Dragon's Den: Pitch Me Your First ~600 Words {On Hiatus}

All Things Writing Editors and Critics
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On hiatus: I’ll be wrapping up my current submissions and taking a break for a bit. This was more popular than I expected so when I return, it’s likely I’ll probably add a payment caveat.

It seems there’s been a little interest in this, so here it goes.

I am opening a “critique” shop here for you to introduce me to your work. The first 500-600 words of your manuscript are critical when you’re trying to attract new readers or query and catch the attention of an agent/editor/publisher. I’d like to help you perfect them.

What you’ll be doing:

  • I’m only taking on 5 at a time right now (sign up for slots in the wiki below. I will clear them as I finish them). I will add a waiting list area and move people around depending on how much interest there is and tag you when it’s your turn. It would be best if you don’t post your excerpts until I’ve tagged you, just for the sake of keeping the thread neat. I won’t be annoyed if you do, it just may get pushed back a while before I get to it.
  • If you’re in one of the numbered slots, go ahead and post your excerpt.
  • Post the first ~600 words of your work in this thread. It doesn’t have to be exactly 600 words, and if you get cut off in the middle of a scene, feel free to fudge that number a little to get to a stopping point that makes sense. You can choose to use the “Details” function or not, doesn’t matter to me.
  • I’m not asking for payment right now (that’s right, I’m doing it for “free”), but that might change in the future. However, if you sign up for a critique while I’m offering free critiques and I then decide to start asking for payment, you won’t be expected to do one.
  • Run your work through Grammarly or something similar first. I don’t want to offer this service for the purpose of pointing out misspellings or punctuation issues. Grammarly is really good at catching that stuff. If I see your excerpt hasn’t even been proofread, I will kick it back to you to fix before I critique it. That doesn’t mean if you miss a comma or misspel one word (see what I did there?) I’ll kick it back right away, but more than a couple and I will.

What I’ll be critiquing:

  • First and foremost, your hook. The hook is so critical to drawing in a reader. Why should I continue to read your story after the first 600 words?
  • Story flow, including infodumps and the dreaded “show don’t tell.”
  • Word, style, and dialogue choices. Writing is an art, despite how many rules surround it, so some of your wording may be a stylistic choice, but I will offer my thoughts and impressions here too. If something seems clunky in its wording, I’ll point it out and possibly offer an alternative.
  • Grammar and formatting. Yeah, if I see some weird grammar thing that Grammarly didn’t pick up, I’ll mention it.
  • “Other.” If something else catches my attention, I’ll comment on it. It’s not limited to just the items above.

Why my critiques will benefit you:

  • I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve had my work both praised and rejected by a variety of editors and agents and professionals. I’ve rewritten my own novel several times to ensure it’s the best it can be and know what the most common pitfalls are, especially in those first crucial pages. And yes, I’ve self-published, too.
  • I’ve studied (and own) the Chicago Manual of Style. If I’m unsure of the appropriate/standard for something grammatically or in formatting, I have the “bible” of the publishing world available at my fingertips to double-check and confirm what is correct.
  • My experience both professionally and educationally has trained me in the art of writing–in multiple ways, not just fiction.
  • I’ve been critiquing online works for a long time.

Got this far? Good. Here’s the extra fine print.

  • I will be blunt. Blunt does not mean cruel, but I will point out things with a constructively critical eye. This means you may get criticism, and it might feel mean. You need to brace yourself for this. I openly admit that many things in writing are artistic choices, but you must be open to feedback. I will do my best not to ruin your day.
  • The critiques will be public. I will post them in this thread for the purposes of other users seeing my previous advice and to keep track of whose work I’ve already looked over.
  • I have no restrictions on content. However, for the sake of other users who may be following along, be sure to mark your excerpt with appropriate trigger or maturity warnings.
  • Be patient.
  • Run your stuff through Grammarly or a similar service before you post it. Yes, it’s important enough that I mentioned it twice. If I read over an excerpt that’s not been, at the very least, proofread, I will tell you to fix that before moving forward with the critique.
  • If I critique your work and you’d like me to read over it again once you’ve edited, I will do so. You will be added to the rotation.

