Nathan Bransford's recent first paragraph contest

I saw another agent on the list as well. Or, at least someone with the same name as an agent.

To be honest, about half of the finalists hadn't stood out to me really at all. One in particular I'd just passed over when reading the entries and put it in my "mediocre" category. Also, a couple of the ones I had been highly impressed with didn't make the cut. I also noticed that a few people had mentioned liking particular entries in the comments section of another thread that didn't make the finals as well.

I guess it's just all subjective. I know I have a certain style/genre that I like, so anything that strikes me as that feeling will automatically get bonus points for me. I felt the same way last year, actually.

I woke up this morning wanting to read something UF. I never read UF. Or mostly never. I'm an M/T/S guy. But had a bunch of nobodies came up with all equally stunning first paragraphs, I would probably had picked up the one with a vampire.

Kill me. Softly.

-cb

kaitie said:

I also noticed that a few people had mentioned liking particular entries in the comments section of another thread that didn't make the finals as well.

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I was surprised the one about the drunk mother organizing a search party of herself and a bottle of vodka didn't make it. It got some shout outs in the comment thread, and I thought it was one of the few that stood out when I read through the entries.

I was really impressed with all of the finalists, but I think my favorite got the fewest votes out of the group, which is a shame.

Cyia said:

I was surprised the one about the drunk mother organizing a search party of herself and a bottle of vodka didn't make it. It got some shout outs in the comment thread, and I thought it was one of the few that stood out when I read through the entries.

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Ditto. There were two finalists I really liked, and to be honest the one that ended up being the winner was the one that had me going "How did this make it to the finals?"

I guess that just goes to show it really is just a matter of taste. Clearly most everyone else liked it.

kaitie said:

I guess that just goes to show it really is just a matter of taste.

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Or lack thereof.

In that I have no taste? I think it's just a matter of personal preference. I mean, a few really stood out to me, but they were my "style" so to speak. This one wasn't bad by any means, but just didn't pop for me the way the others did, and so from my perspective it's kind of like "Why didn't this other one that made me say 'Wow, this is awesome!' get chosen, but this one did that, for me, just blended in with the crowd." I'm not trying to diss the author at all or suggest that it was a bad entry.

I think Nathan (and a lot of other people) just have different things that they're looking for, different things that make an entry pop. I'm not trying to be insulting or anything, and hope I didn't come across that way. For me it just goes to show how subjective it all can be. I don't think that, just because the entry didn't do it for me, it wasn't a good entry or not deserving of winning. Clearly a majority of people thought it did. It's just not what I would have picked.

I was one that voted for the anon paragraph. The main reason I chose it was because it was the only one that wasn't a "wall o'text" number.

kaitie said:

In that I have no taste?

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If I know rugcat, and I do, I suspect he was suggesting you do have taste, and that others may not.

I somehow, by the grace of goob, had my name mentioned by another poster as one of their favorites. However, I didn't make the finals. Perhaps because of a huge glaring error in my paragraph that I didn't see until after hitting the post button.

On a somewhat related and yet tangential note, did anyone see Janet Reid's contest winners recently? Nothing like Nathan's big contest, but hers was just a little hundred word contest for a copy of a book that required you to use certain words.

One of the winning entries just blew my mind. Many of them are great, but I never knew what you could do with something like that. Definitely check it out because it's worth it!

I'm another who voted for anon, pretty much for the same reason as Cyia. I didn't get anywhere near reading all the entries, but the ones that caught my eye (the tequila one for example) didn't make it in. There were one or two finalists that didn't appeal to me at all, and others that weren't my style but I could see why they had made it.

I did think it was interesting that there is an emphasis on starting with action but most of the entries/finalists were telling. Although, one thing I've noticed about Nathan is that he puts a lot of stock in the writing. Now this might sound obvious, but the critiques of his that I've read really focus on the writing more than other agent critiques, who sometimes focus on structure or what's actually happening in the first page. So I suppose as long as the writing was top notch, he wasn't as concerned with whether there was some telling. And to be fair, I guess the action thing applies more to the first page/scene rather than the first paragraph.

kaitie, thanks for the rec about Janet Reid's blog contest. I'll check it out now.