New York Write to Pitch "First Pages"
A forum for New York pitch event alums to post samples of their scenes and prose narrative for detailed critique according to Algonkian Author Connect guidelines. Emphasis on choice of set, narrative cinema, quality of dialogue, metaphor, static and dynamic imagery, interior monologue, general clarity, tone, suspense devices, and routine line editing issues as well.
417 topics in this forum
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The Mad-Happy Chapter 1 I always wanted to be beautiful. My partner told me I was and I’m sure he had meant it, but I didn’t want to be beautiful only like that. I wanted to be the type of beautiful that stops a stranger mid-step, turns him around and makes him run after me. They do that now. That’s why I hid in the trees. So, I sat in a tall, tree canopy, concealed by leaves, and watched the weedy, unkempt parking lot of the Kingston Penitentiary in the distance. Everything was silent, as it had been for almost two years. The majority of the inhabitants of Kingston, Canada were dead, as were the majority of inhabitants of every city, everywhe…
Last reply by Marlena, -
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Opening Scene - introduces protagonist, setting and other POV characters. CHAPTER ONE: SIBBY Good coffee and pumpkin chocolate chip muffins brought everyone together in a way that made Sibby believe in world peace for a few minutes every day. Add a sunshiny October day and everything seemed like it would turn out okay. A warm wind shoved last night’s chill away, as if telling winter to back the hell off. Sibby Wicklow needs a few more weeks of good business. The maples in Prayer Grove rustled with their glorious rare red as the sun rose over the mountains. Hikers had been crowding the cafe all morning, going on about the leaves! The leaves! The leaves! Ji…
Last reply by Ariel Slick, -
1980 Three men remained silent as they sat in the car. Two in the front seat. One in the back. Easing up slowly to the end of the street, the driver killed the lights and brought the car to a stop by the side of the dark, dilapidated building. The right-side rear door of the car opened, and a man got in. The front seat passenger watched with concern, then asked, “Where’s Angel?” “How the fuck should I know? I’m here. Worry about that,” the man replied curtly, annoyed at his lack of concern for him. Again, they sat silent, but only for a moment. “Are you sure about this? I think we’re going too big. It’s too soon.” “Y…
Last reply by Ariel Slick, -
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Life is a hornets’ nest. If I don’t poke it, it won’t sting me. But now I’ve got hornets everywhere. Not literally, which is unfortunate because a literal hornets’ nest in my studio could be my get out of jail free card. I would kill for anything even remotely hornet-adjacent right now. When I agreed to this fiasco, Open Studios was shrouded in the mists of an unimaginable future, five whole months away. Now it’s here, and the sunlight that slants through my north-facing windows throws into brutal relief every reason I should not allow the general public into my space: bits of colored tin on every surface, gouges in the wood table where I eat my sad little solo …
Last reply by Ariel Slick, -
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Scene: Chapter Four. Jo returns to New York from visiting Madeleine in Florida after receiving a telegram from Orson Welles asking to meet. He wants to premiere "Citizen Kane" at the Palace Theater and needs someone to show him around. The scene captures Jo's passions and core decency - and why the movies matter to her. He wanted to meet at midnight.docx
Last reply by Saladin Ambar, -
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Friday One Every night starts the same. The pregame. The debauchery before the debauchery. An excuse to get drunk before the actual drinking starts. Tonight, the pregame is at my apartment. Graduating college was supposed to have magically matured me. I took enough social science classes, to have crawled from my cave. If the exhilaration of “SOC 2200 – Working Women” doesn’t get the engines revving on the quest to grow up, well, what possibly could? Oh, that last blue book. This was all supposed to end after shutting that last blue book. What could another keg party do for me when equipped with the weapons of knowledge? What ne…
Last reply by Alexander Muka, -
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OPENING SCENE—Introduces protagonist, antagonistic force, and backstory, as well as foreshadows upcoming events. CHAPTER 1 “We are going to have a summer we’ll never forget, I just know it girls!” Isabella gushed, with a hopeful smile that temporarily replaced the worry lines and sadness that had plagued her face for some time now. “I already know that’s true,” grumbled Cora. “I’ll never forget that you are taking away my phone and forcing me into an internet-free summer away from my friends. How can you do this to me, mom?!” “Please Cora, can’t you at least try to have a positive attitude for once? I simply …
Last reply by Kate Houser Snare, -
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OPENING SCENE - Introduces antagonist, provides initial setting, establishes tone, introduces protagonists, and foreshadows the primary conflict. CHAPTER ONE. Everyone knows that just about everything in the U. S. is shipped by trucks, more than 10 billion tons of freight each year. Trucks are indispensable. Fruit, razor blades, computers, lumber, chickens. This is the linchpin of American commerce. Put another way, trucks move 72 per cent of the nation’s goods. But not everyone knows that trucks deliver all the U. S. nuclear bombs from the factory to the military! A person might drive past a convoy full of nukes just rolling along Interstate 95 at the pos…
