Friday, November 7, 2014

Fall 1st Page Critique Blog Hop

Hey everyone! Ready for more fun?

I'm going to give a blog hop of 1st Page Critiques a try! Everyone is welcome to join if you have a blog and a 1st page: Beginning writers to the published and agented!

Here's how it will work:

Post your first page onto your blog. It can be any genre or age category, but please list this crucial information at the top. Keep your first page to no more than 250 words, give or take a few. (That's a few. Not ten.) No indents and put space between paragraphs. Example:

YA Epic Fantasy

Ramiro guided his horse to the waiting ranks of the pelotón, taking his position at the back of the long file of riders along the dusty road. Sweat slicked his palms inside his leather gloves. He maneuvered Sancha into position by carefully sidestepping the mare. In their rightful place, he laid the reins across his knee, signaling to the grito de guerra warhorse that he’d be using his legs to guide her, not the leather straps.

Ramiro wedged his feet in the stirrups as Alvito moved his mount alongside, pinning Ramiro between himself and Gomez. “Don’t look so pale,” Alvito said with a grin. “You’ll not earn your beard this day.” He stroked his own neatly sculpted black whiskers, adding a wink to cut the sting of his words.

From Ramiro’s other side, Sergeant Gomez gave him a playful push with a fist the size of a ham. The force would have knocked Ramiro off his saddle, if he hadn’t locked his legs. Gomez’s beard was a study in opposites from Alvito. A nest of brambles to his chest, his hair grew wherever it could sprout. “You’ll stay the bisoño until we tell you otherwise, kiddo.”

“Peach face,” someone said. A gentle ribbing to let Ramiro know they remembered his first real ride.


First ride. First time as something other than a trainee squire brought along to clean armor or mind the warhorses. First chance to earn his beard and be considered a man. Bare chin or not, he was a part of it now.



Take the url link from your post and add it to the linky list below. Use the list to critique the five people above and below your listing. If you are number 6 then you would feedback numbers 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10,11 on the list. Please leave constructive criticism, but also say what you like about the piece. Don't worry if it's not your genre, just do your best to give your thoughts. 

Of course you may also get super enthused and critique more than ten entries. Feel free to jump around and help out as much as you can!

Bonus: I will randomly choose entries from the linky list to feedback on my blog. (A few a week.)  Please watch for these entries and leave additional feedback here. If no one else comments, I will cease and desist these bonus critiques.  

You are welcome to update your 1st page post with revisions. The linky list will remain open through November 14th. After that time, you may not join. The bonus critiques will not include everyone. I will do as many as I can while still having time for my own editing.

If you fail to critique the five entries above and below your spot, well... that's sad and I'm sure karma will know.

Need more critiques? Advertise your willingness to give to get feedback on twitter under the hashtag #Fall1stHop

The fun starts immediately!








23 comments:

  1. Just a mathematical/pedantic comment.

    If everyone crits the 5 posts above and 5 below them, the first and last person to register each get and give 5 crits, whereas people in the middle get and give 10 crits each.

    Thanks so much for hosting this! (I'm not complaining, just pointing out a possible flaw)

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    1. Consider it a circle of life. If your post is #1 then on November 14th you'd feedback the five posts on the end of the list. People at the end will help out the entries at the beginning of the list. Everyone should still give and get at least 10.

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    2. Well, I've given 10+ so far :)

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  2. So should I post the link here?

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  3. To the person who wrote #12 "The Ink Flows" (or anyone else who found it), I want to comment but I can't find your comments section on your page :(

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  4. #12 Commnets option is there now - thanks !

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  5. I'd like to thank Michelle for hosting this & everyone who has commented. Your critique has been extremely helpful. As Michelle said it's OK to post a revised version, I've done so, but I've left my original there too. Thanks again everyone :)

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  6. I posted a revised version as well. And I am trying to critique #10 but I can't seem to find the comment section

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  7. Melissa, #10 is the one with the blue background right? If you go all the way down, you'll see a Comments Section as a white box but once you post it goes into the blue background (and is kind of hard to read) but its there :)

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  8. Thank you so much for doing this - you are awesome!!! :D

    Hope everyone gets lots of feedback! I've already commented on the previous five, and now just waiting for the next five - but I'll probably end up commenting on others as well (especially in genres I like!)

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  9. I revised as well based on some awesome feedback from you all. Thanks for taking the time!

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  10. Wow, I'm late to this party! I already critiqued one of the blogs I follow, and I'll post mine soon.

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  11. I second Nikola above - thank you for doing this! I've gotten lots of stellar feedback on my first page and plan to work on a revision this afternoon. :)

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  12. Feedback so far has been great!

    Thanks everyone for participating and thanks Michelle for putting this on!

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  13. This is fun. Thanks for doing this :)

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  14. Yes, thanks for doing this. Would it also be possible to do one for queries?

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    1. I plan to keep critiquing 1st pages through November. I hope others will keep critiquing also and help people with their revisions. But a query hop sounds like a fun idea for December.

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    2. I second the vote for a query hop!

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    3. If you did a query critique Blog Hop, it would need to be for finished & polished manuscripts ;)

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  15. Why would it matter if the query critique was for finished and polished mss? I personally like working on my query before my ms is query-ready. As long as agents are not looking to request, it shouldn't matter.

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    1. Because often the novel you finish, have BETA read, polished and re-written is far removed from the original. There is nothing wrong with doing a QL if that's what you like to do, in fact, I tend to write a 35-50 word pitch to help me stay focused on the core, however, getting feedback on something that will likely be vastly different can be heartbreaking and is (in my opinion) a little pointless. If its a WIP, you don't have the word count and often the characters are not yet fully formed... but that's my opinion.

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  16. I can't load the link see Laura Write-#2. I'm kind of technologically challenged so if anyone can help me I'd appreciate it. Thanks

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