to try reading a book some time instead of sitting outside Mitchell’s Pharmacy all day, staring at folks.” My mama said, “Sarah Beth, I told you not to talk to strangers.” And Tim, my older brother, he said, “You owe me ten cents. Don’t be spending any more money at Micthell’s ‘till you pay me back.”
I was quiet for a while, mulling it over in my head, wondering about that soup can a little bit but also about the five pennies that would have made nickel-change. Who needs pennies? They make your hands stink like copper. (Although if I’d had ten pennies, I could have paid Tim so he’d get off my back about that loan.)
Mama must have noticed I was quiet, which she called an ‘abnormality,’ so she said to my daddy, “Thomas, why don’t you tell Sarah Beth to leave it alone? There’s no need for her to be off chasin’ a strange man.”
My mama was always forbidding things by telling my daddy to forbid me to do them. I would have called that an abnormality, but nothing gets you spanked faster than a smart mouth.
“Don’t go chasing strange men,” my dad said, which caused my mama to give him that gushy smile that always made me feel kind of gross.
One time I was at the dentist and he poured some fluoride in my mouth. “Don’t swallow it,” he said. And the only thing I could think of was how bad I wanted to swallow that fluoride. It was the dentist’s fault, I reckoned. If he’d just put it in my mouth without saying nothing I could have probably kept it in there for a half hour, especially if he bet me I couldn’t do it.
But he said don’t, so I wanted to, and I did. I swallowed that fluoride.
I was afraid I might die, but the dentist just laughed and said, “You don’t die from swallowing fluoride.”
That’s how I learned that sometimes when grown-ups tell you not to do something, it’s just a suggestion. And I guess that’s the reason I went looking for that soup can man.
The fifth name I’m going to call… is terryd.
terryd, the judges felt that this is a textbook example of steadily easing a reader into a unique world while building tension, revealing the protagonist’s personality, and introducing a plot. Here is your Surprisingly Essential First Page:
JERRY SHARPE – 64,000 words
It’s been two weeks since the cars died, and we’re walking out. My family is here with me in the Sierra, and I don’t know if that’s a blessing or a curse. Most electrical devices are dead, and we don’t have any reliable information about what happened, but we can guess. We’ve heard some rumors, and they’re all bad, and I can’t afford to expect anything good to happen to us, so it takes me by surprise when an airplane flies low over us. We’re walking a deer trail that parallels the interstate. The plane is on us very quickly, and I motion for Susan and the kids to get under cover. We run to a thin stand of pines and look up. It’s been months since we’ve seen anything in the sky except military aircraft, but this one is hanging from its prop and flaps, just above stall speed at tree-scraping altitude. It doesn’t fly directly overhead, but I catch a gleam of painted aluminum above the pines and I feel the pressure of searching eyes. When the pilot adds power to hold a turn, we run for better cover.
We get into a thicker stand of trees and form our four-person perimeter. It’s a sloppy diamond formation but it allows us to cover the road with three guns. Susan gives me a flat look. Her lips are moving, and at first I think she’s trying to tell me something, but then I see that she’s praying, and I wonder if she knows it.
Our son Scotty is prone with his scoped .22. God help him, the boy looks like he can’t wait to shoot somebody. Our eldest, Melanie, is farthest from the interstate. She won’t carry a weapon but I’m grateful that she still more-or-less follows my orders, no matter how it must gall her.
The old Cessna drags itself over the freeway and circles above a meadow. The pilot drops something. I watch the lumpy gleam of a bubble-wrapped package falling from the sky. There can’t be anything half-assed about it. It’s either something very good or something very bad, and I watch its flawed shape pass down through the trees and into God’s nature like a gift or a curse. I’m a naturally pessimistic bastard, and my pessimism has stood me well, as of late, so I motion for Susan and the kids to put their heads down. The ground here is dry and it smells clean and infertile. I listen to the soft, buffeting sound of my breath pushing against hard earth, but time passes and there isn’t an explosion. It isn’t an improvised bomb at all and I hear people cheering, the voices of men, women and children.
