First Lines Contest
By Therese Walsh | October 1, 2007 | Comments Off on First Lines Contest
If you missed WU’s Wednesday interview with Karin Tabke, you missed not only a fun Q&A but mention of a cool contest. Karin’s First Line’s contest was to begin today, but some unexpected writing duties have made that impossible for Karin. Instead, plan on the contest beginning on MONDAY, OCTOBER 15th at her blogsite. Here’s what you need to know about how the contest works and how to enter.
Karin says:
The way it works is on the designated day and time, in this case Monday October 15th, at www.karintabke.com/blog, the first 75 commenters on the assigned blog post the first line of one of their stories in the comment section. And they must be one line only! I get all kinds of sneaky Petes trying to cram more than one line in. I’ve had to disqualify entries because of it.
Then every week I have a New York published-in-fiction author cull five lines from the pack. I post the lines that make it to the next round each Monday and they get to add a line by that Friday. Next judge culls and so on and so on until we get down to 5 original first lines that are now like ten lines long. The five finalists send me the first ten pages of the story beginning with their first line and I send it off to an editor who ranks them and hopefully requests more of the story, and ultimately buys! My final editor judge this time around is St. Martins’ editor, Hilary Teeman.
What is so fascinating about this contest is the energy and the cheering from spectators. It has been an eye-opener for many on just how important a first line is and every subsequent line thereafter.
It’s a lot of fun and a lot of work keeping track of everyone’s lines, but at the end of the day it’s a great exercise and it has brought old friends and new friends together. After the first contest I stopped reading the lines. I’d get too attached to some and felt really bad when they got culled. So now, I read the first round and that’s it. Off to my judges it goes. LOL and they complain to me how hard it is sometimes, especially when it gets down to the last 20 or 30 entries.
Remember, guys, enter your best first line at Karin’s site on Monday, October 15th–not here at WU. If you’re not one of first entries cut in any given week, you’ll add one line a week until you are cut. Unless of course you’re not, in which case you’ll win some top quality Eye Time with Hilary Teeman. So keep your eye out for this contest and let us know how you’ve done.
Write on, all!
Therese Walsh (she/her) co-founded Writer Unboxed in 2006 and is the site’s editorial director. She was the editor of WU’s only book, Author in Progress, and runs the Writer Unboxed UnConference.
Her second novel, The Moon Sisters, received starred reviews and was named one of the best books of the year by Library Journal and Book Riot.
Learn more about Therese on her website, and sign up for her newsletter to be among the first to hear about any new projects.
