Yeah, so, wow.
We’ve already blown well past 1,000 entries, and… I am unfazed! Bring it! Bravado!
Please do continue to spread the word about the contest, because after all: the only thing more fun than winning a contest is winning a contest that has very strong competition. And then bragging about it.
A few updates and requests from your contest organizer:
– E-mail subscribers: you must must must must must enter in the official contest thread. Please do not e-mail me your entries! If you need help leaving a comment, please consult this post.
– Please please check and double-check your paragraph before posting. If you spot an error after posting: please do not re-post. I go through the entries sequentially and the repeated deja vu repeated deja vu from reading the same entry only slightly different makes my head spin. But fortunately:
– I’m not worrying about typos. A certain winning entry had a typo last year and that turned out just fine.
– Several people have noted that quite a few of the entries are not actually paragraphs and are instead strings of dialogue, poetry, multiple paragraphs, and other non-paragraph concoctions. All I can say is: welcome to my world.
– I’m on Twitter! You can find me at @nathanbransford. I will be posting assorted updates as I’m reading the entries. Also probably complaining about the crazy rain we’re having in SF. Because that’s what Twitter is for.
Thanks again to everyone who entered! I can’t wait to read the paragraphs. And read and read and read and read……
NiceKnapsackPansy says
I have to say there are a couple paragraphs in the contest that I would love to know more about. There's some serious fun floating around this here web page….
K Hoss says
Just had to add my .02 cents.
Thanks Nathan, this is great. Whether I win or not really doesn't matter, (well, it does), just submitting an entry was fun.
Hope you don't burn out before you get through them all.
(It's been raining here in North Texas for the past 4 days! We may get to see some sunshine by late Thursday. Talk about saturated!)
lora96 says
I have loved reading the paragraph entries.
And, yeah, I noticed some really LOOOONNNGGGG entries that would not meet my elementary school grammar book definition of a traditional paragraph.
But I woulda tried the same thing if I thought I could get away with it! I don't blame them a bit…I'm a teacher and I can testify with authority that lots of very smart and talented people suck at following directions. 🙂
Becky who? says
Why not start a people's choice comment thread?
Mary Danielson says
Wow, I'm with Susan – this could double last year's total, for sure. You're a total superstar for doing this, Nathan. Thanks!
jjdebenedictis says
We've already blown well past 1,000 entries, and… I am unfazed!
Just start crying now. We know you want to.
Leigh Lyons says
Are you kidding? We need the rain! I was so happy to see the Bay Area was going to be hit with a major storm. We've been needing it.
Cheryl says
Nathan,
How does one prepare themselves for so much scrolling? I had to give up by post 582. Now I fear the scroll control on my mouse and my index finger will never be the same again. 🙂
Nathan Bransford says
cheryl-
No doubt!!
Rain = love
Rain + wind = soggy
But we need it.
Nathan Bransford says
Oops, that was meant for Leigh!
Cheryl says
For one bright shining moment, I felt the love. And now…. not so much. 🙁
LOL
Anonymous says
soggy paragraphing
Alexis Fleming says
Nathan, thanks for hosting this contest.
You want to borrow my glasses? lol Because I think you're going to need some help before you get through all the entries. Totally awesome! My hat's off to you.
Mira says
Marilyn, I love that paragraph.
This is fun. I looked at my old stuff and didn't like any of it. So, I wrote something new – still working on it.
And I'm weird, but I love the rain. Nice and cozy. But I do have a car – that definitely helps. I don't envy those on public transport. If you need a ride anywhere, Nathan, give me a shout out. Really. I'll only pitch you 15-20 times. It's not fair to do more than that if you're trapped in a car.
One last comment – where are all these people in the regular threads? I really wish some of the lurkers would post more regularly.
Amber Tidd Murphy says
Is flattery allowed? If so, um, you have really pretty eyes, Nathan! If not, your eyes are just a'ight. 🙂
Lucinda says
Nathan,
While at work today, I started thinking about this contest and thought maybe we had to officially join something, like the google blog thingie to be officially entered.
I don't have one yet, but would be williing if it is required to enter. This is the only blog I lurk around.
