Friday, September 24, 2021

Publishing Part I: That Perfect First Sentence


Hello everyone! You thought you were rid of me, but I'm back. For the last few years I've leaned on the excuse that platform building took too much time away from actual writing as justification for abandoning my blog, twitter account, Facebook page, etc, etc. Well, after four years of working on it, my WIP manuscript is to the point where I either have to focus on publishing or move on with life. So as I attempt CPR on my blog (I know some of you have heard this before) I'm going to ruminate in a few blog posts on the topic of publishing.

There are, essentially, three avenues for publishing: 1) the old-fashioned, "big 5"  route, in which you court an agent who represents you in a sales pitch for the big publishing giants. 2) The small press route, where you pursue smaller companies who take direct submissions from writers but still provide editors and art departments, etc. And 3) The self-publishing route, where you do everything yourself.

For now, let's examine the traditional route, though much of what I'll talk about is relevant regardless of the publishing route you choose, as you need many of the same components to court a would-be reader as you would a prospective agent or publisher.

Most literary agents require some variation of the following: a query letter, a synopsis, and the first ten pages of your manuscript. I will tackle each, further breaking down the "first ten pages" into a perfect first page and even the perfect first sentence. These opening words are often all you get to impress a busy agent who likely has a slush pile of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of queries.

Let's start gentle... The first sentence. 

The first sentence is supposed to be your hook. It introduces the novel and hopefully draws the reader in so that it's impossible not to keep reading. It may be superficial to judge a book solely by its first sentence, but let's face it, this is how the world works. As "they" say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and this is your chance to make yours.

To tackle this topic, let's examine the first sentences from five books on my bookshelf. To minimize pre-conceived bias, I won't identify which books they are from, but I will say that they are all heavy hitters, including a Pulitzer Prize winner, a megaclassic in fantasy, a megaclassic in science fiction, and two contemporary NY Times Bestsellers. Also mixed in is my own first sentence, just to see how it stands up. So dig in and let me know in the comments which you think is best. I'll reveal which book each was from and do a short analysis in a future blog post.

So...in random order, let's dive in:

1) First there was nothing. Then there was everything.

    Okay, so that was actually two sentences, but since they were short and intimately connected, I included them both.

2) "Ninety-eight--Ninety-nine--One hundred."

    This one starts with dialogue. Effective? Let me know if the comments...

3) His wife’s scream the day she was taken would haunt him at the moment of his death.

   A bit macabre. Do you want to know more?

4) "Oh dear," Linus Baker said, wiping sweat from his brow. "This is most unusual."

    Again, technically two sentences. But it just didn't have the intended kick without them both.

5) If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.

    The longest of the opening sentences. Effective? Comment below if you think so (or not).

6) The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards.

    This one gives a little setting. Is it effective in building intrigue? Comment below.

That's it, ladies and gentlemen. If you have thoughts on which of these works best and why (or any other comments) I hope to hear from you below. Look out for analysis and a reveal of which book each is from to come! 

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If you enjoyed this post, consider signing up for my mailing list. If you do sign up, you will get a once-a-week update on my posts (if there are any) and NOTHING ELSE! No spam, no selling your email to third parties. Okay, if I ever get around to publishing one of these works in progress that are constantly haunting me, I might send out an email letting you know. In the meantime thanks for reading!

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All writing is the original work of Brian Wright and may not be copied, distributed, re-printed or used any form without express written consent of the author. Find out here how to CONTACT me with publishing and/or use questions 


Saturday, June 13, 2020

A New Song

Life as an artist, in all guises we artists come, is far from easy. What market exists is often concentrated at the top, into those fortunate enough to have "struck it big." Those lucky, talented few who have captured the imaginations of pop culture fans seem to live a luxurious, jet-set lifestyle while the rest wallow in the mires of obscurity and financial toil. We "starving artists," however, are always quick to argue that we create our art for the love and passion of the pursuit, for the pure joy of conjuring something completely original and novel seemingly from the ether, and that is true. However, in the hearts of almost all of us, lives a longing to join that rarefied club who clamber up the proverbial ladder to the top. Perhaps not even the highest rungs, but high enough that we can quit our cubicle jobs and meet that threshold of success where we could look someone in the eye when asked what we do for a living and answer, without deceit, "I am a musician. A writer. An artist..."

