Customer Reviews

The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile

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Readers and editors are over burdened with books, book deals, writers, publicity, and other aspects of their daily routine. They are expected to read manuscripts at home, so it is no wonder that to get through a large slush pile editors use the precedent: find reasons to reject manuscripts in order to go on to the next one.

This book does not teach 'how to write,' but how to avoid the mistakes that send your manuscript to the recycle bin. That is the craft of writing.

To be successful, you have to capture your audience in the first five pages. Noah Lukeman, a prestigious editor turned agent knows the secrets of successful writing. In reality, you must capture your reader in the first five words, sentences, or paragraphs with a strong hook and the good writing.

Lukeman arranged the chapters in The First Five Pages to show each process in rejecting manuscripts. Follow the steps, and if you are lucky, you might get a contract. Do not follow the steps, and the only reason your manuscript will reach the one person who can make a difference is through a fluke.

Each chapter concludes with write and rewrite examples and practices. The Lukeman way is included at the back of the book. The only way to become a better writer is to write. The following is only a brief synopsis of a few chapters.

Presentation: The number one reason aspiring writers get rejections is that the work is inappropriate for the market. Simply put: do not send a bodice-ripper, swashbuckling tale to someone representing coffee table books. Other problems are spelling errors, sloppiness, faded text, and dirty paper; they all indicate carelessness that is generally reflected throughout the book. Research your market, and prepare your manuscript according to the instructions given by the agent, editor, or publisher. If they want Ariel font, give it to them.

Adjectives and Adverbs: The next step to rejection is the overuse or misuse of modifiers. These words tell rather than show your noun. "If a day is described as 'hot, dry, bright and dusty,'" these words are tedious and the image becomes significantly unimportant. Overuse is very easy to spot by a cursory glance.

Sound: If your manuscript has reached this level, it is being read. Pacing, rhythm, meter, or beat is about the way your prose reveals the story. "Prose can be technically correct, but rhythmically unpleasant." Read your work aloud; if it does not sound right to you, pay attention.

Comparison: Analogy, simile, and metaphor can be overdone. I read about 1/3 of a book recommended to me as an excellent thriller. The plot, characters, dialogue, details, and descriptions were good. I could not read the book because everything is not like something else, and every paragraph or three included a simile.

Style: If the writing feels forced or exaggerated, or the writer began to showcase his words rather than the story, the probability of rejection is high. Another nit for me is redundancy; this is a matter of using the same or similar word in close proximity. It is also a reason for rejection.

I recommend two books to my clients or fledgling writers. This is one of them. THe other is Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into Print, by Renni Browne.



Victoria Tarrani

Noah Lukeman's portrayal of overworked editors looking for just one reason to shoot your beloved work into the rejection pile is a sharp bite of reality that some writers won't want to feel. Like it or not, Lukeman is bluntly asserting that most writers are rejected by agents and publishers because they simply can't pass first muster-and that the margin for failure is very narrow.

Lukeman's book is a gutsy reminder that success as a writer is hard won and that writing is a craft like any other and must be learned-the hard way. If (in terms of numbers alone) the odds are stacked against you each time an editor or agent opens your work - then all the more reason you should be as good a writer as you can. The critical, probing exercises found at the end of each chapter are likely to be valuable to writers not only because of the very practical way in which they are presented, but because they also have the virtue of supporting Lukeman's central conviction that writers can train their minds towards critical thought-and through critical thought comes better writing. New writers will pore over his exercises in detail, while more skilled writers will use them to throw new light on specific problem areas.

The glimpses Lukeman offers into the pent-up pressure within agent and editors offices, and the "read to reject" rule that prevails throughout the publishing industry also represent valuable insights into the context in which each writer's work is reviewed. And his frank assessment of some writers' abilities is obviously the result of having been on the receiving end of a lot of poor writing in his time. But while he is sometimes impatient towards writers Lukeman is never scathing, presumably because he seems genuinely to believe that anyone can train her/himself to be a better writer.

For this reason, although his stated objective is to help writers avoid the mistakes that will send them to the rejection pile, Lukeman is in fact offering a much larger opportunity to any writer who wants to seize it. He is offering tools to help train self-critical thought in the minds of those whose solitary activity can so easily steer them towards self-indulgence and uncritical acceptance of their work.

It's an excellent book and at such a reasonable price it's also a great investment.

Noah asked me, as the "Critters.org guy," to read a galley of TFFP; I was terribly impressed (and no, I don't know him beyond a few emails, nor am I in any way involved in this). The book neatly describes the majority of what I personally find wrong with beginners' (even much pro :-) writing. Yet it's not particularly a book about how to write -- it's a book about *How not to get rejected*.