I have spent hours reading the paragraphs. They are amazing in many ways, both directions.
Your job is no easy task.
Scott says
Looking through the entries, I found a few I really liked. I also found it highly unnecessary to read every word of every one. Most barely got as far as a full sentence. I bet any agent worth his weight in stickies can breeze through 1k in less than hour. Eh, Nathan?
Not that I'm trying to belittle the effort, which is still fun and gracious to a fault. ;^)
Anonymous says
Scott, I find it interesting that many books, both best-selling and literary, don't have great beginnings. Many books start out just so-so and build.
DebraLSchubert says
Man, talk about fierce competition!!! Thanks for doing this, Nathan. It's fun reading the entries. (Even the "strings of dialogue, poetry, multiple paragraphs, and other non-paragraph concoctions!")
Kat Sheridan says
Great contest, Nathan. You certainly are a glutton for punishment (which is kinda endearing). I've already found a couple of entries that are intriguing, well-written, KNOW WHAT A PARAGRAH IS, etc. But I'm with Scott. A lot, I never made it past the first sentence. A writing group I'm in is already playing "are we as good as an agent", making guesses on which ones final. Others, we just want to gather up, offer help, and teach them that before you can break the rules, you need to learn to FOLLOW THE RULES!!! LOL!
You needed better rules. We did something similar to this in the wrting group, with a stipulation that the paragraph be no more than 99 words. Really forces you to focus and choose your best words.
Good luck to all the entrants!
Arik Durfee says
Sarah W said…
"How do I feel about my mother?"
Just had to say that I loved this one. Such a great first sentence! Nice, Sarah.
Linguista says
I've been reading the paragraphs, and to my untrained eye, there are quite a few good ones. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes! There's a lot of talent out there. Agents have it hard!
Scott says
Anon @ 3:39 PM:
I agree. My comment wasn't so much about which paragraphs blew my socks off, nor was it meant to be overly critical in terms of the quality I'm seeing, but this is a contest and even a novice like me can tell where the bar is being set and which fall below it and which push it higher.
What I really like about this contest and why I'm very grateful to Nathan for hosting it is how much one can learn about the craft by sampling hundreds of short entries by different authors. So few are alike, but each finds its level in this very special context.
I'm convinced MBA programs should make everyone act as an agent for a significant portion of the curriculum. It's like using another part of the brain––the kind that gets you published.
Scott says
Oh, and well said, Kat Sheridan. :^)
ryan field says
Wow. I read through a few and liked them. So many are neat and tight. But they all look good, and the effort that people put into this really shows.
Anonymous says
Kat and Scott, many recently published books don't have great opening paragraphs. It's the book as a whole that rocks. How did those books get published? Obviously, more than the first sentence or paragraph was taken into account. A literary agency that allows the first 20 pages to be included with authors' queries recently got a 6-figure deal for a debut author. Wonder if it was the first sentence, paragraph, or later in the first 20 pages that caught their interest? Nathan's contest also rocks, but Scott's observation brings up some interesting points.
Mary Danielson says
Kat, I love the idea of playing "are we as good as the agent." I may gather up my other writer friends and do the same. There are so many great paragraphs, so it will be intriguing to see which ones rise to the top.
Marilyn Peake says
I announced Nathan’s contest in one of my awesome writers’ groups tonight. With so many entries, I hope that’s OK, but Nathan did say, "We've already blown well past 1,000 entries, and… I am unfazed! Bring it! Bravado!" Just tryin’ to do my part to make this one of the biggest, baddest, most kick-ass contests ever … although I think it already reached that point a long time ago. 🙂
A Paperback Writer says
Have we not now created almost an entire BOOK made up entirely of first paragraphs?
All we need now is a catchy title and a publisher…. After all, we HAVE the agent.
Seriously, Nathan, you're not REALLY going to read more than about 200 of the entries now, are you?
Elaine 'still writing' Smith says
I read every entry up to about the first six hundred … then my brain turned to mush.
Speaking of weather, which I guess you were in passing… I shouldn't, on 13th October, have been able to do playground duty in a short sleeved tee-shirt. That's just globally warming!