Another group is travelling the road. They’re on foot too, and we’ve been trailing them for most of the day.
And the last name I’m going to call… is luc.
A poor family in space? Where can I read more? luc, even when you were referencing things the reader doesn’t know about, you made. this. work. Here is your Surprisingly Essential First Page:
Deana Horsehead Chidder:
Our whole stinking family lived on a half-derelict salvage ship that floated so far from the space station, we sometimes had trouble telling it from the stars. There was Ma and Da and seven of us whelps, rattling around in an 80-year-old narrowcruiser with only one working rocket. Phyllis and Wyoming were born deformed from Ma not taking precautions against radiation during pregnancy, but Phyllis–with one eye glued permanently shut and a forehead like an old man’s backside–had all her faculties.
At the station they figured us for morons, because none of us would go to that school they had. Why should we, when they wasted your time making you learn about the primary commerce drivers in Procyon A system and how to use a proto-language translation program–who needed it? No Chidder, that’s for sure. We’d rather wallow on the ship in our own filth, God’s honest truth, and make what living we could from salvaging burned-out probes and trash and the occasional derelict starship.
Except for me. I’d been wallowing with the rest of them all my life, but at sixteen years old I figured I was old enough to run away. Which is why I was on my way to Bay C to meet a Luytenite and a Centipede. Bay C because the airlock there didn’t work right and if you hit the wrong button you could get spat out into space like a piece of bad meat. We usually kept away from Bay C, so it was a good place to keep out of sight.
I was taking extra care, because Ma was a certifiable paranoid and she did security sweeps all the time. She once accused me of being a robot spy and tried to poke me with a power probe to prove it. If she’d got me, I would have been dead that much earlier, and maybe I wouldn’t have ended up in the Valley of the Dead and dealt with all those demons and everything. I’ll get to that later. Anyway, I got clear of her and hid ’til she came to her senses, that time.
So I’d told the Centipede and the Luytenite they had to boost just once, at the station, and then they had to power down and use chemical brakes to dock. Chemical brakes are expensive because of all the wasted gas, but they don’t show up on the sensors, so that was the only way I could have them do it. See, I had to be careful about Ma all the time, even when I wasn’t up to something. Now that there was really something going on, I wasn’t about to give it away and lose my chance.
I’d been hoping Ma would be in the middle of a security audit, or in bed with one of her headaches, but she must have smelled something was up: she was prowling the corridor outside the shuttle ports. She stared at the wall there, at
Voting rules: please vote for your favorite in the comments section of the Blogger post. Anonymous votes will not be counted. Please feel free to spread word around the Internet about the voting, but please do not campaign for any particular nominee(s). Voting will be open until Tuesday at 5:00 PM Pacific.
Who will become America’s Next Top Surprisingly Essential First Page? Let’s find out.
Diana says
fantastic. all of them held me but i’m going with terryd/JERRY SHARPE
Sage says
Thanks so much for doing this, Nathan and Holly.
My vote is for:
Heather!Anne!
Anonymous says
Thank you anon @4:52
Anonymous says
I’m not signing in as anonymous because I want to be anonymous. I am themanmaw and I can’t remember my password. I vote for HEATHER ANNE.
ros says
*is wondering if anonymous@4.52=anonymous@5.37*
If you’ve already sold two ‘hit series’, why are you wasting your time (and everyone else’s) here?
Oh, and do us all the courtesy of giving us a name by which we can address you. It doesn’t even have to be your real one.
Lori says
I would like to ask the complainers if they would still be complaining if their entries had been among the six chosen.
Gee, why do I hear crickets chirping?
Nathan and Holly, your valuable time and generosity are greatly appreciated by the vast majority of the participants. I just hope that the negative people don’t keep you from doing something similar in the near future. I, for one, am finding this very helpful. Thank you so much!
Deborah K. White says
I guess this shows how subjective publishing really is. No offense meant, but I was baffled why the first four were picked. I found them either mildly confusing or extremely slow. The last two were more my kind of story. I vote for luc.