Still want to enter the dragon’s den? Go for it and good luck. :wink:

Common Advice I Give

These are a handful of things I seem to say a lot, so consider them before/when you submit:

  • Your opening scene(s) should be the event (or at least the lead-up) that changes the direction of your characters’ lives - aka the “catalyst”. Their lives have been normal and boring until this thing happens. This event will generally establish a change in the norm, and often, at least some kind of conflict/suspense.

  • Let us get to know your characters. If at the end of the 600 words we don’t know anything more about your character than we did when we started reading, we’re probably not going to continue. What they’re doing is not the same thing as who they are.

  • A hook is not the same thing as your plot. This took me a long time to understand. But just because your opening scene should establish conflict and/or suspense doesn’t mean you have to introduce your antagonist right away. Give us a little mystery to make us keep turning the pages…but don’t leave everything so ambiguous that we don’t have any more insight into your novel than we did when we started reading.

  • If you’re going to introduce an object of importance, don’t do it in the first 600 words unless you’re going to immediately explain why it’s important. That trinket or book or keepsake or article of clothing that has so much impact later does not need to be mentioned here. Your reader will forget about it, I promise. Don’t waste words on an object that’s clearly important only to not tell us why it’s important in the first 600 words. As much as you’re hoping it’ll build suspense about the object, all it does is make your reader ask why you brought it up at all.

  • Worldbuilding and description is great…just not in your first 600 words. Obviously, there are some exceptions to this, but if you’re spending precious words waxing poetic about the environment, the city, the weather, the surrounding people…that leaves us less time to get to know your character. That doesn’t mean do the opposite and completely ignore where your character is, thus confusing us about where your story is happening. But you can often save your worldbuilding and exposition for later. Weave it in and out of conversation. If you dump several paragraphs of information on us, we’re going to get lost and/or skim and/or skip it. But if you add a sentence here, a comment there, about the world your character lives in, it’s going to be much more immersive. In your first 600 words, give us just enough to set the scene and understand where your character is. Then jump into what’s actually happening. You’ll have plenty of time to introduce your world to us, I promise.

    • A storm rumbled over the roof of the leaky barn.
      The 5 o’clock traffic was at a complete standstill.
      The sun beat down on the white sands of the tropical beach.

  • Ask yourself, REALLY ask yourself, if the opening scene is where your story starts. A lot of the time, it’s about a chapter too early. Take some time to think about what’s going to hook your reader and make them keep reading. What is it that makes your story, your characters, your world more interesting than the others out there, and why should your reader keep reading to find out?

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AVAILABLE SLOTS

(If there is a slot available, you may add your name and go ahead and post your excerpt. If there are no empty slots, add your name to the waitlist below that and I will tag you when a slot opens up.)

  1. @W.L.Ink
  2. @Astralise
  3. @JustM

—on hiatus: no additional slots at this time—

WAITLIST
(add your username, one per line, below this line if the five slots above are full. Otherwise, put your name in a numbered slot and post your excerpt).

  1. @Novel_Worm
  2. @SayWatt
  3. @PaperThinSkin14
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Thank you so much for offering this! Here’s the first ~600 words of Double Down, my current WIP (no mature content).

Summary

A jolt of fiery pain slashed through my mind, wrenching me from unconsciousness. I groaned, the faint buzz in my ears ringing louder and louder with every second passing.

Did I pass out again?

Yellow spots danced around my blurred vision as I rubbed my eyes, and a gentle fog clouded my scrambled thoughts. Searching for my phone, I reached my right arm out, but instead of slamming my fingers against the nightstand, my hand brushed against rough dirt. Shriveled leaves gingerly crumpled underneath my palm, susurrating in the gentle breeze.

