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 Hollow Tree stands at the end of Rotten Row. It looks like an ordinary tree to almost everyone who wanders past its twisting bark. There are details, like the deep trenches running along its spine and the way the leaves turn translucent in certain slants of light, but it takes time to notice those, and people on Rotten Row seem to be in quite a hurry. It looked like any old tree to Conor as well. At least until last Tuesday. He didn’t want to go to school that morning – or any morning as of late. He held a cup of tea to his forehead, feigning fever. He attempted loud coughing, wearing his shirt inside out to demonstrate his general sense of disarray, and …
Last reply by JuliaMay82, -
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Prologue 13 Years Ago 7:08 PM Liz Liz hated sunsets. And the late September sky was already awash in bruised hues, outlining rows of gnarled apple trees against the slash of dark horizon. She knew most people enjoyed the colorful blurring of day into night, but those same people had clearly never hunted—or been hunted—by dragons before. They were deadliest at dusk, when mottled dragon scales became nearly invisible in the riot of color. Somehow, creatures with wingspans larger than most commercial aircrafts were rendered almost undetectable. Liz was hot beneath her fatigues; sweat pooling at the base of her spine as she lay flat, prop…
Last reply by alloradannon, -
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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, -
First Pages, Chapter 1.docx
Last reply by Marianne Taylor, -
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The opening scene introduces the protagonist, setting, tone, and foreshadows primary conflict: Chapter 1: Dear Dreamer Is this what it feels like to be catatonic? I was sitting on my living room couch, staring out the window but I might as well have been staring into outer space. I was completely numb. Am I in shock? Yes, this feels like shock. After what seemed like hours, my mind slowly started revving up, doing mental olympics. It was trying to assess the situation and come up with a solution. But there wasn’t one, of course. Or at least one I wanted to admit. This wasn’t the first time I had fallen after taking a leap of faith. I had done it once …
Last reply by Claire Uncapher, -
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OPENING SCENES: Introduces protagonist, provides hints of core wound, and foreshadows the coming conflict. THEN I’m laughing at the dinner table. My jeans sport green grass stains on the knees. Norkie, my favorite fuzzy stuffed bear with the worn out I heart NY t-shirt, sits in my lap. He got his name because when we moved to New York; I called it New Nork. I don’t remember but both my daddy’s laugh when they tell me the story of how I wanted a cow but was happy with Norkie. I look back at the meaty lasagna dripping with cheese and sauce half-eaten on my plate. It tastes good, but I really want to eat one of the warm oatmeal raisin cookies that I can see…
Last reply by GwenBFresh, -
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Opening Scene: Introduces the voice of the omniscient narrator, sets tone for novel, introduces protagonist and hints at the beginnings of her internal conflict. Chapter 1: Hooks It is a place of staggering beauty, this place tucked away in the middle of nowhere at the heart of the Middle Kingdom. The land is rich with the darkest of soil and, at the right time of year, the hills are thickly carpeted with greenery so bold that the land seems to cry with life. However, for the men and women who dot this landscape with their hard-fought lives, knowledge of the land’s capriciousness in delivering good fortune renders the image less vibrant. In between the fiel…
Last reply by Radha Chaddah, -
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LIV January 2007. She knew the power of making an entrance. Oversized sunglasses, skewed beret, black cape coat, shopping bags in both hands. So Livi. That moment, standing at the door of the dark bar, the sun haloing her, said it all. The hostess looked up. “Oh, I’m just here for tea. You do serve tea at the bar of the Russian Tea Room?” “Yes, Madam. Please come in.” Liv entered, eyes feasting on every morsal: the lush red carpet, the dark green walls framed in glistening gold, swooping firebirds and shiny samovars adorning them. Leather stools lined the bar like bright cherry lollipops. Oh yes, this will do just fine. The restaurant …
Last reply by LIsa Orban, -
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Opening Scene - Introduces the protagonist and setting, establishes core wounds Sooner or Later You can run on for a long time, Run on, duckin’ and dodgin’, Run on for a long time, Sooner or later God Almighty’s gonna cut you down. — Traditional American Gospel Mrs. Evelyn Doherty had a standing appointment with Madame Theresa every Wednesday at one-thirty PM. She was a faithful client and never missed a scheduled reading, unless she was on vacation or unwell, which rarely happened. “Are you ready, Evelyn?” Madame Theresa asked in a tentative, encouraging voice, one finger resting patiently on…
