In the beginning, you stared at a blank screen. This may have lasted a while. You may or may not have deleted your first line a few times. You made some coffee. You came back. The dog stared at you. You typed away, determined to keep the cat off the keyboard this time. Eventually you found a groove. You wrote some lines, which became paragraphs, which became a page.
Then a story happened. The pages flew by. You really like it (except when you hate it). You’ve developed feelings about it.
But the first page continues to call to you. After all, it’s what will get you in the door with an agent or editor. It’s what a potential reader may use to decide whether to buy your book. You think it needs something. But what? What if it’s okay to adequate already? What if you change something you shouldn’t change? How do you even know when it’s right?
First, take a breath. It’ll be all right.
We have a program just for you.
For our first Write Now program of 2019, we’re going to talk you through your first page. With the help of authors Emily Carpenter and Roger Johns, we’ll gather and chat, hold an informal discussion on the craft of writing a first page, then chat some more. Bring your page with you if you’d like. Time permitting, you may be able to read it aloud and we’ll offer our thoughts. We want you to leave feeling confident about writing the first page. Not only for your work-in-progress, but for all the first pages in your future.
Join us at Fox Tale Book Shoppe on Saturday, February 16th, 2019 at 2:00 p.m.!
Emily Carpenter is the critically acclaimed, bestselling author of suspense novels, Burying the Honeysuckle Girls, The Weight of Lies, and Every Single Secret. After graduating from Auburn with a Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communication, she moved to New York City. She’s worked as an actor, producer, screenwriter, and behind-the-scenes soap opera assistant for the CBS shows, As the World Turns and Guiding Light. Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, she now lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her family. You can visit Emily at emilycarpenterauthor.com and on Facebook and Twitter.
ROGER JOHNS is a former corporate lawyer and retired college professor, and the author of the Wallace Hartman Mysteries from St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books: Dark River Rising (2017) and River of Secrets (2018). He is the 2018 Georgia Author of the Year (Detective ▪ Mystery Category), a 2018 Killer Nashville Readers’ Choice Award nominee, and a finalist for the 2018 Silver Falchion Award for best police procedural. His articles and interviews on writing and the writing life have appeared in Career Author, Criminal Element, Killer Nashville Articles, and the Southern Literary Review. Roger belongs to the Atlanta Writers Club, Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and International Thriller Writers, where he is one of The Fearless Bloggers, and a mentor in the Big Writer program. Along with four other crime fiction writers, he co-authors the MurderBooks blog at www.murder-books.com. Visit him at www.rogerjohnsbooks.com and you can find him on Twitter at @rogerjohns10.