This isn’t my apartment.

My eyes snapped open.

I rolled over onto my stomach, desperately patting along my waist, while the pounding in my head worsened. At least my pocket knife was still hanging on my belt; maybe I went camping with my friends again. Boots scraping against the dirt, I pushed myself onto my knees.

The first time, I fell back, nearly toppling over. On the second attempt, after ten seconds of hell, I managed to come into a sitting position facing the woods. Faint brown marks soiled my jeans as I stood up, but those were the least of my worries.

An uncountable number of trees shrouded the light sky, casting shadows onto the ground, and coils of vaporous mist engulfed the canopies looming before me. I squinted into the distance, but all I could see was endless wilderness.

Where am I?

Shielding my face from the sun, I turned around. Maybe I’d have better luck in the opposite direction, but like always, the odds were not in my favor.

A few small hills covered the nearby terrain, and a stagnant pool festered in the middle of the clearing. The water was perfectly still, mirroring the trees on the other side. Besides the ring of dirt around the lake, everything was green, so green that it almost seemed unreal.

Walking down to the edge of the water, I paused and peered into the depths of the jungle. What am I doing here? Why am I in the middle of nowhere?

Did I get lost? My environmental studies seminar occasionally traveled to remote locations out in the wilderness—my favorite part of my major—, but I couldn’t hear anyone nearby. The scenery didn’t remind me of any national parks either.

Jacqueline would laugh about this to no end.

A thousand questions rattled around in my head, each one more fantastical than the last.

Everything was hazy. Squinting at the mystical lake, I tried to recall any memories of this place, but a sharp, sudden pain pierced through my skull. My stomach twisted once, twice, thrice, and then all I could taste was bile. Slow down, slow down. Start with the absolute basics.

Who am I? Am I still Angelina Jung?

Blowing strands of dark hair away from my face, I squatted down. Streaks of dirt stained my beige complexion and covered my furrowed cheeks. My muscles relaxed as I stared at my reflection, and I let out a chilly breath.

Lao Lao must be going out of her mind with worry right now.

I racked my brain for any useful tidbits, but nothing surfaced. God, what happened to me? There was no way I would’ve forgotten something this substantial.

Pacing back and forth, I tried to connect my scattered thoughts—but with no success. Everything that happened in the last month, ever since I came back to college, had been erased, and even the tiniest details had slipped away.

This felt foreign. The only way I could’ve lost such a huge chunk of my memory was by force. Another accident, perhaps?

I really needed to lay off the drinks.

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Hi. Thank you so much for this! Here’s my first 600. It’s a bit longer because the 600 mark cuts it off right in the middle of a dialogue. Also, I’d like to quickly clarify some traditional clothes and words used in dialogue since this book is kind of set in a different culture.
Si: Used in this context when someone is persuading someone else.
Aki: Used in this context to display earnestness.
Leso: Large, light pieces of fabric that women wrap around their heads and waists for modesty. Since they’re usually wrapped over a dress, it is common to remove them when not in the presence of men who don’t belong in the family.

Summary

The voices spilling through the door reminded her of a pair of constipated dogs, and Akiba didn’t like it one bit.

Like, in all honesty, why did men do that? Let their voices dissolve into unintelligible growls when they shouted? It grated like sandpaper on Akiba’s ears and did nothing for her nerves. Nerves that she needed to be ice-cold, now that she was in the process of creating an alibi.

Next to her, mother stuffed bits and pieces of skin into a jar and shoved it into a hole in the wall. Akiba wiped the pool of blood they had created and sprayed the area with a scent-stealing potion. There. A few more minutes and it would be like they hadn’t stabbed, skinned, maimed or mutilated anything .

The grating growls outside intensified, telling them that they didn’t have a few more minutes. That they would be lucky if they had a few more seconds.

