New York Write to Pitch "First Pages" - 2022, 2023, 2024
A forum for New York pitch event alums to post samples of their scenes and prose narrative for detailed critique according to Algonkian Author Connect guidelines. Emphasis on choice of set, narrative cinema, quality of dialogue, metaphor, static and dynamic imagery, interior monologue, general clarity, tone, suspense devices, and routine line editing issues as well.
258 topics in this forum
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OPENING SCENE - Introduces antagonist, setting, tone, and a foreshadows the primary conflict. I followed Mahl deeper into the jungle. Winds slapped the leaves into my face, and the torrent of rain threw sheets of freezing rain into my bones. I could not see the ground beneath me, only felt my sandals sink deep into the earth as I trudged through the muck, holding tight to the thin orrnah wrapped around my shoulders. “We should stop, Ayni.” Her voice reached my ears despite the monsoon drowning out the sound of our sloshing steps and haggard breathing. How fortunate that I could hear Mahl’s voice, even in my head. “Why?” I asked just as my kameez snagged on…
Last reply by rachelmsterling, -
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Chapter One He had taken great pains to prepare for his new role. After all, a medical residency at the famed Johns Hopkins Hospital was something sought by many but found by few. He was one of the lucky ones and wanted to look good. A crisp blue button-down shirt and striped tie were nicely framed by his short white coat. A new I.D card hung from his breast pocket, showcasing his thick light brown hair and warm smile. With his black doctor’s bag in hand, he was ready to go. After straightening his jacket and taking a deep breath, he briskly walked down the hall to the emergency room. As he approached, the electronic double doors quickly swung open to greet h…
Last reply by JEG, -
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Last reply by J. Cochran, -
OPENING SCENE (CHAPTER 1): Intros protagonist and antagonist in a re-imagining of a familiar realm populated with new characters setting up potential conflict... Akin to night overtaking the setting sun, a steady tint of brightness accents the dark void of infinite space. The vast mirage of a seemingly transparent floor canvas yields a landscape encompassing structures built from materials so refined, the human mind would not be able to articulate if asked. Standing with an upward gaze at a conversation taking place on a high-rise tower is a human-like being, fair mannered in expression, though imposing in stature. Unable to hear the dialogue of said conversation, th…
Last reply by Joe Belcastro, -
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Dragon Nightmare? Only two more centuries. I’m never going to make it. Quarter to midnight, six hours left. Kay Linda Taylor worried she wasn’t going to make it and then jumped when her mother came to check on her. Angrily she said, “Why are you up? You don’t have to worry about me, I can worry about myself. It’s my own fault I have to cram for this history test.” “You and Mary had fun taking care of Grandpop, before he died. There is more to life than A’s,” her mother said. “If you’re Mary, and are rich with a legacy, there is. But not me. If I want to go to an Ivy league school I have to get As. All As. But you wouldn’t understand because you don’t underst…
Last reply by K LMHS Turner, -
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OPENING SCENES: Introduce gritty tone, protagonist, antagonists, setting juxtaposition, and foreshadows primary conflict. Episode 1: Uncle He was pocket-sized, with a needle mustache and a paper face. He didn’t look like a biker, but his colors were showing. He walked in, throwing two fat duffels to the floor. “Twenty-two hundred a pound.” His voice was gravelly—too big for his little body. He took a seat at the table, kicked a muddy boot in front of him, then leaned back with his fingers linked across his chest. “There’s twenty there.” He nodded at the bags. I glanced at them, then Rolo’s washed-out face. I’d never seen him so white. This was…
Last reply by Kari, -
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Opening scenes – introduces protagonist, world/setting, voice, and inciting incident. 1 - Time Will Not Tell The last thing Alila Illi desired was ending up in an asylum to rot alone with no family to save her. Stepping out of the elevator, she wished for the thousandth time that she could not feel people’s pain. It was getting harder to keep her mouth shut, swallow the hurt, and not blurt out to strangers unsolicited advice about their poor health. Especially when they didn’t even look sick. Alila stood in the lobby of her suburban apartment building and checked her watch, 8:30 a.m. Perfect. Her local coffee shop would be almost free of people. …
Last reply by Safiya M., -
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The hermit heard the distant clash of shield and spear before he saw them. Not until he trudged over a muddy knoll, using his gnarled broke-branch for a third leg, did he see them there below, their horses hard-breathing and spurblood streaming down their bellies. Two knights in provincial armor all hard-leather and hauberks rusting, faced one another readying for another charge and tilt. Rain began to fall, bone-cold, and the hermit steadied himself against a skeletonized tree to watch. He marked their shields as they raised them into position—each emblazoned with a weathered crest of a thorn-stemmed rose. An internal feud, a dispute o…