Last reply by Christopher, -
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Ryan stared unseeing into his oak paneled stall inside the Baltimore Blaze locker room. A decades old photograph was tacked to the wood grained back, safely secured in the plastic Ziploc baggie that Ryan had plucked from the box inside his mother’s pantry when he was eight years old. He remembered delicately placing it in the flexible, plastic pouch after carefully cutting it from the page of a sports magazine he had found discarded on the front lawn after the garbage trucks had made their weekly pickups. Every season since he started in the league it had made its way from the top drawer of Ryan’s bedroom dresser to this exact same spot. The seven by eight and half inch …
Last reply by Cindy Berry, -
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Opening scene: introduces protagonist, side character, setting, and foreshadows the underlying conflict. “Soothsayer”, my mother had called me, but I scarce believed. Assuming I dreamt through the eyes of another, she held hope that I embodied the gift of prophecy. Yet I bore no divination. These scenes dancing behind my eyelids left no poetic riddles to distill in their wake. For a time, I called them memories, believing the gods made a mistake when weaving my soul and instead of one, had woven many. Seamed together in jagged lines, each fabric of being stitched unto the other like a quilt made in darkness. The wistful tales of a child for soon those dreams plunged …
Last reply by Sarah Tubbs, -
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Back of Chapter One - Establishes Primary and secondary protagonists, their relationship, and the personal conflict that arises from it. Touches on setting and tone. Introduces secondary antagonist and foreshadows primary conflict. Anders threw a cheerful refrain into the growing raucousness as a bard fell from the bar top before he could finish his deaf tune. "Good show!" he laughed, seeming to believe that there was such a thing in this shanty town and the performance they had just endured met that most basic standard of good. "Come on Viv, crack a smile!" Vivica did no such thing, not least in part because Anders had made his demand of her with a mo…
Last reply by DomGerard, -
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Prologue – The Sunday Vinyl Project (a nonfiction memoir) May 13, 1987. My husband and I are going through the last of midterms this week. After this, it’s paper writing time. The list of chores is endless, and life goes on spinning us slowly in our tracks. To hesitate, to slow down for only a moment, would be to miss much of life’s experiences. If we could only capture some of the precious times with our children and with each other and place them in a looking glass for tomorrow. The best we can capture are two-dimensional images of a time, a person, an event... There is a piece missing that makes my heart ache in viewing the past, the spirit of that time. Captu…
Last reply by DomGerard, -
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The taxi driver from the Gare de Lyon was like one of those cheap rides for toddlers outside a supermarket which, for only a small coin, kept going long after the fun had worn off. Eve deposited her monosyllables into the conversation and the man spoke for minutes at a time, French that only made its way to Eve’s understanding in sly bursts, like mice creeping into a house in autumn. After a few minutes, she realized that he was a person who would talk with or without encouragement and was relieved to give up the chore of understanding him. Paris went by in a startling mix of the mundane and the spectacular. There were rows of rubbish bins and traffic and…
Last reply by Hope, -
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Opening Scene of adult/new adult Science Fiction to introduce the main character, her special ability, and a little world building. Security Guild Capital (Chesapeake District) Shaanti closed her eyes to concentrate on keeping perfectly still. She held her head high, her shoulders back, hands pressed against the small of her back, and her feet shoulder width apart. It was torture. The more she tried not to move, the more her body demanded release. She was very good at many things - keeping still wasn’t one. Wearing her dress greys helped, they fit so snug. Her aunt had them specially tailored for the occasion, so this was her first time wearing them. Aunt Margue…
Last reply by DomGerard, -
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I always show up to work early but onFebruary 8, 2006 I was earlier than usual, cup of coffee in hand. The first thing I did was call my mom to wish her a happy birthday. I wanted to do it from my office phone because she loved seeing Hampton Bays School District on her caller ID. She was so proud that her son was a school principal—with even bigger aspirations. I opened with the same line I’ve used since moving out: “Mama, its Frank Vetro.” It always cracks her up. The simple things make her laugh, make her happy. She never wants a gift. I stopped buying her gifts years ago because they always go to waste. Quality time with her family is all she ever wants, and dinner wi…
Last reply by DomGerard, -
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Last reply by DomGerard, -