‘Si, you wait a minute?’ Father’s voice floated up, exasperation giving it a bite it otherwise never had, ‘How can you enter into a women’s lab just like that? What if you burst in and find them with their headscarves off, you leecher?’

Akiba’s mother screwed the last jar closed and stuffed it into their hiding place. They started sliding a fake wall over the entire ensemble of jars of skin, blood, and the occasional, grisly bit of a body organ.

‘Bwana Malifedha, this is a huge pain in the neck for me too, you know,’ came Inspector Warsame’s lazy voice, ‘but aki I have to move quickly. I have to get home as fast as possible.’

A loud bang told Akiba that her father had thrown himself in front of the lab’s metal doors. ‘Wait,’ he grunted, ‘wait a few more minutes.’

‘I can’t,’ Inspector Warsame groaned in return.

What were they doing out there?

‘God, it’s just two minutes,’ father snapped, ‘a courtesy two minutes . Have some respect, man.’

With her mother’s help, she pushed at the fake wall a little more. Then it did the worst thing it could in such a situation. It got stuck .

‘This is a matter of life and death!’ Shouted Warsame.

‘What is?’ Father yelled back.

‘Can’t you see ?’ Warsame shouted, ‘Mtaka cha Mvunguni Sharti Ainame is airing in twenty minutes. I have to get home. Do you want me to miss an episode, you demon? Do you?’

The pair back inside the lab tried throwing their whole weight behind the fake wall. It let out a shriek reminiscent of wind tearing through the thorny leaves of a dry acacia, before coming to a stop millimetres before its destination.

The inspector had to have heard the screech. What could they do? What story could they make up?

As if subsiding into a calm before the storm, the bickering outside the door stopped.

Then the door crashed inwards, Father and Inspector Warsame tumbling before them in an untidy heap. Mother took the brief, elusive split second before they looked up to slot herself in front of the gap in the wall. As the pair on the floor untangled themselves, she clicked her tongue. ‘Disgraceful,’ she said.

‘Yes dear,’ said Father, getting to his feet and throwing Inspector Warsame the stink-eye, ‘he really is.’

‘Bwana Warsame,’ Akiba exclaimed, painting a brilliant smile on her face and getting ready for a dance she had done over and over the past few weeks. Of course, the dance had never included a gaping wall hidden behind Mother’s back. But that…was nothing talking very fast couldn’t fix. ‘How wonderful, marvellous, beautiful, amazing and stupendous it is to meet you again for the fifth time this week! I have absolutely missed you. So, will it be a tour, or do you want to see what we did with the shipment of limiter ore we received? We managed to make an ultra-thin , ultra-small square with that limiter ore, actually. We’ve doubled our production, and…’

Behind the two of them, Mother and Father were having those internal conversations they always had. Akiba glanced at them, wishing they didn’t look so obvious, before glancing back and finding Warsame also staring at her parents.

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@eternitea40 @twisted_shadowlands

You’re welcome! I’ll start going through them tonight. :slight_smile:

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To reiterate, if you sign up for the first five slots, go ahead and post your excerpt. Once those first 5 slots are filled, you’ll need to sign up on the waitlist.

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bookmarks thread
aggressively lurks

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Thanks for doing this. I never put my writing up to be openly criticised, so this is a big step for me! But as it’s you… I’m prepared to risk it for useful feedback :blush: Nothing mature/triggering in these first 600 words.

Summary

Everyone in the amphitheatre-style meeting room looked at me with either disdain or dislike. Everyone apart from Amy.

Arriving at a company-wide meeting ten minutes late didn’t make me uncomfortable as it perhaps should have done. Instead, I raised my coffee cup at our CEO in a mock greeting - he didn’t know me - and slid into the back row next to Amy. She, unlike everyone else that turned to look at me, actually smiled. A genuine smile showing teeth and sparkly eyes. I was used to women looking at me like that outside of work; not in work where I had a reputation for being an arse.