Last reply by Cleveland, -
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Text copied below and attached as pdf. Metzgar EAMP Chapter 1.pdf Metzgar EAMP Chapter 1.pdf Elvis, Aliens & Moonpies Chapter 1 Harris Lumkey sped westward on Interstate 20 toward Fort Worth hoping to make it to town before sunset. The last-minute call from his assignment editor to cover a national UFO enthusiasts’ conference irritated him to no end. “Really,” thought Harris, “I finally get a decent opportunity to break in my new routine and I have to cancel at the last minute just so I can chase down the true believers and get their views recorded for posterity?” Harris was sure this excursion was a waste of time. He’d had e…
Last reply by Emily M, -
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Chapter 1 – Camp Pontchartrain Fear nibbled with sharp teeth on the edges of my soul as I scanned Camp Pontchartrain’s dining hall, looking for the bully who would surely notice me. Fortunately for me, the bullies were currently targeting the art students, a group of girls silently weeping with their heads lowered. Thankfully, they left the Techies, technology kids like me, alone . . . for now. I ran my fingers through my brown, curly hair, a self-soothing thing I did when I was nervous, which was a constant state of existence for me. Choosing a corner table, I set my tray down, then checked the seat for the all-too-familiar packets of ketchup or mus…
Last reply by ProductionBlues, -
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Sorry, posted this chapter twice
Last reply by Mark Cheverton, -
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CHAPTER ONE.docx
Last reply by Natasha Williams, -
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This is the beginning of the novel. it sets up the real of the Fates and what is at stake for the world. it is the first part of the prologue before we see the main character as a grown, 19 year old who doesn't have strong memories of her life in this magical world. “Let me tell you a story, my little ones,” her father said as he tucked her into bed. “Papa, tell us of the lost monsters,” Decasha squealed. Shadow, being the youngest of her father’s children, was too small to reach over and smack her older brother until he quieted, so she scowled at him instead. Her father must have seen this, for the old man with a face worn by hours of staring at …
Last reply by Ethan Perkus, -
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Preface The truth of a journey is that the vast and mysterious lands, the terra incognita, you set out to explore, in the end, becomes yourself. Every grain of grief and longing, love, regret, triumph, slips quietly into your suitcase. Harper had learned that at nineteen, a scattered girl full of woebegone and madness who made a pilgrimage to Paris to forget. But there is no escaping yourself. No drug, no distraction, works indefinitely. More than twenty years later, she was in yet another foreign country, and whether she’d gotten there by running toward or away, is debatable. Georgia was supposed to salvage her career and cure her loneliness…
Last reply by Misty, -
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The AEntropic - Book 1 A World Uncertain. Alejandra Leibovich Chapter 1 “Sir!” The intercom rumbled in my ear. “More life Sir; it’s time.” The voice announced. “Thanks,” I growled. Just wonderful. Another day I woke up at the crack of dawn, irritated already. There would be an actual sunrise if the sands outside stopped sticking to my dome. Two suns and two moons, and we can’t even see them. Some days I feel I have to create everything if I wish to have it. I gotta invent something that can repel the wind and sand. We could see the sky if the sands weren’t on my dome. I wanted to stay in bed. I opened the night table d…
Last reply by aleloop, -
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Chapter 1 Galen Tailing the car wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped. A smarter man might have written the whole thing off after having their bumper clipped by an SUV. I didn’t think it would be so difficult to stay close to Elise on the highway, but I’d almost crashed twice chasing her taillights through the dense heart of downtown Austin. Difficult as it was, I had to keep my wits about me. She would kill me if she realized I was following her. I focused on her car’s rearview window, straining to see beyond the tinted glass. Was she alone? I hoped beyond hope that she was, but it was impossible to tell even after forty-five minutes on the road. Sweat beaded…
Last reply by hannah_geiser, -
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Jenna wakes in the middle of the night and discovers her husband is gone. His bed is empty, she notices it immediately as she shuffles to the bathroom in the dark, the strange velvety texture of the hotel carpet against her bare soles causing an unpleasant shiver in her molars. She assumes she’s woken from the resonant thud of him walking past her bed. Hotel floors always reverberate in that particular way, as if their bones are hollow or a secret cobwebbed chamber exists between each floor. But he’s neither in the marble-everything bathroom nor the adjacent toilet closet. She assumes he must be in his bed; the rumpled sheets and the darkness have merely …
