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.
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Below is the opening scene. It introduces the protagonist, antagonist, primary conflict, and setting. Travis Lynch is back in town, but I don’t know it yet. I’m naïve, a younger sister par excellence. I learned to swim when Yvette told me that the lifeguard would spank me if I didn’t jump in the pool. I believed in the Tooth Fairy even in the face of my classmates’ denials, and when I caught my dad putting a coin under my pillow, I reasoned that the real Tooth Fairy had gotten sick. I showed up at the ninth grade Halloween dance dressed as a playing card, believing one of the cool girls in my class when she said we could go as a pair of aces. I was the only one…
Last reply by Natasha Williams, -
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Just before she leaps from the ledge. When the light is such that the street below remains a half answered question. She presses her toes together so that the blood drains and the tips become white against the rich colored bricks. Then, without breath. Without hesitation. She goes barefoot. Out into the radiating darkness. Her hair floats soundlessly above her and her shirt luffs against her body. It is 5.9 seconds from the cloudless sky to the earth. Just longer than it takes to blow out a birthday candle. There is a mathematical equation to represent the force exerted by the pavement upon her body. It's easier …
Last reply by Natasha Williams, -
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CHAPTER ONE.docx
Last reply by Natasha Williams, -
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Cars gathered in the Saint Jude’s parking lot. Cars with Saint Christopher medals and pine air fresheners swaying in unison—cars with crank windows and dirty ashtrays, Turtle Waxed sedans in from the suburbs and garages of their very own, a car with one red door and Bondo over the left rear fender. The gentle widows, the steadfast, the devout, the terrified of dying, the good wives clutching handbags in the passenger seats, the ones who were brought up to do the right thing. One after another, they surfed the derelict potholes, exhaust pipes scraping the asphalt. Then came the hearse, jostling the dead, and the bagpipe player (he drove a Lexus.) The news van was no surpri…
Last reply by Natasha Williams, -
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Life, Liberty, and Kanafa: How an Immigrant's Daughter Escaped Abuse and Found Her Destiny PROLOGUE It took me about a year to realize that I had married a cult leader. There were some dead giveaways. He was almost three times my age. He was the pastor of a “free church” that wasn’t registered with the IRS. He kept tens of thousands of dollars worth of silver stashed in his bedroom closet. And he owned six firearms. But I knew all that before I married him. When I stopped attending his church, he spoke to his attorney and came back to me with a property settlement agreement. I opened my own bank account and …
Last reply by Natasha Williams, -
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It was at Shari Saltzman’s Bat-Mitzvah that I asked my husband if he was having an affair. While Shari and her family had carefully planned every last detail of her momentous event—from her flawless Torah reading in synagogue to the Gummy Bear toppings at the ice-cream sundae bar at the reception—I hadn’t planned a damn thing. Still, both Shari and I came of age that spring day. I’d been to plenty of coming-of-age celebrations that year. Between nieces and nephews and neighbors, it seemed every Jewish kid was turning thirteen. One party was pretty much like any other, though the Saturday night receptions promised a little more panache (for a lot more green). The Bea…
Last reply by Natasha Williams, -
Prologue My eyes are open, but I don’t allow my body to move. There won’t be many more mornings like this one. Curled up on my side, I can hear his steady breath behind me. He sleeps on his back, his broad chest expanding with every inhale, falling with each exhale. The restful sleep of a baby. Calm, without sin. The clock on the wall ticks, indicating the passing of time. There are still a few more days until he finds out, but only a few minutes until he wakes up. Sliding my body off the California king like a snake, the blankets hardly move. When my bare feet press onto the cold floor, I hold my breath, tightening my abdomen. I don’t want to make a sound. He …
Last reply by Natasha Williams, -
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Chapter 1. Opening scene introduces protagonist's narrative structure, setting, stakes, and antagonistic forces/themes. First Year—Autumn Semester 1 Does it hurt a dragon to be called an elephant? On the morning before my first day at the Imperial Academy, Amma told me to be as noble and strong as an elephant of N’daia. I told my mother that there were no elephants here in Oreka and that I was a dragon. Amma laughed as she held my arm, and that ended the conversation. Since Amma can’t move fast like me or Abba, we took our time walking through the pebbled grounds of the palace. Everything about the palace is bright and colorful: with brown…
