Reply #8: You're arrogant. The first three pages are all you get

[Tansy_Gold]

Whether the person perusing those three pages is an editor, an agent, or a browser looking to buy something to read on vacation, if you don't capture their interest in the first three pages, you're probably S.O.L.

It's simple economics -- editors and agents don't make money reading stuff that's not publishable. They're looking for good stuff, and if what they're reading is obviously not good, they aren't going to read further in hopes it gets better. 99.99% of the time it doesn't. They know this.

Read Shelly Lowenkopf. He blogs extensively. Read everything you can of his AND BELIEVE IT. Don't make excuses why your writing is so good and so different and so wonderful that the rules don't apply to you. THE RULES APPLY TO YOU, TOO, BELIEVE ME.

If you possibly can, get a copy of Lowenkopf's Feb. 1982 article from The Writer "Creating a Rejection-Resistant Novel." I haven't been able to find it online and only one reference to it, but it's one of my two absolute bibles for writing fiction. The other is Ashmead, Schweitzer, and Scithers' "The Ultimate Rule."

Check out the weekly "First Page Saturday" thread at www.DearAuthor.com. Find out what readers, writers, etc., think of various first pages.


You have three pages max. You might blow it on the first page or even in the first paragraph, and then you won't even get those first three pages. But barring any major flubs, you'll likely get three pages before the reader gives up, or is hooked.


Tansy Gold, who supposedly is being reprinted by Pocket but isn't holding her breath