Last reply by Janine Cross, -
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Delusions of Grandeur Chapter 1 It all seems too good to be true, this magical island called Palm Beach, more modern-day Atlantis or Xanadu than actual city, more dream than reality. It brings to mind a French impressionist painting reminiscent of Renoir or Monet, more an enchanting vision of color and blurred lines than some dry depiction of life as it is, an imagined work of art limited to all things beautiful, with any hint of ugliness glossed over in undulating strokes of cadmium yellow and cobalt blue. Merely crossing any of the short bridges spanning from the mainland to the barrier island you might just as well be crossing the entirety of the Atl…
Last reply by Tiffany, -
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first 6 pages introduces tone, protagonist, reveals the antagonist. This excerpt sets the stage for primary conflict and showcases dialogue. Chapter 1| A Day To Remember The temperature on the island was cold, and it continued to rain. Today was when the next generation of the Five Kingdoms would graduate from being learners of our kingdoms to members of the New Watchers. Today was also the day I became Queen. The ceremony for me to be Queen was unexpected, but my mom found it more straightforward if I had it on the same day as my graduation. To her, it was killing two birds with one stone. I couldn’t help but think about my papa being there to see me become a…
Last reply by Frantz charles, -
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AIDEN I’ve got a light touch on the steering wheel. The road cuts a winding path through a dense forest, the cone of my headlights revealing just enough to see ahead. Everything else is stark blackness. Daft Punk blasts through the speakers—an EDM mix I made last year as a DJ for my high school. Back when DJs and high schools existed, that is. The bass rumbling through the seat makes me feel connected to the car. For the third time this hour, I check on the vials. With one eye on the road, I paw at the backpack resting on the passenger seat. A little obsessive? Maybe. But it’s my critical cargo, what I’m risking my life for. And I’m doing this for Marcus.…
Last reply by rachelmsterling, -
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Chapter 1.[MOU1] Bri Winter lay on her couch, tossed popcorn into her mouth, and stared at the TV blindly. Daytime TV got her through the day, well, at least until midday, after that, she was at a bit of a loss. There wasn’t much she enjoyed about her life. Maybe the sighting of an eagle overhead or a cobweb pearled in frost. She often wished she had been born a couple of centuries earlier when life seemed more romantic. “Seemed.” As the old cliche says—things are not always what they seem. The eighteen hundreds may have spawned Romantic poets, but it was filth ridden and rampant with disease. The women on TV were getting heated about Botox, the Puffy Filler F…
Last reply by Heidi, -
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Anaïs Cigogne Giroux was born in Paris, France in 1927 and tumbled into this world haphazardly, like an airy, windborne dandelion. No one could explain such children, the lineage she inherited, or her quiet determination that secured her gifts early on, unusual abilities that she would need, even as a child. She was the daughter of Brigette Czajka and called Anastazja Czajka. Her stepfather, Boyrs Czajka loved the name Anastazja, and although he had not officially adopted Ani, she was known as Anastazja Czajka. They lived in Krakow, Poland and when she was eighteen years old, she took her final vows as a Benedictine nun, from then on known as Sister Ani. That she wa…
Last reply by Marie White Small, -
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Opening Chapter: (Future Timeline) Introduces the protagonist, setting, and hints at the primary conflict. April 13th, 2129 – New York Daniel sat in the small waiting room of the law offices of Perez & Collins. He was exhausted and emotionally drained from his father's passing nearly a week ago. While Oliver's death was not a surprise, it did not change how tough it was on Daniel to not have his father around. He was very close with his father and his absence had created a void in his life that had seemingly been filled with various tasks necessitated by his passing. On top of the normal paperwork, the setting up of his funeral, and the toll of processing t…
Last reply by Nick Tussing, -
HANGOVERS FROM KARMA Chapter One: Ouster September 29, 2015. The evening was crimson, shadowing the earth in a cosmic twilight and shaping the water, the skies, and Aria invisible. In this opaque guise, Aria envisages strangling the two voices inside her head with no one to witness them dead. A few minutes earlier ……. In a world of seven billion people, she sneaked into the Village Marina to elope from the horror posted on the front door of her High Ranch, the content that stripped off her dignity. She looks up and sees shades of grey blending with the orange sky; her eyes adjust to the warm darkness as she focuses on ripples of white foam whirlpo…
Last reply by poonam sikand, -
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LWH Opening.docx
Last reply by Lynn McCall,
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