First Twenty-Five: Getting the Start of Your Novel Ready (online seminar) – Registration is closed.

Instructor: Randall Klein
$75 Members | $82 Nonmembers
Saturday, 11/18/23 | 2:00 – 4:30 p.m. (Submissions due 11/4)

For the purposes of landing agents, enticing publishers, and hooking readers, the first twenty pages of your novel are the most vital. They are the first impression a reader will have of what story they are in for and whether or not they are in good hands with the storyteller. In this workshop, authors will submit roughly the first twenty-five pages of their manuscript (up to 7,000 words) to be read by the group and workshopped two weeks later. Each seminar will be limited to five students and the instructor, and each piece will get workshopped during the seminar, discussing the positives of each piece (what makes the class want to keep reading) and the places where the pieces still need work. Authors will ideally gain new perspectives on the many different ways one can start a novel, how to create a compelling perspective, start building a world, and draw in readers.

Note: This seminar is repeated several times throughout the year. Students may take this seminar more than once but should submit new material each time.

Randall Klein worked in publishing for a decade, starting at the literary agency Trident Media Group, then as an editor, first within the Random House Publishing Group, then for Diversion Books, where he acquired and edited over one hundred books across all genres. He is also the author of the novel Little Disasters, published in May of 2018 by Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.