I balanced my cup in the small space between us and pulled off my jumper. “What’d I miss?”

Amy shook her head, her grin fading. “Not good. Not hitting targets. Probably a restructure. I’m guessing redundancies.”

I nodded. I’d no doubt be first in line for the chopping block.

Amy leant forward, away from me, to listen more closely, her long dark hair falling over her shoulders. Her body language prevented further chat, signalling an end to our first ever conversation.

My mind wandered from the dismal company outlook being presented at the front of the room to my new friend, Amy. I’d seen her around the office plenty of times before, our paths never crossing, yet she possessed a quiet confidence that drew me to her like an invisible cord.

She’d worked at K for a long time, but had been based in the London office when I first joined in DM. I had come in to head up the sales team and there was no reason for us to meet in a work capacity, so I’d missed the opportunity to get to know her when she transferred from London a few months earlier. Everyone else, who had been around much longer than I had, seemed to respect her. She had the effortless grace of a city girl, whereas the rest of us small-town folk showed up to work in jeans.

I wanted her to know me and, after our first real encounter in the amphitheatre, I set out to achieve exactly that. But she wouldn’t take my bullshit. When I was being adorable, I could see a twinkle in her brown eyes that said, ‘Yes, Jude, I know you’re trying to be charming and I’ll go along with it, but don’t think I’m falling for it.’ Frustration and excitement collided.

I quickly deduced she had a boyfriend; anyone I mentioned Amy Bales to was quick to inform me of this detail, as if my reputation preceded me. Irrelevant information at first, but as my connection with her grew, it did become important. She mentioned him all the time. John this, John that. It shouldn’t have mattered. My wife, Liz, had been dead less than six months at that point; I was hardly able for anything new.

Being widowed at thirty-six was something I hadn’t quite figured out. I kept this particular piece of information to myself and separate from my job and social life. I didn’t live close to the office, so my private life was easy to put in a box, and flirting with Amy was a nice distraction from everything. For a few moments each day, I could talk to her and forget about what a mess my life had descended into. I knew a few people thought she could be quite elusive - even superior sometimes - but she was perfectly open with me. I guess I made her comfortable. I think she secretly had a crush on me. All the women at work did.

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I’ll work on yours tonight too. :relaxed:

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Me and you both :eyes:

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:eyes:
passes bottle of water and/or whiskey
Gotta stay hydrated while lurking

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@SayWatt @DollyTH May I join the party?

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ooooh this is so cool! I’d love to join! Here’s the first 600 of my prologue for my current WIP “Coveted Temptation” (well 632 to be precise cause I didnt want to cut it off mid sentence lol)

Summary

‘Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.’
Living with religious parents would normally be a good thing for any kid. My mum would often tell me that believing in religion, in God and Jesus, and living as they would… it gives her a purpose, it makes her a good person so that she can be a model person.
‘God and Jesus do not expect us to be perfect, Aspen, that would be silly. But they give us rules to follow, to be better people. Jesus died for our sins. We must not let him down.
In theory, she has a point. But I don’t know if I believe in all of it. If Jesus and God do not expect us to be perfect then why should we model ourselves for them and pretend to be something we’re not? We’re human and we get one life on earth—if God doesn’t want us to be perfect, then why shouldn’t we eat that piece of cake, or drink alcohol… or have sex before marriage? If we don’t steal, murder or commit a crime then surely we’re still modelling ourselves in being ‘good’.

Having flaws, having weaknesses, making mistakes and learning from them is what makes us human, right? And if God made us human, and He is perfect then why would he be God? Surely he would want us to be flawed and make mistakes so that we aren’t too much like Him?

But Mum would never have any of that. We must be good—never lie, never have sex before marriage, never have a termination, never date anyone who isn’t religious, we cannot drink alcohol. Heaven forbid if I fell in love with another woman. ‘God believes in Adam and Eve, Aspen otherwise humans would stop existing.’
So when Joel Watkins asked me out on a date on our third week of university, to a pub to drink alcohol I didn’t hesitate to say ‘yes’.

