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.
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Last reply by Allie, -
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I smiled as my arrow lodged in the goblin’s skull. It dropped to the arena’s sandy floor with a grunt, a lifeless heap of metallic armor. I notched a second arrow and drew, searching for more enemies. Fortunately, I didn’t have to look hard. Hundreds of the ugly green creatures swarmed into the coliseum from all sides, completely surrounding me. Their snarls drowned out the cheers of the crowd, both of which were united in wishing for my gruesome death. The goblin horde paused about ten feet away, their disfigured faces sizing me up like a double bacon cheeseburger. But I wasn’t afraid. I had an ugly, hungry companion of my own. My best friend, Henry Lee. …
Last reply by Reed Blanchard, -
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Sample of Prose Narrative OPENING SCENE: Introduces protagonist, his personality, and attitude, the setting, and minor characters in his life. The black and white wing-tipped feet of Richie Dodge scuff Arcadia, California sidewalks. He trudges from one curb cut to the next, though careful not to scuff anything above the soles. Faces peer out at him from a shop window, not because of his hipster persona, when hipsters are sort of called hepsters some thirty years after beatniks had their run, but because their images hang captive from posters among three walls. Richie answers their stares with a running critique. Ace of Base—they’ll never be the next ABBA—and The…
Last reply by Phil Dandrea, -
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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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Chapter 1-Algonkin.docx
Last reply by Clare Lowell, -
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I had a cool name which was why I hated to change it. Bobby Jordan. With a name like that, maybe I should have been a baseball player, but I ended up a portfolio manager at one of the big New York hedge funds. Either way, there I was on the roof of a boutique hotel in mid-town Manhattan, my ex-wife’s boyfriend pointing a gun at me demanding I hand over a My Catchy Creature – those stuffed animals from the mid-nineties that everyone went crazy over? One of those. It was Shani the Snail. The Shani the Snail My Catchy Creature was not supposed to exist. Arlo Rothstein’s stuffed animal empire - ingeniously named ARLO – repeatedly denied the existence of Shani t…
Last reply by Scott Brooks, -
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Books start with a catchy opening.
Last reply by RKP, -
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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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Spindt Assignment 2 Dialogue.docx
Last reply by JazzyLady, -
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On Saturday night, right after Shabbos, I had the good luck to receive a phone call from Yoni, an old friend who was visiting his parents. It was mid-December, I hadn’t gone to shul that Shabbos and didn’t know that he was in town. The Rothman’s house still had the Shabbos smell of chicken soup and chulent. Yoni was leaning back on the couch, one of his arms around Deet. She was wearing a red skirt that only reached her knees. Her legs were bare. Yoni had put on some weight since I’d last seen him two years ago. His pants and shirt fit him too tightly. When he half-stood up to welcome me, arms open to give me a hug, I thought that at least one of the buttons w…
Last reply by Yosef, -
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Introduces narrator and main protagonist/antagonist. Introduces one of several settings. Introduces thematic elements. Alludes to forthcoming plot points and reveals "Act Zero" setup. Includes dialogue. Chapter I: Clotho. It’ll be mid-morning in my clapboard piece-of-crap house in God’s own Blue Ridge mountains and I’ll have a hangover that could kill a cat, and not even just a regular cat but a bobcat maybe or whatever an ocelot is. It may occur to me (as so frequently it does) that I am for all intents and purposes out of food, which dilemma has been caused not by insufficient funds but by a general lack of gumption to get off my gangly bum and go to the grocery s…
Last reply by Molly Morse, -
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(First chapter, after prologue): Establishes the inciting incident (murder), character's internal conflict (she struggles with identity, guilt, shame, returning to work as a CPS caseworker after maternity leave) and external conflicts (only she knows something is fishy about her client's situation, she wants to help, but might not be able to because her memory is sketchy and she is unreliable; her baby is colicky and underweight and she isn't home to feed her; now she must help the victim's children in foster care), establishes setting (fall in Youngstown, Ohio), and core wound (she had to learn about being a young girl from the neighbor, not her mother). The…
Last reply by Jody Gerbig, -
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Jenna wakes in the middle of the night and discovers her husband is gone. His bed is empty, she notices it immediately as she shuffles to the bathroom in the dark, the strange velvety texture of the hotel carpet against her bare soles causing an unpleasant shiver in her molars. She assumes she’s woken from the resonant thud of him walking past her bed. Hotel floors always reverberate in that particular way, as if their bones are hollow or a secret cobwebbed chamber exists between each floor. But he’s neither in the marble-everything bathroom nor the adjacent toilet closet. She assumes he must be in his bed; the rumpled sheets and the darkness have merely …
Last reply by Janine Cross, -
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OPENING SCENE - Introduces the antagonist, protagonist, the protag’s new love interest, the contemporary setting, tone, and the primary conflict. Another anniversary. Eight years. On any other Saturday, Emily would pull her boots on and gather kindling. She’d snap a hundred branches, then come inside and light a match under all the wood. With the kitchen radio on, she’d bake something, scones or a coffee cake, all while Neil slept. But today, they were already up. No fire to start. No bread to bake. Keeping with tradition, they left their phones on the kitchen counter. They rode Neil’s red Harley, a model from the 80s that he kept in prist…
Last reply by Lisa771, -
