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WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®

Helping writers become bestselling authors

Phenomenal First Pages Contest – Guest Editor Edition

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Hey, wonderful writerly people! It’s time for our monthly critique contest! This month, we have a HUGE prize!
3 winners will receive feedback on 20 pages from a professional editor. So exciting!

This contest is closed. Please try again next month. If you’d like to be notified when the next one goes live, consider subscribing to the blog (in the sidebar).

If you’re working on a story and would like some objective feedback, please leave a comment. Any comment :). As long as the email address associated with your WordPress account/comment profile is up-to-date, I’ll be able to contact you if you’re a lucky winner. Please know that if I’m unable to get in touch with you through that address, you’ll have to forfeit your win.

Here’s the editor you’ll be working with:

Stuart Wakefield

With 26 years in theatre, broadcast media, and coaching under my belt, I have a visceral understanding of what makes stories work, and I love to share that with others because the world of storytelling is like the ocean: deep, mysterious, and a little scary to those who don’t know how to navigate it. With so much left to luck and timing, it’s my life’s mission to give great books the best chance of getting into readers’ hands. I particularly love to coach Romance, Commercial Women’s Fiction, YA, New Adult, and Contemporary Fiction. 

As a writer myself, I have an MA (Distinction) in Professional Writing, and my debut novel, Body of Water, was one of ten books long-listed for the Polari First Book Prize. My latest novel, Behind the Seams, was a 2021 BookLife Fiction Prize Contest semi finalist.

I’m an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach, a proud Partner Member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, and I was recognised as one of the top book coaches by Coach Foundation: https://coachfoundation.com/blog/top-book-coaches/ You can find my website, blog, and free self-editing cheat sheet right here: https://linktr.ee/thebookcoach

Contest Guidelines

  • Please be sure your first 20 pages are ready to go so Stuart can critique them before next month’s contest rolls around. A4 paper size (you can find this in Word settings), 1-inch margins, double-spaced, and 12pt Times New Roman font. Feedback will consist of in-line comments concerning what’s not working and what is.

  • You’ll need to have a synopsis ready (a rough one is fine) so Stuart can make sure his feedback is in context.

  • This contest only runs for 24 hours, start to finish, so get your comment in there!

Three commenters’ names will be randomly drawn and posted tomorrow morning. If you win, I’ll contact you with information about sending it to me. Then, I’ll forward it to our amazing editor for feedback.  

We run this contest on a monthly basis, so if you’d like to be notified when the next opportunity comes around, consider subscribing to our blog (see the right-hand sidebar). 

Good luck! I can’t wait to see who the winners will be. 🙂

Save the Date!

Becca will be back to critique first pages next month, but in the meantime, she wanted you all to know about an upcoming opportunity to grow in your craft. On January 28th at 2pm EST, she’ll be presenting an online webinar on Using Character Emotion to Wow Readers. Romance Writers Online are opening this event up to everyone, and registration is live. Use this link to learn more about this webinar or to save yourself a seat!

PS: If you want to amp up your first page, grab our helpful First Pages checklist from One Stop for Writers. And for more instruction on these important opening elements, see this Mother Lode of First Page Resources.

Reader Interactions

Comments

    • MINDY ALYSE WEISS says

      Hi Ali,

      Thanks for your interest in our Phenomenal First Page Contest! Stuart was our amazing guest editor last month, and winners were chosen about 24 hours after this contest went live. Our next contest will be tomorrow, February 16. I hope you’ll come back and enter for a chance to win that one!

      If you subscribe to the Writers Helping Writers blog on the upper right side of the page, you’ll receive it via e-mail (which is helpful). Another way to receive posts via e-mail is to click ‘Notify me of new posts by email’ which shows up under the comment box while replying. You can also hop over to our site and click ‘blog’ to see our most recent posts.

  3. MINDY ALYSE WEISS says

    A huge thank you to Stuart for these amazing prizes! And thank you all for hopping over to Writers Helping Writers to enter. The lucky winners are:

    Julee Nicklaus

    Amanda I

    Glenda Warburton

    I’ll send the three of you an e-mail with instructions. Congrats!

  11. Karen Harding says

    My firs introduction to Angela & Becca’s resource material came from a fellow writer. The Emotion Thesaurus to this day remains one of my treasured resource books. It encourages an active voice and has been invaluable as my go-to reference. I have a wealth of resource material, but the Emotion Thesuarus has gotten the most use to date.

  19. Deena Graves says

    This is such a great opportunity! Thank you. First pages are not for the faint of heart.

  21. Cecilia Bamberg says

    I know my first pages need a boost and would love some feedback. Thanks for this opportunity.

  26. Trischa Buhler says

    What a great opportunity! I’ll definitely come back to try again if I don’t win this month!

  28. Randy Landenberger says

    Thank you for the opportunity! Confused about the WordPress email. I created a profile, put in my ‘normal’ email. WordPress shows a possible different profile name/adress? Eg. @randlscott on WordPress.org. I’m not using that. Should I?

  31. Melaya Rose says

    Winning this opportunity would be gaining a gift you cherish for life.
    This is exactly what I need right now.
    Thanks for all this great support One Stop provides on this writing journey.

  38. Dedra Davis says

    I won in 2022, a first page, but wanted to try again because this is the first twenty pages. Thank you again for this blog! I look forward to it daily!

  47. Catherine Misener says

    Not sure if I can enter as I recently won one of your First Pages Contest (and that was amazing). But….if we can still enter, consider this my way of saying I’d love to win a look at my first twenty pages and synopsis. My manuscript is a work of speculative fiction.

  52. Jan Sikes says

    I always get excited when these come around, especially when I’ve started a new WIP! I would LOVE for Stuart to give his feedback! Thank you for the opportunity!