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 (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, -
- 2 replies
- 267 views
Opening scene - introduction of protagonist, setting, and tone, along with foreshadowing of the primary conflict (the "khrysos ubi vermis" was created by the antagonist, the Umbreytandis, or "King Fetidmire," to free his queen from the Alpha Cells, but of course Dr. Roth doesn't know that yet). Dr. Eugene Roth was the last person to see the Head of Research alive. They stayed late at work on a Friday night in the Alpha Cell Complex, conducting tests on a new prisoner—a treasure-hunting monster composed of precious metals. “You’re one spectacular little fella, aren’t you?” Eugene said, reaching into the experimentation tank and stroking the monster’s golden exosk…
Last reply by JA Wilders, -
- 0 replies
- 266 views
The Hollow Tree stands at the end of Rotten Row. It looks like an ordinary tree to almost everyone who wanders past its twisting bark. There are details, like the deep trenches running along its spine and the way the leaves turn translucent in certain slants of light, but it takes time to notice those, and people on Rotten Row seem to be in quite a hurry. It looked like any old tree to Conor as well. At least until last Tuesday. He didn’t want to go to school that morning – or any morning as of late. He held a cup of tea to his forehead, feigning fever. He attempted loud coughing, wearing his shirt inside out to demonstrate his general sense of disarray, and …
Last reply by JuliaMay82, -
- 0 replies
- 263 views
I had seen you around campus. I never expected you to notice me, a nerdy first-year purposely blending into the background, but Zephyr is a small school. I would see you in the food hall or walking across the quad. Once, you opened a door for me and a group of girls from my dorm, your chivalry on display as the gaggle giggled our way out the door of the library’s extended late-night hours. We had wrapped up our Intro to Psych group project by 9:30, plenty of time to get a good night’s sleep; you and a friend were heading in for the late shift, textbooks under your arms. I would have been almost grateful, and a little relieved, to have gone unnoticed. My photo in the …
Last reply by Mandy Jo, -
1980 Three men remained silent as they sat in the car. Two in the front seat. One in the back. Easing up slowly to the end of the street, the driver killed the lights and brought the car to a stop by the side of the dark, dilapidated building. The right-side rear door of the car opened, and a man got in. The front seat passenger watched with concern, then asked, “Where’s Angel?” “How the fuck should I know? I’m here. Worry about that,” the man replied curtly, annoyed at his lack of concern for him. Again, they sat silent, but only for a moment. “Are you sure about this? I think we’re going too big. It’s too soon.” “Y…
Last reply by Ariel Slick, -
- 0 replies
- 262 views
OPENING SCENE: Introduces protagonist, setting, and conflict. (After the opening scene, I jump a few pages to a scene with Jonas, the protagonist, and Levi, his father, because there’s no dialogue in the opening scene.) HEARTWOOD The line of sheep bodies curved up the hill toward the copse of white pines (Pinus strobus) behind the barbwire. Slick white wool matted with blood. Each neck cut clean. There was blood on the boy’s hands but he was used to blood on his hands. Still, urgency fountained inside him, flushing limb to limb, as he left one dead ewe (Ovis aries) and moved to the next. Fear heated his cheeks and goos…
Last reply by Silas, -
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, -
- 0 replies
- 260 views
Saguaro Blooms First Pages-Algonkian.docx
Last reply by KimM, -
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- 2 replies
- 259 views
The Mad-Happy Chapter 1 I always wanted to be beautiful. My partner told me I was and I’m sure he had meant it, but I didn’t want to be beautiful only like that. I wanted to be the type of beautiful that stops a stranger mid-step, turns him around and makes him run after me. They do that now. That’s why I hid in the trees. So, I sat in a tall, tree canopy, concealed by leaves, and watched the weedy, unkempt parking lot of the Kingston Penitentiary in the distance. Everything was silent, as it had been for almost two years. The majority of the inhabitants of Kingston, Canada were dead, as were the majority of inhabitants of every city, everywhe…
Last reply by Marlena, -
- 2 replies
- 259 views
Opening scene/Chapter 1 of A Break in the Sky - Introduces our protagonist, the tone of the novel, and context as to why the protagonist may be on the run. This scene also includes the inciting incident at the end of the chapter that derails our protagonist's life and drives the novel. There is a brief prologue that precedes this chapter but does not include our protagonist, so I thought this a better sample to use for the purpose of this post. Chapter One “If you leave, you’ll lose everyone here. Everything. Your home. Aren’t you afraid of that? Aren’t you afraid of losing it all? Losing me?” “Don’t forget, we are doing unforgivable things.” …
Last reply by MeganDaniels, -
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- 255 views
Chapter 1 2017 Asmara I stopped by the maternity ward to do my morning round with the three medical students and a resident. The women lay under white sheets in two rows along either side of the room, with light blue curtains, now wide open, separating each patient. When we reached Miriam's bed, I watched as they presented her. She had been in the hospital for two weeks, but today she seemed flushed; her hands and face appeared more swollen. I asked Miriam how she felt. "I am fine, I think. Although, I do have some cramps," she said, hands running over her belly. I bent to examine her. "Are you having pain now?" "No, just last night." …
Last reply by Agoitom, -
First Pages, Chapter 1.docx
Last reply by Marianne Taylor, -
- 1 reply
- 251 views
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, -
- 0 replies
- 250 views