Anyway, enough digression. Here is a new song I recently recorded and released on Soundcloud. I've been playing with the technique of melding acoustic and electronica music and this song is one of the best examples yet of this new attempt at conjuring something fresh and original (as aforementioned). Please enjoy. Or don't, if it's not to your taste. And as always, I am open to feedback and well-worded, well-intended criticism...





Friday, May 8, 2020

An Ode to the Mountain

What is it about a mountain that so thoroughly ensnares the human imagination? Is it the jagged immensity? The superhuman scale? Or is it the allure of secrets hidden in every fold and crevasse? Perhaps it’s simply the exhibition of nature at its grandest scale. The unmitigated authority of such a colossal body and its total freedom to build, act, and even collapse, in whatever way it pleases. Maybe we just admire the mountain for appearing not only immortal but supremely hardy: donning and shedding mounds of ice like a weekend wardrobe, and letting the severe winds curl around its body like the fingers of a lover. The mountain embodies not only the best, strongest and most admirable of human traits, but piles them to a scale we can never hope to emulate, only admire from a distance….


Monday, December 2, 2019

New Music and Photography Pages!!

As mentioned in a previous post, I have been planning to expand my blog/website to include original music and photography as well. This past week I launched pages for both and I am really excited! If you get a chance click over to see these new elements to my website. I am always happy for comments and questions.
Music conveys the ineffable: sensation, emotion, love and fear. If words are the language of our minds used to transmit ideas from one to the next, music then is the language of our souls...

Photography is painting with light and lines, the artistic effort to capture the beauty of the natural and cultural worlds in clear verisimilitude and provide a perfect window into places far away in space or time.

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If you enjoyed this post, consider signing up for my mailing list. When not spending my time living my dream of being a river bum, I blog about all sorts of crazy, educational, entertaining, and occasionally funny topics from what makes an effective first paragraph to giant redwoodsmedieval sailboats, the ancient Mayans and more. If you do sign up, you will get a once-a-week update on my posts (if there are any) and NOTHING ELSE! No spam, no selling your email to third parties. Okay, if I ever get around to publishing one of these works in progress that are constantly haunting me, I might send out an email letting you know. In the meantime thanks for reading!

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All writing, photography and music is the original work of Brian Donald Wright and may not be copied, distributed, re-printed or used any form without express written consent of the author. Find out here how to CONTACT me with publishing and/or use questions


Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Adventure Series Part 3: Conquering Doubt on Sixmile

Six or seven months ago I remember saying it would take "years to build back up to a Sixmile level." I imagined Alaska's Sixmile Creek to be a whitewater run on the same stature as Colorado's Gore Canyon, an infamous regional testpiece for expert kayakers. I've been out of the whitewater scene for a while and it had been many years since I'd ventured onto such treacherous waters.

In the end, I did it and I was proud. Sure I watched paddlers with very little experience bump their way down it at low water right next to me, so the accomplishment is no incredible feat, but it was a goal met and that felt good.

For this blogpost I'm going to try something a little different. My return to whitewater paddling after a considerable hiatus came also with a return of my old passion of documenting my adventures on video and making short, mediocre "films" out of them. So to steal the words from the rest of my essay, I will let my highlight video from my several trips to Sixmile Creek on my packraft serve as my voice to tell this story.

NOTE: This post is part three in my "Adventure Series". Click on the links for part one and part two.

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If you enjoyed this post, consider signing up for my mailing list. When not spending my time living my dream of being a river bum, I blog about all sorts of crazy, educational, entertaining, and occasionally funny topics from what makes an effective first paragraph to giant redwoodsmedieval sailboats, the ancient Mayans and more. If you do sign up, you will get a once-a-week update on my posts (if there are any) and NOTHING ELSE! No spam, no selling your email to third parties. Okay, if I ever get around to publishing one of these works in progress that are constantly haunting me, I might send out an email letting you know. In the meantime thanks for reading!

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All writing is the original work of Brian Wright and may not be copied, distributed, re-printed or used any form without express written consent of the author. Find out here how to CONTACT me with publishing and/or use questions 


Sunday, November 24, 2019

A New Blog

For those of you who follow me (hi mom!), you all know that my blog efforts stalled out a while ago. It's a lot of work! But I think I've come up with a way to do a little CPR on this dusty blog and come up with an outlet for the creative explosions I've been experiencing lately.