She popped a Xanax, leftover from her friend Louie’s stash, took a double shot of Jack Daniels and boarded the red-eye flight at JFK to Vegas. There, a black car service was to pick her up at the airport, head two and a half hours to The Green Door in Death Valley, California, arriving in time to make the retreat’s kick-off event. Cassandra would arrive the next day. The Green Door’s lobby buzzed with excitement. Lavender and tea tree oil, musky perfumes, expensive perfumes, swirled through the air. Rosie’s nasal passages tingled, overwhelmed by all the scents. A whiff of her day-old body odor, a stale stench of airplane clung to her skin and clothes. And there was …
Last reply by Steve Dunn, -
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edited
Last reply by Sarah Pierce, -
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“So, what’s your story, pal?” He glanced over. Though in pain, the Marine smiled at him from the next bed. It was clear he was talking to him, but Albert Campbell was unsure whether to speak or remain silent. He’d been watching the infantryman all night, but now that the larger man was awake, he remembered he made a practice of avoiding soldiers like him, to shrink away from their brash, loud demeanor, their violence. Perhaps, it was better to remain unseen, unheard. “Hello? Hey, yeah, I’m talking to you. What are you here for?” No such luck. “A mortar,” Albert replied haltingly. “It hit my regiment’s kitchen.” He lifted the thin blanket to reveal…
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Last reply by Marlena, -
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apprx. 500 words from Chapter 1: reveals protagonist; core wound -- she doesn't feel like she's good enough -- she did all the right things, guided by principles of integrity, hard work and service, and those bastards fired her, and now the antagonist (who looks like a good guy)) is coming in to throw her a lifeline, she's electrified by him, and he's the one she has to conquer -- or else. The attendant scanned the card, smiling as though he had been expecting her, handed her a pass, and said, “Guest of Mr. Garrett, I see.” He sounded impressed, pointed diagonally across the lobby to the elevator banks. “On the right, top floor.” “Thanks.” She to…
Last reply by Tiffany, -
Opening scene (flashback) introduces protagonist and initial traumatic event: The kid picked up a 2x4 and took a swing at my head. Like spikes on a medieval mace, three huge nails protruded from the end of the board. I leapt back as the crude weapon barely missed my nose. This was supposed to be a fistfight. At least, that’s what my six-year-old brain thought. A solid ring of grade-school boys surrounded me and my attacker. They shouted like a crowd of spectators at a Roman coliseum, eager for first blood. I took a quick glance to the side and saw a couple of the bigger kids holding back my brother, Mark, who was attempting to rush to my aid. Mark was three…
Last reply by Scott Fleuter, -
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He regarded his plush surroundings through the haze of his standard weekday hangover. Duff was a music journalist by trade, and of a type that was vanishing into extinction. Which was to say he drank frequently and well, was friendly enough with his weed dealer to have read and offered notes on his screenplay, wore a full mustache, and possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of rock music and its forebear, rhythm and blues. He was sitting gingerly in a beautifully upholstered chair with blue and cream stripes in a suite at the Waldorf Astoria, his husky 6’3’’ frame threatening the collapse of the beautiful piece of furniture and his self-esteem at any moment. H…
Last reply by Mike Wackenreuter, -
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OPENING SCENE - Introduces protagonist, protagonist sympathy, setting, and tone CHAPTER ONE I held a stunning, white vintage gown to my neckline and gazed at myself in the mirror, the corners of my mouth curving into a subtle smile. I could almost feel the weight of its past in my hands as the feeble dress hung warily beneath a thin layer of plastic. Imagining it glistening under ballroom lights, I mourned for the garment cast out for a few loose threads, a broken zipper, or love gone wrong. With its exquisite lace and hand-sewn beads, the gown was glamorous and elegant, two things I was not. Although different, given that we were both in …
Last reply by JamieFrei, -
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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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BLOOD OF THE BELLFLOWER: THE TRACE HUNTER (Hild's perspective: Leading male protagonist) CHAPTER ONE Hild still couldn’t comprehend why they were hunting him - a young indentured servant, glorified horse hostler, and fence mender. Nonetheless, his parlous escape from the obscure mining village had flared an uproar with the Segaeta guards. Now, he lay stunned and spread eagle in the hot sand, breathing heavily and blinking against a sticky trickle of blood from his brow bone. Three things tumbled through his mind: First, this new life of running and fighting was unsustainable. Second, Razzia was somewhere – on a horse – being h…
Last reply by Laura Neibaur, -
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My novel is about a heartbroken, modern-day science teacher who is wooed by a man who claims to be Shakespeare. 1 Joy looks up at the autumn sky and sees a sign: a white “H” within a bright green square, a logo that reminds her of summer vacations. “Who knew we had a Holiday Inn?” she says to Fredrico. “Who cares?” She could change the subject to something more relevant to him—like the spa facilities at the new Ritz Carlton, or his resemblance to a 1970’s George Harrison—but instead of working that hard, she lets the conversation drop. The restaurant is just a few blocks from his West Village apar…
Last reply by Emma C. Pasternack, -
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I had to try one time. Even though Dad was about to turn the car into my aunt and uncle’s driveway. Even though he and Mom had said “no” the hundred other times I’d already asked them. This was my last chance so I crossed my fingers on both hands and went for it. “Please please can I go to New York City with you guys?” I asked. “We could see the Statue of Liberty. I read all about it online. It’s 305 feet tall if you count the pedestal it stands on.” I knew they would like that I threw in the exact measurement. They always approved when I used my laptop for educational things instead of just playing video games. “I promise we’ll take you …
Last reply by Lesley Hershman,
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