The title is from the widely practiced, but perhaps not as widely known, concept that you only have the first few pages to make an impression. (He said he'd have called it "The First Five Sentences" -- but he didn't think people would believe him.)

What he's done is categorized the kinds of things that he as an agent and editor sees so much of in slush reading that they earn a manuscript a near instant rejection. If you want to sell stuff, you need to know how editors look at your work. This is the book to read.

I agree with him so much, and like it so well, my only regret is that I didn't write it myself. :-)

If you know much about writing at all--if you've taken courses or published anything or read other good books-- this book probably won't be very useful to you. I was attracted by the title and the fact that it was written by an agent but got very little from it on WRITING--the most interesting aspect was that it was an agent's point of view and it told something about why manuscripts are rejected, but it was mostly obvious stuff I already knew. The whole first two-thirds of the book has pointers like don't have misspellings or a messy manuscript or use too many adverbs or draw on your manuscript or write grammatically incorrect sentences that are hard to follow. As other reviewers have noted, the examples are often blatant and laughable: they illustrate the obvious about melodrama and boring dialogue, for example--like, who wouldn't know, "I can't pay the rent. You must pay the rent" should be avoided?

What I, as a writer, need is more specifics and finer distinctions about what distinguishes good writing from poor,--more substance-- and this book taught me very little about that. Far better is SELF EDITING FOR FICTION WRITERS, by two professional editors who understand good writing and know how to give pointers and lessons on how to achieve it, or HOW TO WRITE A DAMN GOOD NOVEL, for an understanding on structure and drama vs. melodrama, or NARRATIVE FICTION, a classic textbook used in colleges around the country. I notice most the reviewers here who liked the book seem to be non-writers--i.e. the lawyer fraternity brother--or beginners who need to know to double space, use one-inch margins, and not write dialogue that is hard to follow. Unless you fall into one of those groups, you might be better off with another text.

Noah Lukeman offers what every beginning writer needs: insider information. As a literary agent with a stable of award-winning authors, Lukeman offers to dish the publishing dirt that will ensure anyone's manuscript rises to the top of any agent or publisher's stack.

But does the book live up to the marketing?

Lukeman covers the basics that are currently in vogue:

* Delivering a professional-looking manuscript
* Limiting the number of adjectives and adverbs, making certain the few that are used are punchy and unusual
* Verbalizing a manuscript to screen for its overall sound
* Choosing original metaphors and similes
* Avoiding a precious or contrived style
* Balancing realistic dialogue with narration
* Punching up ho-hum dialogue
* Driving the story through dialogue
* Cutting out melodrama
* Simplifying complex character interaction
* Showing, not telling
* Perfecting narrative and POV
* Creating realistic characters
* Crafting hooks without being manipulative
* Learning subtlety
* Maintaining a consistent tone
* Keeping the manuscript's focus
* Devising believable settings that involves all five senses
* Pacing the work through a natural progression

While this is an excellent list of issues to address in a writing book, the problem comes from the trade size and the under-200 page length. For Lukeman to cover these topics to any depth beyond absolute beginner stage, he needs at least fifty percent more content per issue.

There are other problems that limit the usefulness of this book. The examples of bad writing are so blatant that their usefulness is questionable. The advice on how to fix writing problems is okay, but never transcends beginning-level wisdom. Any writer hoping to do the very thing Lukeman promises--get that manuscript published--could do worse, but with so many other outstanding writing books out there, why stick with one that's merely fair? Considering the author's pedigree, his book is a letdown.

For any writer who has never picked up a book on writing, this one's acceptable. For the rest of us, though, consider looking for something more weighty (such as "Stein on Writing.")

Noah Lukeman's book starts out strong with a new slant on much of the writing advice already out there: less is more, and most is even less than that. The exercises in the adjective and adverbs chapter are so helpful that they completely transformed the first chapter of my manuscript. Thanks, Mr. Lukeman.

However, once beyond his excellent treatments on modifiers, sound, comparison, and style, one becomes acutely aware that like writing, editing is a highly subjective field. Many of the techniques that he advocates for sentence construction and dialogue directly contradicts the advice of other well-credentialed editors. This is where a strong sense of the strengths of your own writing, the conventions of your genre, and the preferences of your agent or editor is going to help you, and where "The First Five Pages" will fall short.

Rather than strictly being a "how not to get rejected off the bat" guide as the cover blurb claims, "The First Five Pages" also endeavors to show you how to write the best novel you can. That's fine. But if you take Lukeman too seriously, you might come to the conclusion that he would rather you not write at all than have a single word out of place. It comes as no surprise, them, that towards the end of the book (and prominent on his literary agency's webpage), we find Lukeman's particular bias: "Ovid, the Roman poet, said one should wait nine years after finishing one's work before seeking publication. Here lies the difference between someone writing for money and a writer."

