March Membership Meeting—First Page Critique
The hook is the most important part of your story. If the reader doesn’t get drawn in by the first sentence, they won’t read the first paragraph. If they don’t feel entranced by the first paragraph, they won’t read the first page. No first page, no book.
It’s quite simple really. You need to grab the reader’s interest on that first page if you want them to read your masterpiece.
We’ve held a number of first page slam events when published authors have critiqued first pages of works by Guild members. This year we’re adding a twist. Instead of critiquing the first pages written by Guild members, we’re inviting members to pick out some of their favorite works for attendees to critique them. We want your choices to be books you love, but not classics. So no Dickens or Dostoyevsky, please. Look to best seller lists from recent years for books that are popular but have not yet found their way into English literature classrooms.
Penn Wallace will facilitate the meeting. Penn will provide criteria for members to use when critiquing submissions.
All attendees will have an opportunity to participate.
For instructions on how to submit your choice for a first page read, check out this blog post: https://sdweg.org/blog/13317744
All submissions must be made by March 15, 2024 in Microsoft Word format to penn@pennwallace.com and mardiewho@yahoo.com. Include “First page from [yourname]” at the top of the page. Use “First Page Critique–Title, Author” as the subject line of your email.
Do not include the book title on the page. Instead, include the title and author in the subject line of your email submitting the piece.
This is a lot of fun, don’t miss out.
The first half hour of our meetings, from 6:30 to 7:00, is devoted to time for networking with other members and a short business meeting to share information form the Board to members and from one member to others. The presentation by Penn Wallace will begin at 7 p.m.
