As often the case with me, there’s a funny story in “Katja attends her first-ever webinar.” I’ve had, of course, heard of webinars before. But when writer friends at the last SCBWI meet-up in Stuttgart enthusiastically told me about time well spent and valuable lessons learned, I was determined to sign up for an interesting webinar somewhere soon.

The cool thing with the SCBWI is, they have chapters all over the world and naturally there’s always something going on somewhere. Given that I’m in the Germany-Austria chapter does not mean I don’t come across events hosted by other chapters, too. At least, I know that now – because when I went looking for something that might be of interest to me and subsequently signed up for the webinar “First Page Blitz with Editor Kat Brzozowski” I did not realise, that it was hosted by the Houston chapter. Only later did it occur to me, that the time of the webinar – 7pm – was 7pm Houston time aka 2am over here in Germany. Ohh dear….

Now, I am a person who can, if determined, raise to a challenge. I’ve had some good times with the #5amwritersclub and getting up early was nothing out of the ordinary, so I decided to pull through. And I am very glad I did. (Yes, I do know I could have just watched the recording later, but where’s the fun in that?)

Kat had given us attendees the opportunity to send in our anonymised first pages and many had done so. Going through the pages one by one, she pointed out what her thoughts on each example were, how the author could improve the beginning to make it better and more appealing to agent or editor. Between the pages she took the time to address general or follow-up questions of the authors and gave generous advise. Following are the points I regard as the most important recommendations:

1. The reader wants to read about difference. Don’t start with the same old daily routine. Show something is special or peculiar – either for your character, or in contrast to what your reader would see as normal.
2. Voice is important. Not just your author’s voice but the voice of the character telling the story. The manner in which the POV character starts out, sets the tone for the whole book. Try to avoid a tone that might put off readers. Who wouldn’t rather follow a funny and slightly sarcastic lad in contrast to an angry nagger? If you have decided on a tone – stay with it! Don’t change from funny to solemn mid-page.
3. Pace is important, too. Shorter paragraphs create momentum and lead the reader into the story much more easily than large blocks of descriptive text will do. The reading flows better when the sentence length differs.
4. Momentum comes from action, too. Not necessarily action in the sense of the character in a tight spot but as in a scene is happening. A scene is usually “stage-able” – you could play it with actors. As soon as you drop out of the scene to have the character remember events that happened who-knows-when, you halt the scene and the momentum is lost.
5. The reader is smart. That’s crucial in more than one way. For starters: don’t spell everything out. Give the reader some credit to figure it out by herself. Don’t explain it all – write less, revise to write even less in the 2nd draft. If the smart reader does not know all connections from the start, she’ll be intrigued. Bet way to do that is to pose questions. If you do answer a raised question anyway, make sure you pose a new one before or right along with the answer.
6. To convey how the character feels is more important than knowing why he is displaying that emotion. Of course the reader want’s to know it at some point – but figuring out motivation is one thing mankind is good at – we do it all day. So don’t spoil the fun for the reader and explain – if he works it out on his own, he’ll be all the more pleased.

Unfortunately, Kat did not have the time to go through all the submitted pages and while we were able to read many, mine was not among those. However, with the tips and tricks she explained I’ll be able to revise my first page and make it better.

I am glad I got up at 2am and I would do it again. So at this point I want to say: “Thank you, Kat!”, for giving us the opportunity to ask questions and clarifications from an experienced editor. ❤