Anonymous says
I also found the first 4 finalists to be much too slow for my tastes–nothing I would ever even think about buying–but that doesn’t mean someone else might not like it. And admittedly, I like thrillers. I did catch what look to be some decent thriller entries in the main contest.
As for having the publishers charge $50 idea…how much of the slush would that really cut down on? I’m guessing not all that much. And even then, you’d still have agents that would bypass the fee-payer line to gain direct access to the editors–it would still pay to have an agent even in that situation.
That being said, there is no one correct way to get published–there will only be your way, right?
Listen, just do yourself a fvor and whatever you do–make damn sure that your book doesn’t happen to be released anywhere near the release date of Dan Brown’s long-awaited next book. THAT would suck.
Topher1961 says
Julianne Douglas. How wonderful. You have my vote.
(And luc a close second.)
Wanda B. Ontheshelves says
Re: “I’d like to see a more straightforward system. Let writers pay the publishers to consider manuscripts. A per-submission fee of, say, $50. It would cover the publisher’s slush pile expense and it would weed out the unserious who clog the system with the literary equivalent of frivolous lawsuits.”
$50??? I understand the US dollar is “weak” abroad (right, I’m not exactly sure what that means, but it doesn’t sound good) – but here in the USA 50 bucks is still 50 bucks. If this were the system, you would have eliminated a WHOLE lotta people, who sorry, may be even more talented than you (er, um, seem to think you are).
Just the thought of a “pay-as-you-go” submission system is throwing me into fits of convulsive laughter (not really, I’ve been shoveling snow and now it’s rainy-wet, so I’ve got a touch of asthma, so can’t laugh all that hard). Like those payday loan places, they could set up “queryloan” shops, where when you just gotta get that manuscript out, you can get that $50 advance out of your paycheck! Hey, I have an idea, maybe those of us with an MFA should get a discount – only $30! Already published in snooty lit journal – take off another $10! You could come up with so many criteria for discounting, that some of us would end up being PAID BY the publisher, for them to read our stuff! Yeah! I like it! Get paid to query!
If you want to do us a favor, don’t reveal your secret identity, no, tell us who your “publishing contacts” are, so they can be OUR publishing contacts too! I’ll even send you $50 (I mean cents). That is, of course, if you include access to your “transom” too. (I have an old sewing machine with cast iron scrollwork legs, does that count as a transom?)
Thanks for the laugh, I needed one today.
Wanda B.
Gerri says
Congratulations to the outstanding finalists! Wonderful and inspiring first pages.
Whew, hard voting decision. But I’m springing for Heather!Anne!
Best wishes and good luck…
Tia Nevitt says
I vote for Terryd.
benwah says
Boy, sour grapes really gum up the keyboard.
All art is subjective, and all writers are going to take their lumps. We should expect that — it’s part of the game, part of the cost of putting our words out there. The author-agent-publisher dance is a messy one, but so what? I don’t see that as a reason to lash out at Nathan, particularly from behind an anonymous tag. And especially when he’s provided this kind of service which it seems many of us have found useful.
Niki says
Heather!Anne! hands down.
Neptoon says
Aloha and congratulations to all of the finalists.
All well written.
Terryd made me want to see more.
Amy says
Heather!Anne!
I like the innocent curiosity of the narrator. I wish that people could keep this gift as they grow.
Nathan Bransford says
anon-
Wow. I won’t belabor the point, but if you are judging the entire publishing process based on a for-fun contest on an agent’s blog… I think that kind of speaks for itself.
All this contest was meant to do was to pick out some good first pages. These aren’t queries, I wasn’t able to select all the ones I would have requested to see more of if they WERE queries, and this is why my submission system does not involve asking for simply one page and leaving it at that. You can’t tell a whole lot from a page. And these aren’t just my selections — I worked with someone from outside the industry to pick them. Did I mention this was just for fun?
I’m glad you found success your way, sounds like it worked out well for you — and I truly wish you all the best.
Kate says
Heather!Anne!
Great voice.
Suzan Harden says
Nathan and Holly,
Thank you for providing the forum in which a lot of folks could display their talent. I can see why you had such difficulty in making ANY choice.