Other than my recent efforts composing my "Adventure Series," I haven't visited you here for awhile, but that doesn't mean I've given up on writing or anything like that. It just means that the form, blogging, in the manner I was doing it at least, had tipped towards "tedious" on the work/reward scale. The lengthy monologues I was composing before took time, a lot of time and as many of you who have pursued any sort of creative art, an audience can be hard to find.

Anyway, so I had an idea for a way to open up the blog, get some use out of it and help keep momentum on my creative endeavors.

My creative expression has expanded beyond just writing. I have taken a deeper interest in photography, film and music lately. In other words, moving forward I'm going to use this blog as a medium for sharing my work of all sorts, not just creative writing. You might find travel essays, stories of real-life adventure woe, short films, or music that I have composed and recorded. Some days you might just find a single photograph...no caption or explanation. Who knows? The point is, at least there will be something. And for those of you that enjoy a variety show, maybe you're in the perfect place!

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If you enjoyed this post, consider signing up for my mailing list. If you do sign up, you will get a once-a-week update on my posts (if there are any) and NOTHING ELSE! No spam, no selling your email to third parties. Okay, if I ever get around to publishing one of these works in progress that are constantly haunting me, I might send out an email letting you know. In the meantime thanks for reading!

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All writing is the original work of Brian Wright and may not be copied, distributed, re-printed or used any form without express written consent of the author. Find out here how to CONTACT me with publishing and/or use questions 



Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Adventure Series Part 2: Discovering Northwestern

Pick your paradise. 

The first time your eyes fell on it, your breath choked backwards in your throat. It was one of those places so effortlessly sublime it felt surreal. It seemed proof of the divine. Picture this place.

Now, let me tell you about one of mine.

In a remote corner of the Southern Alaska coast. In a bedrock gash between hacksaw granite ridges iced with decadent glacier frosting, lies Northwestern Fjord. 

Leaping from sea to the summit of McCarty Peak (6,500') in about three miles, Northwestern boasts topographical relief on par with the classic American destinations: Yosemite, the Tetons, the Grand Canyon. This nest of  natural splendor hosts myriad waterfalls showering brilliant jewels down stern rock faces, innumerable glaciers spilling over serrated ridgelines, and wildlife by the thousand: harbor seals and seabirds, otters and crustaceans. Even the occasional transient orca pod has been spotted braving icy seas in search of fresh prey. 

And look, at the bottom, tiny and insignificant, a group of sea kayakers, cute in their colorful little toys. One of them happens to be me.

As a sea kayak guide in Kenai Fjords National Park, I got to visit Northwestern more times in one summer than most locals get to in their whole lifetime. I witnessed its many moods: bright and glorious, dark and temperamental. I saw it slashing down rain, I saw it darken with heavy smoke from a massive wildfire. I saw it choke with ice and roar with katabatic williwaws. I saw my two largest glacial calving events of the summer here, one of which scared me.

Every day a different shade.


This place called to me. Rugged and unforgiving yet graceful and serene, something about Northwestern Fjord rooted deep. Of all the incredible places I got to see through my job as a kayak guide, none seemed to fit in this same way. Yes, when it's my time and I'm back to being dust like the old words say, I hope a few of my ashes scatter here so they can swirl around in the ocean eddies and sink to the bottom.

I understand ocean life better now and, since the sea is such an integral part of life in coastal Alaska, my picture of this wild area I call home is a little clearer. My love of and time in Northwestern Fjord helped me to commune with Alaska, and hopefully helped it commune with me.

This was part 2 in my "Adventure Series" of blog posts. To visit/re-visit part 1, please click this link. To read part 3, click here.

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If you enjoyed this post, consider signing up for my mailing list. When not waxing on and on about my favorite places in the world, I blog about all sorts of crazy, educational, entertaining, and occasionally funny topics from what makes an effective first paragraph to giant redwoodsmedieval sailboats, the ancient Mayans and more. If you do sign up, you will get a once-a-week update on my posts (if there are any) and NOTHING ELSE! No spam, no selling your email to third parties. Okay, if I ever get around to publishing one of these works in progress that are constantly haunting me, I might send out an email letting you know. In the meantime thanks for reading!

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All writing is the original work of Brian Wright and may not be copied, distributed, re-printed or used any form without express written consent of the author. Find out here how to CONTACT me with publishing and/or use questions