Hey writers! Each month (and sometimes more often), we’ll choose 2-3 “first pages” to review. A first page, for our purposes, is the first 350 words of your book—fiction, non-fiction or memoir. We will read the page aloud on the podcast and discuss with a single thought in mind: Would we keep reading?
First pages are incredibly important in every genre. If you can’t grab a reader on that first page, you might lose your chance of grabbing them at all. On the podcast, we’ll read the page aloud and then each cast our “vote”—would we keep going? Then—and this is the most important bit— we’ll discuss why or why not. Were we dying to know what would happen next, or turned off by an info dump? Ready to learn what you have to teach us or ready to see what’s on YouTube? Totally on board with a character or uncertain why we were there in the first place?
In this episode, we have an intriguing work of non-fiction, a novel that remains, after its first page, a bit more of a mystery than perhaps intended and a memoir with—at least in terms of the first page—a great hook.