After several of the anonymous comments, I also now understand why an agent cowered away from me while we were alone in an elevator at a writers convention. Eek!
That said – my first pick would also be Luc.
burgy61 says
I would like to add my congratulations to the finalist.
All of them are great first pages but Luc’s gets my vote. Left me wanting to know more about this dysfunctional family in space.
Sally says
Excellent evening reading. Thanks for providing it.
I loved ’em all.
If I can only vote for one, it must be Heather! Anne!
Brad Beaulieu says
Well done everyone, but if I can only pick just one, it’s gotta be Luc. Great start to the story.
JaxPop says
$o why i$ Mr/M$ $our grape$ multi hit $uper $ucce$$ful tran$om cro$$ing publi$hed hit $erie$ author (yeah $ure)who di$like$ agent$ $o much ($igning a$ anon no le$$) wa$ting time debating the proce$$ & conte$t? $ound$ like B$
Mon Chéri says
Wow, Nathan, what a wonderful contest and I think your choices are great as well! You brought me out of lurking with this one. Thanks to you too, Holly!
It bothers me to see the comments from these anonymous complainers. Nathan, how do you have the patience to even respond as kindly as you do?
Hello people! This is Nathan’s contest! I say he deserves support instead of criticism. I had fun!
Now for the hard part, I vote for Heather! Anne! It was really, really hard for me to decide. They are all great in their own way.
Anonymous says
Wanda:
If a writer can’t manage 50 dollars for a submission, they aren’t terribly serious about what they’re doing, are they? The cost of a modest dinner out? That’s too much? If you were a guy applying for an executive job you’d spend 10 to 30 times that much just on the suit you wore to the interview.
You really prefer 15% of everything you make? Forever? You may have a different view when the checks start coming in.
Figure 10 submissions, that’s $500. Does that weed out people who aren’t serious? Yes. And it should.
Look, what everyone in the business knows but no one wants to say, is that the system is jammed with people who don’t even really want to do the job. They want to be writers, but they don’t want to write. And they only want to be writers because they don’t really know what it means.
So hundreds of thousands of submissions so overwhelm the publishers that they end up refusing to even look at unsolicited manuscripts. They outsource the slush pile to agents. And in the process they shift the cost onto the writers. That’s most of what an agent does: he screens manuscripts for publishers and charges the writers. Published authors pay for the slush pile. But you’re outraged by the idea of spending $50 to get right to the source?
Heather Wardell says
Nathan, you mentioned earlier in these comments that there were only 3-4 other entries that grabbed your attention. Does that mean the non-finalists shouldn’t query you with the novel in question, or is it possible/likely that under the usual query process you might have a different opinion?
And my vote is for Charlotte, primarily because at no point did I find myself wanting to skim forward.
Heather (not Heather!Anne!, unfortunately, although I did jump a little when I saw her name in the finalists 🙂
Laurel Amberdine says
Nice selections! They’re all very good, but I vote for Luc.
Excellent contest. Very instructive. Thank you Nathan and Holly for taking the time to run it.
Michelle Moran says
To Anonymous,
Personally (and it really is a personal decision), I find my agent well worth her 15%, and though four of my very closest friends are lawyers (one specializing in publishing law), I would still rather keep my agent. Not only does my agent give me advice that my publishing house might not give, she is there to make sure everything runs smoothly. “Everything” means that I get to see the catalog copy, I get to know my sales figures (something many, many publishers won’t divulge after the first few weeks of a book’s debut), I know my print runs and I have a very good idea what the marketing department is spending to promote my novel. It’s true, I have been very fortunate in my editor, who would keep me up to date on all of these matters even if not for my agent. But many of my author friends are not so lucky, and without their agents they would be completely left out of the publishing loop (and anyone who thinks it’s not important to see their catalog copy, or know their marketing figures, or have access to their sales figures is, imo, wrong).
Without their agents, my friends would also have little say in their cover art should it all go awry, little idea about sales figures (which helps an author determine his/her own expenditure should they choose to supplement what their house is doing), little involvement with their publicist, and even less with their in-house marketing director.