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AIDEN I’ve got a light touch on the steering wheel. The road cuts a winding path through a dense forest, the cone of my headlights revealing just enough to see ahead. Everything else is stark blackness. Daft Punk blasts through the speakers—an EDM mix I made last year as a DJ for my high school. Back when DJs and high schools existed, that is. The bass rumbling through the seat makes me feel connected to the car. For the third time this hour, I check on the vials. With one eye on the road, I paw at the backpack resting on the passenger seat. A little obsessive? Maybe. But it’s my critical cargo, what I’m risking my life for. And I’m doing this for Marcus.…
Last reply by rachelmsterling, -
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I have Chapter 1 below, but since I'm still thinking about some revisions/edits, I'm also copying in another sample of my writing to demonstrate my prose. Chapter 1 – Opening scene, establishing setting, tone, themes, POV, introduce the protagonist and her fears, wants, and dependence on her sister, introduce interpersonal conflict, create suspense, set up the upcoming inciting incident (missing sister) CHAPTER 1 I always feared the sea would be my end. The lethal waves slap against the stone beneath my feet, they tug on the tendrils of my skirt, and reach to tear everything left from me. I imprison a breath of salty air, tightening my f…
Last reply by rachelmsterling, -
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OPENING SCENE - Introduces antagonist, setting, tone, and a foreshadows the primary conflict. I followed Mahl deeper into the jungle. Winds slapped the leaves into my face, and the torrent of rain threw sheets of freezing rain into my bones. I could not see the ground beneath me, only felt my sandals sink deep into the earth as I trudged through the muck, holding tight to the thin orrnah wrapped around my shoulders. “We should stop, Ayni.” Her voice reached my ears despite the monsoon drowning out the sound of our sloshing steps and haggard breathing. How fortunate that I could hear Mahl’s voice, even in my head. “Why?” I asked just as my kameez snagged on…
Last reply by rachelmsterling, -
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Below is the opening scene. It introduces the protagonist, antagonist, primary conflict, and setting. Travis Lynch is back in town, but I don’t know it yet. I’m naïve, a younger sister par excellence. I learned to swim when Yvette told me that the lifeguard would spank me if I didn’t jump in the pool. I believed in the Tooth Fairy even in the face of my classmates’ denials, and when I caught my dad putting a coin under my pillow, I reasoned that the real Tooth Fairy had gotten sick. I showed up at the ninth grade Halloween dance dressed as a playing card, believing one of the cool girls in my class when she said we could go as a pair of aces. I was the only one…
Last reply by Natasha Williams, -
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Just before she leaps from the ledge. When the light is such that the street below remains a half answered question. She presses her toes together so that the blood drains and the tips become white against the rich colored bricks. Then, without breath. Without hesitation. She goes barefoot. Out into the radiating darkness. Her hair floats soundlessly above her and her shirt luffs against her body. It is 5.9 seconds from the cloudless sky to the earth. Just longer than it takes to blow out a birthday candle. There is a mathematical equation to represent the force exerted by the pavement upon her body. It's easier …
Last reply by Natasha Williams, -
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CHAPTER ONE.docx
Last reply by Natasha Williams, -
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Cars gathered in the Saint Jude’s parking lot. Cars with Saint Christopher medals and pine air fresheners swaying in unison—cars with crank windows and dirty ashtrays, Turtle Waxed sedans in from the suburbs and garages of their very own, a car with one red door and Bondo over the left rear fender. The gentle widows, the steadfast, the devout, the terrified of dying, the good wives clutching handbags in the passenger seats, the ones who were brought up to do the right thing. One after another, they surfed the derelict potholes, exhaust pipes scraping the asphalt. Then came the hearse, jostling the dead, and the bagpipe player (he drove a Lexus.) The news van was no surpri…
Last reply by Natasha Williams, -
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Life, Liberty, and Kanafa: How an Immigrant's Daughter Escaped Abuse and Found Her Destiny PROLOGUE It took me about a year to realize that I had married a cult leader. There were some dead giveaways. He was almost three times my age. He was the pastor of a “free church” that wasn’t registered with the IRS. He kept tens of thousands of dollars worth of silver stashed in his bedroom closet. And he owned six firearms. But I knew all that before I married him. When I stopped attending his church, he spoke to his attorney and came back to me with a property settlement agreement. I opened my own bank account and …
Last reply by Natasha Williams, -
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It was at Shari Saltzman’s Bat-Mitzvah that I asked my husband if he was having an affair. While Shari and her family had carefully planned every last detail of her momentous event—from her flawless Torah reading in synagogue to the Gummy Bear toppings at the ice-cream sundae bar at the reception—I hadn’t planned a damn thing. Still, both Shari and I came of age that spring day. I’d been to plenty of coming-of-age celebrations that year. Between nieces and nephews and neighbors, it seemed every Jewish kid was turning thirteen. One party was pretty much like any other, though the Saturday night receptions promised a little more panache (for a lot more green). The Bea…
Last reply by Natasha Williams,
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