Goal: We’ll look to examples of strong published work and examine what makes for compelling opening pages to a manuscript. This is where we discuss what works, what doesn’t, and how to better understand what agents and editors look for when reading hundreds upon hundreds of submissions.

This session covers:

• Review the opening pages of various pieces of literature to explore how/why they demand a reader's attention. What makes them memorable and why? We will dissect the elements of fiction to guide the session.
• Learn what agents and editors often look for when reading submissions.

Goal: We’ll learn why self-editing our work is essential to polishing a draft and getting it ready for submission. Beta readers are great to have—but we still need to have reliable methods and a razor-sharp eye for strengthening the story. In this session, we’ll learn techniques that will help you look at your pages through the eyes of an editor rather than a writer.

This session covers:

• Self-editing as the first step to making our manuscripts readable. We will experiment with tone, point of view, and storytelling techniques:
  • How do filler words bog down the pacing and distract from the plot?
  • Do your characters earn their place in the story? How to spot the duds.
• Feeling stuck with where the story goes next? It could be as simple as a POV refresh. We’ll explore how changing POV and tense can sometimes pull a story out of quicksand.

Goal: We will learn how to talk about our manuscript; become intimately familiar with the story, the characters, and how to develop the supplemental materials around it.

This session covers:

• Developing an elevator pitch for your manuscript that consists of 100-150 words. The purpose? If you can’t nail the pitch within this word count, you still need to understand your own story before you can sell it.
• We will work with the first 25 pages of our manuscripts to apply the previous week’s lessons.
• What is at stake in your story?
• Who is the protagonist?
• What is the central conflict?

• Is the pacing off?

• We will explore tricks and techniques to apply to our self-edits and better understand how to evaluate our own work.

Goal: You’ve polished your manuscript and you have the first 50 pages down. Now what? We will explore the submission packet you will need for the querying process.

This session covers: 

• How to master the art of 1) writing a strong query letter and 2) selecting strong comp titles.
• We’ll review the dos and don’ts of how to structure a query letter and how to strike the right balance between piquing an agent’s interest and oversharing too much of your story.

• Strategies to strengthen the opening pages to your manuscript—and how to apply them throughout the rest of your manuscript.
• How to develop a keen eye for self-editing—what goes, what stays, and how to make difficult decisions when polishing your work. In short? How to be as objective as possible with a project you’ve poured yourself into.
• Why revisiting the basics—the elements of fiction!—is an easy and crucial way to gauge the effectiveness of your work once it’s been completed.
• The importance of submitting with a strong elevator pitch, apt comp titles, and a flawless query letter that will pique an agent’s (or indie press editor’s) interest. And then how to write them.

• Writers who have completed (or have nearly completed) their manuscripts
• Writers who have already queried but haven’t gotten anywhere with their pitches
• Writers who want to better understand the more traditional side of publishing and how they can approach it strategically

• Editorial feedback on the first 20 pages of your manuscript
• One completed query letter
• One completed elevator pitch
• Tactics for how to research comp titles