And not only does my agent make sure the publishing process is running smoothly, she is selling foreign rights, which come with their own set of headaches (in my case, seventeen foreign language headaches, each with different tax requirements, etc). I suppose I could hire my friend to do this, but what if something goes wrong in the UK with the paperback edition, or I think I’m owed royalties in France which I haven’t seen? Then I’ll be spending my writing and publicity time on the phone, something (again, a personal choice) I would really loathe to do. But most importantly (where it concerns foreign rights), many of my sales come from my foreign agent’s attendance of the Frankfurt Book Fair, something I know a lawyer won’t be doing for me!
I could go on, but I think I can safely say that for me, and perhaps for many other people on this blog, going with an agent is a good choice, especially since I’m not contract savvy and willing to put in the time and effort required to make my own deals. I’m pretty sure that Terry Brooks (who was a lawyer himself) has always gone your route, which has obviously worked very well for him. For me, I know I would never have achieved what my agent has achieved in terms of foreign sales or deals here in the US.
And thank you, Nathan and Holly, for slogging through so many entries and holding this contest! This is what writing should be about – fun!
Anonymous says
Michelle,
Your comments are totally right-on. Esp where it concerns the foreign rights.
Megan
Nathan Bransford says
Thanks for sharing, Michelle!
And just for background — Michelle is a very successful novelist. Her fabulously reviewed and bestselling novel NEFERTITI was published in July, and there are more on the way.
Allen B. Ogey says
I’m late to the voting – too late? – but I spent some time reading and thinking about them.
I can see why the 6 were chosen – quality, quality, quality.
I eliminated one, then another, narrowed it down to two, then went with…….
Heather!Anne!
My hat is off to the finalists AND all the entrants.
Michelle Moran says
Thank you, Nathan ;]
pjd says
My vote is terryd. I don’t have the patience to read the other 287 comments, and I can’t be sure why I pick that over the others except the tension seems real and immediate, and I identify with the narrator as a father. But all six are outstanding.
slidinwithgimli says
Well, for me, it came down between terryd and julianne. The reason it came down to these two for me is that they were the only two of the group that I read through without my mind wandering and thinking about things I have to do tomorrow. I enjoyed both, got to the end, and was sad that there was no more.
Of the two, I enjoyed Julianne’s a bit more as I had no clue where it was going. Not to say that I would know for sure where terryd’s was going, just that from the first page I didn’t feel a great deal of wonder about what the story was about and while it seemed like a story I’d love to read, I could have forced myself to stop there and put the light out for the night.
I don’t think I could have with Julianne’s, so if the voting is still open, I vote for JULIANNE.
LindaBudz says
Thanks, Nathan and Holly! Some great choices here. My vote is for Heather!Anne! … mostly a genre thing, suits my taste.
I also want to give a shout out to one that wasn’t chosen that I particularly liked … Sam Hranac’s. And I’m sure there are others, but I didn’t read all 670 (not even close!).
Odo fitz Gilbert says
I vote for Luc — It’s a genre I like, and a conceit I like, but he’s handling it very well and his protagonist has a good presence.
Merry Monteleone says
My vote’s for Heather!Ann!
I loved the voice… congratulations to all of the finalists – excellent work.
Nathan,
Thank you for all of the time you took on this contest – I didn’t participate this time around, but these kinds of exercises are a lot of fun, and a great learning experience for most of us… regardless of how many anonymous posters snipe on it.
~grace~ says
from my haphazard, mostly intuitive vote-tallying style, it looks like Heather!Anne! and Luc are the frontrunners.
I’m going with Luc. By a hair.
But just a general comment–Wowza. Good job everyone. Especially Nathan and Holly (whose awesome blog is pretty awesome).
Angela says
Today’s the day so I have to vote.
I just want to say that Terryd’s first page really drew me in. I think that he /she did an amazing job in an unusual setting and I loved the family dynamics. I want to read this story!
