Pikes Peak Writers Conference

I spent several hours at the PPWC today and it was a FABULOUS experience! There's so much I want to share, but I'm exhausted, so I'm going to concentrate on my favorite part, which was the Read & Critique.

This is how the Read and Critiques worked: Willing attendees submitted the first page of their manuscripts. One by one, the pages were read aloud to a roomful of people. Three expert panelists in the room then spent two minutes critiquing the page for the audience.

The expert panelists for the first R&C I attended were Rock Star Agent Nathan Bransford (he's a sharp dresser with mesmerizing eyes), Editor Kate Harrison and Author Bill Brooks. The experts were very insightful. Here's a few things they said: They felt many of the pages were rushed...like people were trying to fit in a WOW moment way too soon. BUT they stressed that main characters need to be liked quickly...readers need to care about the character, if authors want readers to keep reading.

I also attended another Read and Critique with an agent, editor, author panel. Editor Annette Rogers wanted the WOW more quickly, Agent Natanya Wheeler (she's gorgeous, BTW) wanted zero confusion on page one---don't give her an excuse to quit reading---and Author Laura Resnick wanted writers to have more polished manuscripts. Natanya was very into titles, which surprised me. There were a lot of telling/showing issues in this group. However, one first page was AWESOME in this group and both Annette and Natanya wanted to meet the writer responsible for it. Natanya also wanted to meet the author of another page.

Interesting side note: Combined in the two sessions, there were three pages with dead people (ghosts) as characters---Nathan says he's seeing a lot of that---and there were two pages with new girls at school characters.

In general, panelists were opposed to prologues (I think there were two pages with those), unless you're a kick-butt writer and your prologue has a big purpose.

As an avid reader, I've got to say there were only about five pages with premises making me want more. While there were some pages in which there were writing problems (poor dialogue, construction issues), the main issue for me was too much blah; subject matter which simply didn't interest me and stories/characters who were not unique. I heard about 50-60 pages.

PERSONAL SIDE NOTE: A friend of mine, Wendy Burt-Thomas, is a member of the PPWC faculty. She met Annette Rogers (the editor from above) and told Annette about my book. Annette later asked me for a pitch as we were walking through the lobby! I'm usually way-cool (of course, you already know that), but my knees were literally (hah) shaking. Annette asked me to send her some pages.