I Don’t Wanna Work, I Wanna Bang on the Gong All Day

During my time in Fort Worth I had the unique opportunity to watch the infamous “Gong Show” the convention puts on every year. My buddy Novelarnia has already posted about this, check out her page to get a slightly different perspective. But for those that don’t know, the Gong Show is a showcase where all of the invited Agents sit up at a long table in front of the crowd and critique Query Letters or First Pages as they are picked out of a pile and read. When an Agent thinks they would stop reading, they bang the gong. If three Agents Gong, the reading stops and the Agents explain why they would have rejected the piece.

Here are 10 things I learned not to do on the First Page of your Manuscript:

1. Ask a Question
   1. Asking a question anywhere during the first page is typically an automatic rejection. Agents don’t want to be asked, they want to be enthralled. Don’t take them out of the story by posing a rhetorical question.
2. Cliché after Cliché
   1. Agents hate clichés. You’ll be lucky if you get away with one. More than one and you’re doomed. Don’t give them a reason to reject you, come up with something new.
3. Info-dumps
   1. An info-dump can pull the reader out of the story with too much information. Sprinkle it in, especially in the first page. Take a look at how the page looks, if it is nothing more than a solid block of text, you may want to rethink it.
4. Not enough information on the Character – Too Vague
   1. Your reader needs to connect with your character early, otherwise they are going to lose interest. Give the reader something to grab on to, don’t beat around the bush.
5. Words did not Flow
   1. Watch your sentence structure and your grammar. Keep in mind your manuscript should be “show ready” by the time it is sent off to an Agent. Get a couple of opinions of your fellow writers before you send it to make sure you’re not missing the basics.
6. Purple Prose
   1. This goes back to Vagueness. If you are focused on flowery language and too many small details, you are going to lose the reader early on –unless you are a Pulitzer Prize Winning Author. They can get away with it, and once you have a couple of bestsellers, you can too.
7. Back Cover Reading, not a 1^st Page
   1. Don’t make your first page sound like your Query Letter or Synopsis. The reader needs an introduction to the story, not a summary.
8. Repetitive, Not Enough Info
   1. Once you’ve provided information to the reader, don’t keep providing it over and over again in different ways. Or if you’re not giving the reader enough to go on, they won’t be able to follow what you are trying to convey.
9. Wooden Character, Contrived, One-dimensional
   1. This goes to clichés again. Don’t make your MC a Harry Potter or Jason Bourne, make sure they are different enough to make them unique, and make them complex.
10. It was Perfect
    1. Despite everything you do, even if you avoid all these pitfalls and manage to craft a perfect first page, there is a chance the Agent just may not like it. There’s nothing you can do but take your punches and move on, but at least you’ve done your best.