But my vote goes to Heather!Anne! -I love kid lit and HF4kids so I was drawn in. I loved the voice and the description of copper. Also, this intro reminded me of BECAUSE OF WINN DIXIE – and I want to find out what happens next.
Congrats to all 6!
Shaun says
My vote goes to terryd
cnapple says
My vote is for Julianne! Excellent! Want to read more.
Julie Weathers says
~If a writer can’t manage 50 dollars for a submission, they aren’t terribly serious about what they’re doing, are they? The cost of a modest dinner out? That’s too much? If you were a guy applying for an executive job you’d spend 10 to 30 times that much just on the suit you wore to the interview.~
I’m sure your cavalier attitude endears you to many.
I am curious as to why you bothered entering a fun contest. Obviously you are a successful writer with money and credentials.
My guess is you needed to wow people with your amazing writing skills and craved the attention. Guess you will have to settle for the unwashed masses, eagerly awaiting your mega novel.
John Quirk says
Well done everyone – finalists, all those who entered (into the spirit of it…) and Nathan and Holly – top bananas all round.
As for a winner – it came down to three for me, Julianne, HeatherAnne and Luc.
Julianne really drew me in from the very start; HeatherAnne, less so, but those last four pars (dentist) were superb, and left me wishing there was more I could read; Luc, you had me at ‘…with one eye glued permanently shut and a forehead like an old man’s backside…’ Great stuff.
So, while the other two may have (just) edged her in terms of strengh of overall page, my vote goes to HeatherAnne, as that was the one that left me hanging, and that’s what this was all about.
As for those folk intent on ruining what was a fun exercise, go get a life. Halfwits.
Jamie says
I don’t know if Heather!Anne! will see this, but I’m curious, is the piece YA? I realize the narrator’s a child, but for some reason, it doesn’t read like the YA that’s come over my threshold lately.
Um, sadly, that works out to a compliment. Wonderful piece.
Sonya says
Not that I enjoy fueling the fire, and not that I believe it’ll do any good, but I just had to comment:
Figure 10 submissions, that’s $500. Does that weed out people who aren’t serious? Yes. And it should.
This and some of your other comments (“a guy going on an interview would spend more than $50 on a suit”) lead me to believe you were born to middle- or upper-class and have stayed that way. Some of us – who may even *gasp* have a grain or two of talent and have put in a ton of hard work – aren’t quite so fortunate when it comes to finances.
If you happen to be poor, $50 is a weeks’ worth of groceries for a family of four. Yes, really. And spending $500 just to get 10 publishers to consider your manuscript? Out of the question. That’s more than a months’ rent. If the system worked this way, you could only be a “serious” writer if you were already successful at something else.
Some writers have nothing but their dedication, hard work and determination. It’s an insult to suggest that you’re only serious if you pay to play. In fact, you might even say that by your standards, every writer who’s ever published through a vanity press is “more serious” than the average writer who uses the agent/query system.
Here’s a suggestion for you, if you really think the way your post about money seems to suggest. Go down to your local fast food place or grocery store and find someone who’s older than a teenager. Ask them what their life is like – how many bills they haven’t been able to pay this month, what kind of fabulous on-the-edge-of-busted car they drive, where they live. Ask them if they have dreams, and how they’re planning to go for those dreams. Bring tissues for them.
By the way, I entered with a first page that is already represented by a top agent. I didn’t win, I didn’t expect to, and I’m neither upset nor insulted about it. This contest was a great thing for Nathan to do.
And I’m signing my real name.
John Quirk says
Sonya, you put my insult to shame. My hat is off to you 🙂
Julie Weathers says
Sonya, well said. I deleted my other post because I thought it was too harsh, but you pretty much said everything I was thinking.
morning scribbler says
Heather!Anne!
Dave Panchyk says
Heather!Anne! = Harper!Lee!
Though I’d love to read luc’s novel as well.
Rosemary says
My vote is for Heather!Anne!
IMO she has all the elements of a great first page in a nice package; plot, character, smart dialogue, good imagery and a strong voice.
Thanks for the contest. It was fun and informative.