If it's your goal to win a Pulitzer Prize, that's an admirable sentiment. For the rest of us making our livings as writers, who want to write great stories that make people think or feel, you are well advised to pick and choose from Lukeman's advice.

If you can only buy one book on writing, I instead recommend Donald Maass's excellent book "How to Write the Breakout Novel" which not only focuses on good writing, but the themes and techniques which can make a novel a best-seller. Additionally, "Self-Editing for Fiction Writers" by Renni Browne and Dave King gives some excellent tips, though they disagree with Lukeman on some key points.

My best advice is to read as many of these books as you can: take to heart those points on which everyone agrees, internalize the rest, and just write.

There's a lot of good information in this book that you might not find on other "improve your writing" books. For example, the insight that editors and agents, when they're reading from the slush pile, really are looking for a reason--any reason--to reject what they're reading. The sooner they can determine that it's not good writing, the sooner they can dispense with it and get on to the next piece. Or the notion that badly written dialog can often be detected without even reading it. The layout of quotes on the pages can tell a reader that the writer is using too much or too little dialog.

Additionally, Lukeman goes over ground that's more familiar to anyone who has read books about writing or taken courses: "show rather than tell," avoid first person narratives if you're a beginner, etc., etc. But these points too he looks at from the viewpoint of an editor and agent; what sorts of mistakes stand out most to this group of highly experienced and highly critical readers.

However, I have one big complaint: The examples of bad writing that Lukeman uses. These examples are heavily sprinkled through the book; a paragraph or two of italicized text every few pages. Here's Lukeman's example of excessive use of adverbs and adjectives:
"The squad car went fast down the bumpy, rocky road, quickly swerving to avoid the large, fat bugs smashing squarely against the slimy windshield."
And so on for two paragraphs, WITH ALL THE MODIFIERS UNDERLINED, just to make sure we don't miss the point. Now, I don't doubt that Lukeman, in his long career as an editor and literary agent, has seen examples of writing as bad as that. But I would be willing to bet real money that NO ONE who buys this book could possibly, ever, in a million years, write as badly as the examples Lukeman uses. If you've given enough thought to the craft of writing that you buy a book about it, then surely you've given it too much thought to be able to write that badly.

If Lukeman has seen actual writing as bad as that (poor guy!), the reason is that there are people in the world who have given no thought whatsoever to the craft of writing, but who still think they can write.

The result is that the examples in this book aren't instructive; they're just silly and insulting. After the first couple, you'll be sputtering in exasperation at the book.

Another, related complaint is that these negative examples are almost the only writing examples that Lukeman gives us. This is in keeping with the stated goal of the book; to show writers how to avoid common mistakes. But it left me thinking wistfully about other how-to-write books I've read, like Janet Burroway's Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, which offers its readers many wonderful examples of beautiful writing by various authors, each selection chosen to illustrate a particular point the book is making.

Bottom line: I recommend this book, but as you value your life or your reason, keep away from the italicized passages!

This book: creates a powerful image of overworked publishers being inundated with manuscripts suffering from similar faults; documents those faults; and gives general pointers on how to get published.

Three (basic) exercise-packed sections cover:

* Preliminary problems-- presentation, adjectives & adverbs, sound, comparison, and style.

* Dialogue-- between the lines, commonplace, informative, melodramatic, and hard to follow.

* The bigger picture-- showing versus telling, viewpoint and narration, characterization, hooks, subtlety, tone, focus, setting, and pacing & progression.

The book could be improved through: addition on an overview of the publishing market and publishers (statistics for different genres & countries); use of fewer words for content; better use of sidebars & summaries to be able to "use" book more effectively; explicitly wider focus beyond fiction & novels; and discussion of "content"- the value add for the reader.

Overall a worthwhile read, but consider "Writing a Novel - and getting published" (Teach Yourself) by Nigel Watts first- it covers similar content concisely, plus adds much more in an easier to read format.

I have been writing for over four years now and have read and attended countless books and seminars. I HATE how most books and such make promises they don't keep such as - Write a Blockbuster, etc.

I found that this book keeps its word. I read and studied it like crazy, made intense revisions to my book, and resubmitted it to agents. IT WORKED! Thanks to The First Five Pages I NOW HAVE MY FIRST AGENT!

I advise that all writers read it. Even those who already have an agent. It gives great advise and really helped me critique and focus on work own work.

I bought this book to help me figure out how I can stop getting rejected so often. I wish I would have read it before I started writing.

As clear and concise as Strunk & White, this little book is an important addition to any writer's toolbox. It covers all the bases on how to make bad writing good, and good writing great.

If I had a complaint, it would be that the examples of what not to do are so horribly written. Then again, they get the point across without a lot of time-consuming study!