J.J. Bennett says
Nathan, at first I thought you were crazy for this undertaking. Then I see all you have coming and and believe it can be very entertaining…in oh so many ways.
Michelle says
You, sir, are either made of awesome or crazy.
Maybe both. 🙂
Missy says
I've been playing "be an agent" too. But that's just because that's what I'm going to school to become and I wanted to dip my toes into the waters a bit.
I only read the first 200, but I have to say that I now understand that my (hopefully) future job will be more difficult than I once imagined. I liked so many of them!
Good luck to everyone who entered, and much, much luck to Nathan. It took me a few hours to read what I did, I can only imagine how long it will take you to read over 1400!
Dawn Anon says
Well, thank you so much for hosting this contest!
I followed a link from the Murder by 4 blog. What a great day to discover your blog!
kathy says
Lots of intriguing beginnings. It's interesting. I scanned through about 200 of the entries both at the beginning and end of the thread. Two or three jumped off the page, and I would love to read the rest of the story.
Victoria says
HOLY DUCKSHIT! 1500 + entries!!!It won't go unsaid, but let me add my voice to the chorus of people thanking you and admiring you Nathan. What a Herculean task you've taken on.
What I have noticed are a lot of really excellent opening paragraphs. I mean… a lot of them are intimidatingly good. Many were good enough they had me wanting to read more… and at least one added an eerie overlay to my dreams last night.
Some quality work to wade through. I'm betting seeing what you come up with as finalists will be interesting and educational both.
Vic K
Sage says
Someone mentioned having a post for us to comment on the entries, which I think would be awesome. However, I think it would boil down to the first 200 getting lots of comments, and the rest not getting very many. I read a lot of people saying "I only got through the first 200 comments before I had to stop."
thoughtful1 says
Wow. I have had my eyes opened and I am awed by you and what you do. Thank you soooo much for this contest. It was with a sort of abandon that I posted a first paragraph. Well, I agree with whoever wrote, you're probably not reading these comments, how could you be? But I want to let you know how much fun this is. These paragraphs are incredible. I lost track of the ones I want to read more about. (grammar?) I have applied all my best skills to my critical reading but in the end it tends to be a gut thing. My eyes are starting to bleed. Thanks again.
Arik Durfee says
Nathan, I'm hoping when you announce the finalists that you'll talk about the criteria you used. Like a lot of others here, I've been reading a bunch of these, and I have no idea how I'd narrow it down. I'm curious if, as an agent, you develop a subconscious (or conscious, I guess) criteria for judging writing–specific things that say to you, "This is good writing. I should represent this."
In other words, could you please reduce good writing down to a simple mathematical formula that I can then follow and thereby become rich and succesful as an author?
Linguista says
You know, reading the first paragraphs has got me to thinking about the importance of the first paragraph and great first paragraphs/pages. When you buy a book without a reccomendation from a friend, you usually read the first page or so. That should mean a lot to a writer, you have to catch a reader on that very first page. I've been re-reading the classics lately.
Tolstoy's "Happy families are all alike." Dickens " It was the best of times" Catcher in the Rye's "… and all that David Copperfield kind of crap" and To Kill a Mockingbird "When he was nearly 13, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken…"
I don't think I had realised how much you could do with your opening lines… Back to the drawing board!
Lea McKee says
this was an amazing idea, but i can't imagine ever putting myself through what you are going through, i feel for you Nathan!
I noticed a few people stated that their paragraphs were YA, i didn't see whether we were supposed to include that in the rules so i didn't, but i am proud to say i am a YA writing for YA. 🙂
Good luck Nathan, my heart goes out to you!
Amanda says
I am going to echo all the other posters and just say — wow! There is some awesome talent out there!
Literary Cowgirl says
Some of these paragraphs have gripped me in a way that I will not be able to forget. So much can be said with so few words.
The paragraph that stuck with me the most (even 15+ years after first reading it) is the final one in "All Quiet on the Western Front". I knew it by heart after my first reading of the book.