A black-haired, blue-eyed beauty studying journalism compared to my English degree, he is everything I know my Mum would slightly approve of. If it weren’t for the tattoos and the love of heavy metal music and the non-religious side of him.
Okay, maybe Mum would hate him.
“Here we are… home,” he smiles when we stop in the kitchen of our flat.
“Well, you promised to take me out, and I got the full journey. I got picked up—” I hiccup. “—and brought back again. A proper gentleman.”
He snorts. “I aim to please.”
“You did just that, Joel,” I giggle. He goes into his assigned cupboard and pulls out another bottle of whiskey. “That’s just… tempting fate.”
“I thought you didn’t believe after growing up in a faithful household, young Aspen,” he jokes. I don’t answer and take his hand. He leads me down the long corridor into his bedroom. I notice he’s decorated the drab, white walls with posters of various bands and concert posters. Totally against flat guidelines, but he doesn’t strike me as one to follow the rules. That’s what attracted me to him in the first place.
“Before we open this, I want to ask you something,” Joel says seriously. I stop moving. My blue eyes fire into his to create a clash of fiery ice. I can feel the tension build up like the moment you’re ascending a roller coaster to get to that ultimate drop.
I remember the time my parents took me to Disneyland—my Mum hated the big rollercoasters, but Dad and I loved them. I remember that exhilarating yet scary moment you ascend the tracks, knowing there’s a drop coming but you’re still scared despite knowing you’re also safe and excited.

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First around 500 words of my ongoing novel!!

Summary

If one were to study Silver Avenue from afar, they probably wouldn’t linger. A small collection of about two dozen houses, it was designed to look perfectly unnoticeable. From the slightly shattered and fogged-over windows to the ancient and worn boards that made up the sallowed domestic frames, it matched every other neighborhood in the near vicinity—decrepit and worn. The air carried the smell of violence. Spilled blood, maybe, or lingering gunpowder. The haphazard buildings were all small, looking like they were intended for only two or three people but considering the conditions probably housed four times that many.

Snow drifted down, small near-identical flakes slowly blurring the world into a white smear. Their simple innocence was set against the dreadful backdrop of Silver Avenue, the cold whispering sweet nothings to the distressed air.

That was Sterling.

Poetry and gunpowder.

But this particular little neighbourhood was a curious thing. Normal eyes would be fooled by the miserable illusion of suffering that rendered the house indiscernible from others. Instead of sunken walls and broken dreams, it was in fact a collection of splendid houses home to some of the most magical residents found in the kingdom, quite possibly the world.

On this one particular evening, the house was filled with a supernatural whimsy. To most, magic was a precious and rare thing. To the Starr family, it was a game.

Girls with indigo hair and matching dark and ravenous purple-blue eyes laughed as they trailed their hands through the air and created tricks of the light in their wake. They reveled in the brilliance of their own sorcery. It was a celebration of the unique and spectacular.

The members of the Starr households were widely varied. The entire block was inhabited by members of the Starr family, and 17 Silver Avenue served as a sort of headquarters. People of all ages roamed the vast halls—small children chasing sparks and holographic animals, teenagers doodling idly on their arms, and adults passing around shimmering drinks. Bright, elegant music played throughout the house. Everyone was clustered together on the main floor, save one person.
Well, one living person.

“Come on, Jay,” said Ink Starr. She poked her head around the staircase before tiptoeing down carefully. She was followed by a tall girl with dark wispy gray hair who glowed faintly. Content that no one was watching her, Ink made her way past the partygoers and into the front foyer.

“You sure about this?” Jay asked. “Last time your mom caught you, she was pissed.”