Last reply by Natasha Williams, -
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Includes: inciting incident, setting, tone, protagonist, supporting characters Prologue December 19, 1995 Indianapolis, Indiana Mitchell flipped on his turn signal then glanced down College in the direction of his coffee shop. Shit! Christmas shoppers had swarmed the place. The line for the drive-thru backed off the property and ran down College Avenue as far. as he could see. The light changed. Rather than just give up he went with what he knew. He drove into the intersection then made a quick right onto a parallel side street. He drove aro…
Last reply by Natasha Williams, -
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This is a scene closer to the end. Even though it's a flashback scene, it's pivotal to the story since it informs the reader about what is holding Eve back in the present day. “Honey, I’m home!” I busied myself with grating the parmigiana until I heard his footsteps in the kitchen. His loud, clunky footsteps. I told him a million times to take his damn shoes off when he came home. So unsanitary. It was a state of mind I picked up in Singapore that always stuck with me. “Eve?” I glanced at him and then picked up the salad bowl. James moved closer to me. “Are you even going to say hi?” I scoffed, avoi…
Last reply by Natasha Williams, -
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Last reply by sarahwronko, -
Primal longing is often conceived in the cage of civilization, where the danger of the wilderness can lay shrouded by a puerile enthusiasm to escape and melt into solitude. Baker County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue Coordinator, Dylan Stoke, had experienced the full gambit of enthusiastically ignorant decisions made by the out-of-their-element city dweller. Most of the time, the mishaps affected only those that deserved a little discomfort, and his SAR team could easily rectify those with a tow truck, a cup of hot liquid, or a splint. Sometimes, however, the poor decisions and lack of preparation endangered the innocent. The hinges of Stoke’s jaw retreated into hi…
Last reply by Steve Dunn, -
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UNDERTOW Opening chapter.docx
Last reply by Natasha Williams, -
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Paul Allen
Last reply by PJ Allen, -
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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, -
THE INFINITE MATTER OF KAT WATBURN T.E. Bean Twenty-Two Minutes Before ထ Eight days ago, space and time were things to be relied upon. Universally speaking. Now I sat perched in a far-flung cave halfway up a near-vertical ravine, huddled with my boyfriend, Som, in a fading pocket of light as the sun moved behind a mountain, drawing angles of golden polygons among the sacred ruins before us. Fingers entwined, our backs propped against a monolithic altar, we clocked the morning half-light climbing the empty sky: a fuse igniting life in the crystals embedded within a stone temple. The entire planet plugged into one dazzling circuit. By …
Last reply by Natasha Williams, -
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CHAPTER 1 - Introduces protagonist, establishes relationship to antagonist, sets tone, inciting incident takes place. Johnny Bueno stepped out of his car ready to make a killing, but he never thought fate would take him literally. Nestled against the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, Santa Anita Park was a beacon for the gambling addicted. A holy ground for the hobbyist. And a den of damnation for the foolhardy. And Johnny, hustling toward the track entrance determined to make the last race of the day, was nothing if not foolhardy. He glanced at his watch, a military-issued Elgin handed down by his grandfather—and counted thirteen minut…
Last reply by Don Munro, -
Prologue (first 500 or so words) Dark clouds shifted in unnatural slowness as the sun disappeared behind the moon. Only a crescent of light seeped through and even that completely vanished in minutes. Seven young women gathered like songbirds in the dense forest, depositing their blood into a stone chalice held by a figure in white, at the base of the majestic fir tree that stood well over 100 feet tall. Itzel lifted her white headdress, revealing the aristocratic features of an Aztec princess. She took the contents in the cup and poured it into the gnarled roots of the sacred tree. All of the women, save her, who had no blood to offer, chanted together the Nahuatl p…
Last reply by Carmen Gray, -
