{"id":864,"date":"2020-04-08T15:08:52","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T15:08:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/?p=864"},"modified":"2020-08-14T10:49:09","modified_gmt":"2020-08-14T10:49:09","slug":"new-opening-pages-vlog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/08\/new-opening-pages-vlog\/","title":{"rendered":"New Opening Pages Vlog!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I\u2019d just like to share the fact that I\u2019m now producing 10-minute videos (or so) where I critique the opening section of novels.<br>\nFor me, the opening scenes in a new novel are THE most important sections of a novel &#8211; whether you\u2019re trying to pitch the manuscript to an agent or publisher, or whether you\u2019re self-publishing and you want readers to buy it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The writing must be edited to perfection. There can be no spelling, punctuation or grammar errors. <\/li><li>Your writing style must be professional. The words should flow, and entice the reader into the story.<\/li><li>Received wisdom is that you should start in media res &#8211; that\u2019s Latin for \u2018in the middle of the action\u2019. This is not always strictly true, but the reader must get a sense for who the characters are, what the setting is, what the world (in which the novel is set) is like.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>So, yes. The opening sentences and paragraphs could make the difference between your submission being read, or being tossed back into the slush pile. And with this series of videos, I hope to give you some clues and hints and tips into making your opening scenes as professional and as engaging as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Opening Pages Episode One - The President is Missing\" width=\"730\" height=\"411\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eO5jdWLfjNg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Opening Pages Episode Two - Imposter\" width=\"730\" height=\"411\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gt49Obs8-fQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019d just like to share the fact that I\u2019m now producing 10-minute videos (or so) where I critique the opening section of novels. For me, the opening scenes in a new novel are THE most important sections of a novel &#8211; whether you\u2019re trying to pitch the manuscript to an agent or publisher, or whether [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vlog","category-writing-on-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/OpeningPages-01a-thumbnail-e1597369235971.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5y3CH-dW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":893,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions\/893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}