Dear Ms. Kowal,
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
After architecting my newest novel by cramming 50 pages of notes into a 30 page outline, I was ready to start writing the manuscript this week. I don’t usually write the first page first, but the opening image was so clear in my mind. I sat myself down, started typing, and produced two solid pages.
Then I listened to Writing Excuses episode 16.29. The idea that the opening pages should deliberately raise questions, several of which are answered right away to gain a reader’s trust, was intriguing. I decided to test the practice by doing the final assignment from 16.27. I scanned Amazon’s best selling books, picked four popular novels in my genre, and started reading opening pages. Three of the four novelists demonstrated your “mini-mysteries” advice perfectly.
Thanks to your tips, I plan to revise my pages a bit before continuing on, adding more solved and unsolved puzzles.
With gratitude,
Ann
PS We actually met once -- in line for the a bathroom stall at the Minneapolis Convention Center during Nerdcon: Stories. We chatted a little. It was delightful. Sadly, I looked you up in the program afterwards and thought, "Well, I'll never see her doing puppetry after this weekend, so I guess my 'famous person' encounter won't be a great story to tell later." And then I discovered Writing Excuses and you became one of my writing mentors. Life is great; sometimes it's even better than a perfectly crafted plot.
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