De första 15 sidorna...

Jane Friedman i artikel i WD, om varningsflaggor i nybörjarmanus och de första sidorna:

"No clear protagonist-problem. Of the manuscripts I read, only two had a very clear protagonist with an identifiable problem. For most first-time novelists, this is a requirement for a story beginning. Also, several manuscripts had more than three POV characters in first 15 pages, which can create a dizzying experience for the reader. It's a big risk.

Slow start. About half of the manuscripts I read had very slow starts, where the story was mainly taking place in the characters' heads, or it suffered from too much backstory too soon. Resist the temptation to flashback or give a lot of detail about the past; move the story forward instead, and weave in the backstory (only as absolutely required) as you go. I recommend Hooked by Les Edgerton to help refine your first few chapters.

In two manuscripts I read, the authors were trying to position their work as fiction, but it was clearly a true-to-life story. In both cases, the authors felt their stories were more marketable or safe if written as novels. Unfortunately, this often creates more problems than it solves."

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