Last reply by Matthew Schwab, -
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Hello! Thanks for reading the first scene of The Cleveland Phoenix, a science fiction/adventure manuscript. The chapter below introduces the protagonist, the antagonist, and the primary conflict of the novel, as well as the setting and tone. Chapter 1: Dortollen Licorice Star Year 2722 – Shaula System – Fifteen Years Ago Cassander of Arkan didn’t believe the Vikaanians. The human’s face bunched to one side, skeptical. Watching the time, he raised an eyebrow behind his portable oxygen generator–a black fabric mask cradling a translator insert and a long, clear tube running to a palm-sized box in the pocket of his jacket. The box clicked every few seconds…
Last reply by Erica Vanstone, -
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Opening Scene: Introduces protagonist, protagonist's wound, hidden magical world, and an important secondary character; plus ends with inciting incident. A burst of magic hung in limbo. No more than a bolt of spellbound energy, it had more in common with the wind than anything of substance; however, it vibrated with the urgency of a message needing to be delivered. Imbued with a tiny bit of magic, the missive was protected. Only the intended recipient could accept it. Yet, it still attracted attention. The wrong kind. The dark kind. Success required swift delivery. The magic hummed, zeroing in on the Veil’s opaque wall. It focused on on…
Last reply by Ann Kimbrough, -
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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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Danny gave the taxi driver a five dollar tip and stepped out into the drizzle. Despite being early spring, winter was pushing back hard, and a damp, cold evening like this could cause a man to try and hide his head under an umbrella, or pull the collars of his trench coat up tight to his cheek bones, but Danny walked tall, anticipating a profit. The only acknowledgements to the weather that he wore were a dark grey water resistant polyester soft shell jacket, a pair of worn leather gloves, and a faded black baseball cap. The sun had set and with the help of the heavy clouds, darkness was coming quickly. A gust of wind gave him a momentary chill and splattered icy droplets…
Last reply by Gerard Simon, -
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This first scene of the novel introduces the protagonists, one of the secondary conflicts, as well as some foreshadowing of larger events to come. ONE A harsh chemical stench assaulted Skye as she left her bedroom. Her hands trailed across the golden flocking of the floral-patterned wallpaper as she tried to pinpoint the source of the smell. An odor similar to those in an art studio, but more subtle and with a hint of flowers, led her down the hall to the bathroom. A sigh escaped Skye’s lips as she opened the bathroom door. One word described this room: minuscule. The sink stood to the right of the door, with the tub to the left. Directly acr…
Last reply by JJ Long, -
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Once again, it’s morning in America. And bells ring out across our vast nation once more. The citizens of our country praised Reagan for a reason. Years earlier, he asked his team to win one for the Gipper. And Notre Dame became epitomized in the record books. They even put Miami in their place in ‘88; resulting in the famed Catholics vs Convicts contest. I know what you’re thinking; how does this relate with me? Or with baseball? Nothing necessarily. You’ll need to forgive me. I sound like a chatterbox most of the time. If there’s anything you can take away from me, know I try to be more of a listener than a talker. Just bear with me and maybe you won’t becom…
Last reply by James Dour, -
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(Revised version posted June 3, 2025) Epigraph: In the fifteen years since contact with Formicaran hives, the study of Tokic has challenged fundamental assumptions about linguistic structure, particularly in relation to how languages encode identity and collective cognition. Tokic is a spatial, signed language whose holonic grammar explicitly encodes the whole-part relationships of distributed entities. The existence of humans—corporeal, individuated beings—posed a fundamental problem for Tokic’s grammatical categories. The existence of cyborg humans posed an even graver problem, because the hives initially believed that the first-contact team had enslaved thei…
Last reply by Michael Chorost, -
