Friday 21 September 2012

I Need Your Help! Vote on My First Chapter.

First of all: 999 page views as I'm writing this: super cool! Thanks everyone for dropping by.
Wish I should have one of those flashing things that says 'Congratulations! You are the 1000th person to read this site!' But I'm not that tech savvy, and it would also probably look like I was trying to sell you something, or give you a virus.

Second: guess what? You know all those query letters (ie. the whole three) that I sent out? Well, one of the agents got back to me today saying I could send through a proposal!

So, I know that I'm meant to be all cool and like 'whatevs, I get agents emailing me all the time', but stuff that! This whole blog is about being new to everything and while it probably means nothing, I still think it is super exciting. Especially since the agent's website was like: yeah, we don't like international authors, and very rarely accept young adults stuff. So then I was like: yeah, hey, I'm an international author writing young adults stuff, you interested? So to have them write back and go: 'show me what you've got' is sort of big. They could have just ignored me, or written a copy and paste email saying: read our website, we don't want you. 

Now comes the problem: My First Chapter.

Here's the deal. I really like my first chapter. Everyone who has read it so far (except for my little sister) really likes (or at least says to my face they do). Even the reader who was critiquing it for the writing competition liked it. However, they also pointed out that young adult works generally jump straight to the action, and while she liked my description, she thought I should drop it.

So, I'm putting my first chapter (of my very first completed novel, exciting, no?) up in the tabs across the top of the blog. 

I've just put up a poll on the main page: Sally Hunt Chapter 1: Should it stay or should it go?

This poll is open until Monday morning (when I hope to send a reply to the agent with my proposal and first three chapters of my manuscript). 

Let the People Speak: should I shorten the first chapter and just jump straight into the action (Sally on dirt bike, riding up to greet friends), or keep it with its description?

All people who have said to my face they love it, are welcome to vote here with the truth. 

If you want to nuance your reply more than the set answers allow, feel free to just comment below. 

Hope to hear from some of you at least.

(And even if you don't know me, and stopped by here thinking it was a porn site, I would appreciate it if you took the time to have a quick read, even the first paragraph of the chapter, and vote. But no, I won't take my top off for you.)

Off to get some sleep.

1 comment:

  1. I liked the long descriptive opening scene in the first chapter

    ReplyDelete