Kirk Shaw - Covenant Editor

Kirk is giving us some pointers on how to get your manuscript noticed.

Kirk had us do a little activity on writing openers. He's got a nice list of good openers. Some of my personal favorites"

Early this morning, 1 anuary 2021, three minutes after midnight, the last numan being to be born on earth was killed in a pub brawl in a suburb of Buenos Aires, aged twenty-five years, two months and twelve days. - P.D. James, The Children of Men

In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit. - J.R.R. Tolkien The Hobbit

It was a pleasure to burn. - Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451

Forty miles out of London, passing through the rolling green fields and cherry orchards of Kent, the morning train of the South Eastern Railway attained its maximum speed of fifty-four miles an hour. - Michael Crichton, The Great Train Robbery

A few important things to consider:

Voice - It's important that each character has it's own voice. This is very tricky because it's a single author writing the book, but you have to keep track of each character's style.

Kirk mentions how important conflict is. He said how he sometimes has a book with good characters, good setting, but no conflict, and he has to dismiss the book.

Show, not tell. This is an oldie, but goodie. You don't say "Brad was angry". Rather you describe what Brad is doing, which makes it clear to the reader he is angry.

The biggest thing an editor looks for is Climax. If you don't have a good build and a strong resolution, then in Kirk's opinion, you don't have a good book. You can have multiple climaxes, but make sure the final one (and main one), is the best.