Chapter 1: Lost in Fog The air was filled with a thick and oppressive industrial fog as Constant worked. It hung across the workcamp in a uniform haze almost suffocating in its intensity, forcing Constant to breath slowly throughout the day lest he find himself gasping helplessly for breath. Was this fog the work of the Panathema Box and its opening, or was it merely the work of mankind’s industrial greed? The answer was beyond Constant’s vision. The pun was almost funny. Constant was busy hauling. It was the job that had been given to him by the Assignment Bureau three weeks ago. He had been visited by one of their agents, in a military uniform, flanked…
Last reply by Nick Galluzzi, -
- 1 reply
- 247 views
I always show up to work early but onFebruary 8, 2006 I was earlier than usual, cup of coffee in hand. The first thing I did was call my mom to wish her a happy birthday. I wanted to do it from my office phone because she loved seeing Hampton Bays School District on her caller ID. She was so proud that her son was a school principal—with even bigger aspirations. I opened with the same line I’ve used since moving out: “Mama, its Frank Vetro.” It always cracks her up. The simple things make her laugh, make her happy. She never wants a gift. I stopped buying her gifts years ago because they always go to waste. Quality time with her family is all she ever wants, and dinner wi…
Last reply by DomGerard, -
- 1 reply
- 247 views
Opening Scene - introduces protagonist, setting and other POV characters. CHAPTER ONE: SIBBY Good coffee and pumpkin chocolate chip muffins brought everyone together in a way that made Sibby believe in world peace for a few minutes every day. Add a sunshiny October day and everything seemed like it would turn out okay. A warm wind shoved last night’s chill away, as if telling winter to back the hell off. Sibby Wicklow needs a few more weeks of good business. The maples in Prayer Grove rustled with their glorious rare red as the sun rose over the mountains. Hikers had been crowding the cafe all morning, going on about the leaves! The leaves! The leaves! Ji…
Last reply by Ariel Slick, -
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- 246 views
BLOOD OF THE BELLFLOWER: THE TRACE HUNTER (Hild's perspective: Leading male protagonist) CHAPTER ONE Hild still couldn’t comprehend why they were hunting him - a young indentured servant, glorified horse hostler, and fence mender. Nonetheless, his parlous escape from the obscure mining village had flared an uproar with the Segaeta guards. Now, he lay stunned and spread eagle in the hot sand, breathing heavily and blinking against a sticky trickle of blood from his brow bone. Three things tumbled through his mind: First, this new life of running and fighting was unsustainable. Second, Razzia was somewhere – on a horse – being h…
Last reply by Laura Neibaur, -
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, -
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, -
- 0 replies
- 238 views
Opening scene: introduces protagonist, side character, setting, and foreshadows the underlying conflict. “Soothsayer”, my mother had called me, but I scarce believed. Assuming I dreamt through the eyes of another, she held hope that I embodied the gift of prophecy. Yet I bore no divination. These scenes dancing behind my eyelids left no poetic riddles to distill in their wake. For a time, I called them memories, believing the gods made a mistake when weaving my soul and instead of one, had woven many. Seamed together in jagged lines, each fabric of being stitched unto the other like a quilt made in darkness. The wistful tales of a child for soon those dreams plunged …
Last reply by Sarah Tubbs, -
- 0 replies
- 237 views
Chapter Two: introduces PROTAGONIST - an overprotective mother who feels guilty for not being home as much as she’d like, and later in the story, is not above lying to her son to protect him from scary realities of the world. This follows the opening chapter from the ANTAGONIST POV - a creepy slightly disturbed 15-year-old girl. It sets up a fear connection between Mother and Son. First the son will be afraid of “Patty”, a girl he’s never met, and years later, the mother will be after she meets her in person. I'm using chapter 2 as my writing sample, since most of the chapters are in Protagonist POV anyway. EXCERPT: Vivian heard the yell from her son’s bedroom.…
Last reply by Ron91710, -
- 0 replies
- 236 views
The first chapter is below, which introduces the protagonist and her world on a very bad day. Up to Here Marza had had it up to fucking here. Here not being just the chin or forehead, the traditional places one has it fucking up to, but all the way up through the fucking roof. She’d had it with her job. She’d had it with her boss. She’d had it with her horrifying ex-husband and their bratty kid. She’d had it with the cat she adopted that was forever shitting in her shoes. She’d had it with having to explain to people that her name was not Martha or Marcia Penn, but Marza Penn after the dumb-fuck almond confection that her dumb-fuck parents thought was “just oh so …
Last reply by katherinemf, -
- 0 replies
- 235 views
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Last reply by ldhawke, -
- 1 follower
- 2 replies
- 228 views
Life is a hornets’ nest. If I don’t poke it, it won’t sting me. But now I’ve got hornets everywhere. Not literally, which is unfortunate because a literal hornets’ nest in my studio could be my get out of jail free card. I would kill for anything even remotely hornet-adjacent right now. When I agreed to this fiasco, Open Studios was shrouded in the mists of an unimaginable future, five whole months away. Now it’s here, and the sunlight that slants through my north-facing windows throws into brutal relief every reason I should not allow the general public into my space: bits of colored tin on every surface, gouges in the wood table where I eat my sad little solo …
Last reply by Ariel Slick, -
- 0 replies
- 227 views
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,
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