Any chance of a last paragraphs contest, if you're eyes haven't melted into their sockets from this one?
Thanks for giving a venue to showcase all of this amazing talent.
Poisonguy says
Hey dude, what were you, you know…like, I mean, man, you are totally and I mean totally…. Dude!
Andrew says
I don't normally go in for the hand slapping, high-fiving, overt kind of congratulations (I am English – a nod is all you need) but, hey, anyone who undertakes a project this massive and this informative, well, thanks and good luck!
Couple of points that's actually 1 point, but from 2 angles.
Firstly, anon 3:39 is right. The first paragraph is probably the least fifth or sixth reason why a book is sold in a bookshop. Front runners will be:
– Hype
– Recommendation
– Knowledge of genre (kinda hype but generated by the buyer themselves)
– Title
– Back Cover Blurb
– Cover Art
It takes all these things to get the book in someones hands first.
Having said that an agent see's the book in all its naked glory (As does a publisher, with a little Agent hype swirled into the mix) without all the marketting ploys; you have a query letter then the MS is on its own. So while I am still a little skeptical as to the real importance of the first paragraph, I understand that this is waaaaay more important to an agent that any consumer.
But by the same token, a simple straightforward paragraph comp does run similar risks. For example,
….you get a first para that seems a little like hackneyed romance. It's written well enough but you feel it's old hat. You leave it. What you don't realise is that it's actually about 2 dragons falling in love in 1948 in the aftermath of the second world war after the Alliance forces have just prohibitted mating between nazi and aliied dragons….now without the backcover blurb, genre, book title, etc etc all that info gets missed; what at first seems an good but unimaginative beginning takes on a whole new context.
I'm not complaining….after all I entered within 2 nanoseconds (for the record my novel is NOT about the burgeoning love of a German dragon and a British dragon in the face of a unjust, but necessary global ruling) I'm just saying that while there's a first paragraph to catch the eye, there's also many other factors involved.
Anonymous says
Isn't this contest just training us to first paragraphitis? Doesn't that do more harm to us as writers than good?
All publishable stories have publishable first paragraphs (from adequate to memorable), but it ain't so the other way around.
anotheranon says
I agree with anon 3:39 too, but I always want to see what Nathan will pick and put them up against the ones I would have chosen.
It's fun to see what other people are writing, and there are those paragraphs that just smack you upside the head in that good way.
(I tend to go for the serious ones a little more, not the talky, chummy ones. There's hardly anyone in life that is really chummy, but in books it seems like MC always are, unaturally so.)
Yay Nathan!!!
Gina says
Nathan –
just read your twitter that you´ve read 400 and the most common opening is dead body/ blood.
I´ve read 600 so far and have noticed that people running/ fleeing is also very popular.
And what´s with all the stuff set in Belgium???!!!
Word ver: curses!!! I´m not kidding.
Kat Sheridan says
Andrew, (and others, here's my take on the importance of that first paragraph. Andrew, you mention stuff like dust jackets, and back cover blurbs, and hype, etc. All that stuff has to do with a *bookseller or customer* buying the work. Long before that, you have to convince an agent to take you on, and that person has to convince a publisher to do the same.
My take is that what we're seeing here is the same as a slushpile for an agent/editor. They'll have your query letter, so they'll know the premise of the story (because you studied the agent and know they want a one or two paragraph description of the MS as part of the query letter–another outstanding reason to know what the heck a paragraph looks like).
OK, so they made it through the query letter (imagine each of these entries ALSO has a query letter, so now you've doubled the amount to be read), so then the agent/editor turns to the actual MS. Honestly, if you can't hook them in three lines, are they really, truly going to wade through until page 20 (or however many pages you sent) before they find something that hooks them?
An agent or editor has a million things to do in a day besides reading the slushpile. Even the assistant assigned to reading the slushpile has other duties. I think that if you can't hook them (hook being the operative word) in the first paragraph,they'll never see the unfolding of that soaring prose that occurs on page 20. If your work really doesn't take off until page 20 (or the 5th paragraph, etc.) cut out everything before that.
JJ says
Thank you so much for doing this! You are almost better than chocolate!