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Three samples are posted below: Chapter 1 introduces Tom Preston, the protagonist, and foreshadows the primary conflict. Chapter 17 shares inner dialogue of Ray Whelan, the antagonist. An excerpt from Chapter 26 includes dialogue between Ray and David, a young man Ray hired to replace Quentin (the dealer he murdered). Chapter 1 Digging a grave was a hell of a lot harder than Tom expected. After nearly an hour of spading through hard earth and snarls of thick, knotted roots, the hole looked barely two feet deep. He climbed out to assess his work, his hands blistered and bleeding, then tossed the shovel back into the grave and hurried to his car …
Last reply by Rich M., -
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Flowers By Melissa Rea Teeth, as long as her head, ripped through the green underbrush where Flowers and her mother crouched, hiding. “This big brute does not eat flesh,” Mother whispered. “It might still bite off your head if you got in the way.” She clutched Flowers tight against her. The two held completely still and waited for the beast to finish its favorite meal, juicy green leaves. Flowers knew the enormous, gray-skinned water-pig could waddle over her if she were not careful, but it did not want to eat her. Mother had told her of all the dangerous animals and how to protect herself. When to run, when to hide and how to kill quickly to stay alive. …
Last reply by Flowers by Melissa Rea, -
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edited
Last reply by Sarah Pierce, -
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Forge of Angels By Kat Blackwood Prologue Shikari woke gasping, choking on smoke, surrounded by half-burned scrolls and books, broken goddess statues -- and the bloodied bodies of mail-clad soldiers and yellow-robed monks. Flames licked blackened beams and fallen timbers. Agony shot through Shikari’s body with each breath. He put a hand to his chest, and it came away red – a gaping wound revealed a splintered rib and pulsing blood that spilled down his torso like a dark red waterfall. If only he could die here and now and be done with it. But as he watched, the bone knit back together, the bleeding ceased, and the flesh healed until there…
Last reply by Kat Hankinson, -
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GAME KNOWS GAME EDIT.docx
Last reply by Marc Curtis Little, -
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SECOND SCENE. Follows the Prologue, which has minimal dialogue. The Prologue features the main character sitting in his father's office contemplating suicide. Then the narrative jumps back in time to the beginning of the story that will lead him to that tragic moment/state of mind. It is a morning like any other morning when it all changes. Or, rather, it does not change. The undaunted and undauntable world, such as it is, was created longer ago than we dare comprehend by forces far greater than our poor power to manipulate. It is only that the late surface matter is scoured away and the skeletal truth revealed through white fire and through clouds of bilious hellsmo…
Last reply by Steve Dunn, -
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Updated: 11-30-24 Howdy all, Here's the full proposal PDF: google docs link to the full book proposal (formatted and easier on the eyes than reading here) Go Bleep Your Self-Help has an Introduction which um, well, you know...introduces the book, but here ya go: Chapter 1: Good Morning Sunshine, In your dream, a book has caught your eye. On its cover: a life-sized middle finger unabashedly flipping off your life’s vainglorious efforts to improve, better, and help yourself. You are delighted and offended. You are hopeful and skeptical. You are intrigued and exhausted. A thought-and-feeling-infused hurricane of failure, unworthine…
Last reply by J. Stewart Dixon, -
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Chapter 1 Sacrifice yourself to the Lord of the Cosmos. Your reward shall be great in heaven - Chapter 7, Verse 14, Book of Nephilius New Eridu, God City, was darkened by a blackening blanket of clouds enveloping the heavens. A deluge of impetuous rain descended down—fat, globulous drops pummeled the buildings, their lights going out like dominoes. A soporific river overflowing the causeways with gloomy dark waters flowed slowly through the heart of the city until it came to an island of red rock like a bleeding eye. Atop that island in the misty air was a massive stone structure, a ziggurat built from the very stones of the ziggurat found at the r…
Last reply by Tim McDonald, -
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The mist hung low over the town of Birchwood, casting an eerie glow under the vintage lampposts lined along the streets below. The usual great horned owl glided along the overcast sky overlooking the townsfolk as they hurried to load salt-filled sacks into their trucks and cars. Frank shuffled down one of the cobblestone streets in a hurry, careful not to slip in the newly fallen snow. The ivy-clad buildings loomed over him, their intricate woodwork seeming to hold old spirits trapped within, their hands asking for some kind of release from the time-stricken world. His breath was visible in the cold air and his hands were nestled deeply in the pockets of his jeans. He’d f…
Last reply by Katia Arco,
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