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My son killed my wife, so I never cared about being his father. I couldn't remember the last time such a small physical act like a hug, or even a tender touch on the boy's shoulder, came naturally or willfully. This basic skillset existed in other parents. I know because I've studied them at kindergarten drop off and pick up, but my own gestures with Savion felt forced like a skill that never properly developed. Even though my son never knew his mother, Imani, they somehow shared mannerisms like the way they each bite their lower lip when nervous, or how they always let a laugh linger longer than what seemed appropriate for the situation. In those moments, I’d be reminded…
Last reply by Sharon Rodriguez, -
Antique doors tower over a long hallway. Just as Aunt Mary had described, not exactly tacky but a bit much. Rumor has it, those doors were ripped out of a Tuscan chapel, shipped to Alabama, and crane-hoisted up eight floors to the penthouse. “I tell you what,” she’d said. “When Lottie Gallant wants something, nothing's sacred.” I powerwalk to the end of the hall and press the doorbell before I chicken out. No answer. I look around. Not one thing about these old church doors matches the common areas of this 1980s contemporary-style building. The other basic doors lining the corridor crouch in the shadow of the dark ten-foot arch. I press again. This time …
Last reply by Sharon Rodriguez, -
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1996 Like many young couples without kids, there was a part of their house that was hardly ever used. The hallway leading to the rooms that would eventually hold children, one room was currently the catch-all and the other was supposed to be an office but sat dusty and silent since the couch and kitchen table had better natural lighting from the living room windows. Their future, their hopes that somehow the laughter of children on this side of the house would one day heal them and make this a home, lay here. So this hallway was an odd place for them to be that night. Leo was holding Kate by her throat up against the wall. She was taller than usual, the for…
Last reply by Sharon Rodriguez, -
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The attachment includes my first two chapters introducing the protagonist and one of the antagonists as children. Note, many of these scenes were sprinkled as backstory in past iterations, but I found it slowed the pace and some of my betas felt more inclined to want to be in the moment of the two opposing forces in a crucial school shooting scene (rather than backstory). Though 95% of the book is about the main characters as adults, I felt the reader needed to experience the tragic event in real time with the characters. The school shooting immediately follows these pages. Many thanks Daryl NYPPITCH--PROSE SAMPLE-PERIMAN.gdoc
Last reply by Daryl Periman, -
A Date With Lima: True Crime Writing Sample Introduces protagonist, antagonist, setting, and conflict Chapter 1: Contempt One Day Missing It was a pleasant, harmless, sunny day in the Gold Coast on the North Side of Chicago—an elite neighborhood on the border of Lake Shore Drive, along Lake Michigan. I had moved into the condominium in 1993, with my two young daughters, from an apartment that was less than a block away. On the corner of Burton and State Parkway—a block from the Cardinal mansion on North Avenue, bordering Lincoln Park. My recently ex-wife, Brigitte, had planned to take my two daughters to Kassel, Germany, to visit…
Last reply by Norman Miller, -
She popped a Xanax, leftover from her friend Louie’s stash, took a double shot of Jack Daniels and boarded the red-eye flight at JFK to Vegas. There, a black car service was to pick her up at the airport, head two and a half hours to The Green Door in Death Valley, California, arriving in time to make the retreat’s kick-off event. Cassandra would arrive the next day. The Green Door’s lobby buzzed with excitement. Lavender and tea tree oil, musky perfumes, expensive perfumes, swirled through the air. Rosie’s nasal passages tingled, overwhelmed by all the scents. A whiff of her day-old body odor, a stale stench of airplane clung to her skin and clothes. And there was …
Last reply by Steve Dunn, -
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SECOND SCENE. Follows the Prologue, which has minimal dialogue. The Prologue features the main character sitting in his father's office contemplating suicide. Then the narrative jumps back in time to the beginning of the story that will lead him to that tragic moment/state of mind. It is a morning like any other morning when it all changes. Or, rather, it does not change. The undaunted and undauntable world, such as it is, was created longer ago than we dare comprehend by forces far greater than our poor power to manipulate. It is only that the late surface matter is scoured away and the skeletal truth revealed through white fire and through clouds of bilious hellsmo…
Last reply by Steve Dunn,
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