“I know, but this is important,” she insisted. She raked her fingers across her scalp, and the colour of her chin-length wavy hair shifted from a sultry purple-blue to a soft, snowy white. With a tap of her cheek, her skin became mottled with freckles and her features grew older. Ink swiped her index fingers across her eyelids, and when she opened them her irises matched her hair. Finally, she pulled a clear, twisted hairpin from her newly coloured locks and jabbed it into the tip of her finger.

“Was that really necessary?” Jay asked as Ink turned the blood white as milk.

“You can never be too careful.” Now completely unrecognizable, she pulled a shimmering white hood over her head, silently twisted open the door, and stepped out into the bitter winter air.

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Awesome that’s all five of my slots! If you’re interested in getting a critique, add your name to the waiting list please. I’ll be writing them up starting tonight.

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Passes along another drink of your choice

Go ahead, plenty of room for lurkers in the empty space.

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ooh, count me in :eyes:

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Proceeds to count how many of us are lurking

You are now in. Lucky for you I brought a couple extra bottles. Next time I’ll bring a drink cooler.

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Thank you, thank you.

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@eternitea40

A jolt of fiery pain slashed through my mind, wrenching me from unconsciousness. I groaned, the faint buzz in my ears ringing louder and louder with every second passing.

Did I pass out again?

Yellow spots danced around my blurred vision as I rubbed my eyes, and a gentle fog clouded my scrambled thoughts. Searching for my phone, I reached my right arm out, but instead of slamming my fingers against the nightstand, my hand brushed against rough dirt. Shriveled leaves gingerly crumpled underneath my palm, susurrating in the gentle breeze.

This isn’t my apartment.

My eyes snapped open.

I rolled over onto my stomach, desperately patting along my waist, while the pounding in my head worsened. At least my pocket knife was still hanging on my belt; maybe I went camping with my friends again. Boots scraping against the dirt, I pushed myself onto my knees.

The first time, I fell back, nearly toppling over. On the second attempt, after ten seconds of hell, I managed to come into a sitting position facing the woods. Faint brown marks soiled my jeans as I stood up, but those were the least of my worries.

An uncountable number of trees shrouded the light sky, casting shadows onto the ground, and coils of vaporous mist engulfed the canopies looming before me. I squinted into the distance, but all I could see was endless wilderness.

Where am I?

Shielding my face from the sun, I turned around. Maybe I’d have better luck in the opposite direction, but like always, the odds were not in my favor.

A few small hills covered the nearby terrain, and a stagnant pool festered in the middle of the clearing. The water was perfectly still, mirroring the trees on the other side. Besides the ring of dirt around the lake, everything was green, so green that it almost seemed unreal.

Walking down to the edge of the water, I paused and peered into the depths of the jungle. What am I doing here? Why am I in the middle of nowhere?

Did I get lost? My environmental studies seminar occasionally traveled to remote locations out in the wilderness—my favorite part of my major—, but I couldn’t hear anyone nearby. The scenery didn’t remind me of any national parks either.

I’ll be honest…I would probably cut all of this. Most of this is exposition and info-dumping. We have no emotional ties to your character yet, so we don’t care yet that she’s waking up in a place she doesn’t recognize. Also, opening your novel with multiple paragraphs describing scenery is not ideal. We don’t know what the setting is yet, we don’t know what’s supposed to be real or fake or the usual setting or something unusual. We’re not interested in the scenery–we want to know who your character is and what the story is about. All we know so far is she doesn’t know where she is, maybe she likes camping, and that she’s in college. Maybe.

Jacqueline would laugh about this to no end.

Who is Jacqueline? We don’t even know who your MC is yet.

A thousand questions rattled around in my head, each one more fantastical than the last.
Everything was hazy. Squinting at the mystical lake, I tried to recall any memories of this place, but a sharp, sudden pain pierced through my skull. My stomach twisted once, twice, thrice, and then all I could taste was bile. Slow down, slow down. Start with the absolute basics.

We’re now into maybe the tenth paragraph of her being dizzy, disoriented, and sick-feeling. You could probably condense this down to a handful of sentences, maybe less.

Who am I? Am I still Angelina Jung?

The reader doesn’t know that either. We don’t have any ties to your character, we don’t know anything about her.

Blowing strands of dark hair away from my face, I squatted down. Streaks of dirt stained my beige complexion and covered my furrowed cheeks. My muscles relaxed as I stared at my reflection, and I let out a chilly breath.

We’re back to scenery again.

Lao Lao must be going out of her mind with worry right now.

Another character we don’t know.

I racked my brain for any useful tidbits, but nothing surfaced. God, what happened to me? There was no way I would’ve forgotten something this substantial.

But she did. And she’s been trying to get a sense of what happened since the first paragraph.

Pacing back and forth, I tried to connect my scattered thoughts—but with no success. Everything that happened in the last month, ever since I came back to college, had been erased, and even the tiniest details had slipped away.

She was sitting by a lake last I remember, now she’s pacing, which was a little jarring. How does she know it’s been a month if she doesn’t remember?

This felt foreign. The only way I could’ve lost such a huge chunk of my memory was by force. Another accident, perhaps?

I really needed to lay off the drinks.

My conclusion:

In roughly 600 words, I don’t have any context even for genre. Is it a time-traveling paranormal novel? A horror/mystery? A magical portal fantasy? A sci-fi alien abduction? I don’t know anything about the stakes of the novel, there’s nothing here that says “Hey, keep reading.” All we have so far is someone who doesn’t know where she is. I imagine you wanted to throw the reader immediately into the thick of things so they would experience your character’s confusion and disorientation in real-time, but because we don’t know anything about your character or what her “normal” circumstances are, the panic and confusion won’t grab us because we’re not emotionally invested yet. The best advice I can give is to open your book with the scene that jumpstarts the story. And it’s not when she wakes up: that’s the result of the scene that jumpstarts the story. You may want to keep all of that a mystery, which is fine, there are ways to accomplish that, but I would take a minute to think about what your hook is. What is the catalyst that should make the reader keep reading? What is the character’s goal for the end of the book, and how can you hint at that in the beginning?

Again, I don’t know what your genre is, but I can offer a few of the following first sentences to try and help spark inspiration (don’t get discouraged, I rewrote my first chapter about 8 times to get it right, and that’s not including edits and minor changes to try and improve it over the course of multiple years).

  • “It had been three days since I woke up in the middle of nowhere with nothing but the clothes on my back. I didn’t even have my memory; though, despite that, I knew I was not where I was supposed to be.”
  • “I may have hated my tiny efficiency apartment just down the road from my university, but at least I could say I knew where it was. And that it had toilet paper.”
  • “When [friend character name] suggested we play Jumanji over a couple drinks, I’d expected to get drunk and laugh when the game stopped making sense, not end up in the middle of nowhere on a place I wasn’t even sure was Earth.”

Keep your world descriptions to a minimum - the reader will fill in the gaps if you pop in descriptions like “wilderness” and “distant forest” and “a lake so blue it almost made the brilliant grass seem less green”, you don’t need to do all the work for them. Let us experience the world through a sense other than sight. What does the world smell like? What does she feel? Is the sun hot, beating down on her, or was it chilly despite the bright sunshine? You don’t need to throw your entire new world at your reader all at once, you can intersperse it gradually during the first chapter. You know your book is worth reading, you know the end goal and plot is worth it, now you have just a handful of paragraphs to convince the reader to take that journey with you.

Your writing isn’t bad. In fact, the majority of this would probably be okay as the opening to a chapter (other than chapter one). But starting off a book with this is confusing to the reader who doesn’t know anything about your story yet.

I know this probably came off really brutal (I felt brutal writing it). But the “MC ends up in strange world for unknown reasons” plot can be really intriguing, we just need to know what makes your take on this plot intriguing, and why it’s different from other “MC in strange world” stories.

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