First 250 Woes

If I were a GIF kind of girl, I’d put one here of a cartoon character beating its head against the wall or bawling its eyes out. Or, even better, I’d find the one from Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove where the llama-emperor is calling himself a loser. He’s alone, drenched, sitting on a small patch of land surrounded by puddles, and whimpering as rain batters his slouched llama-body. Yeah, that sounds about right.

Maybe I’m being a little melodramatic. It is morning and I’m so not a morning person, so getting two such emails from two separate critique partners about my first 250 words could just be an overreaction on my part. Or not. Because I didn’t have to read far to know their emails weren’t good. First, they both started their emails with my name and we’re so far past that. Also, the one said this is just my opinion and the other it may just be because I’ve been dealing with a puking toddler but. Do either of those sound good to you? Not me. So I exited my email before I read more. I went back to my cereal and tried to pretend this was just an average morning. Ha.

Thing is, there’s nothing more important than the first 250 words of your manuscript. It’s what agents and readers read first and it either makes them want to keep reading or it makes them toss the email/book into their rejection fire. That’s why so many contests have you enter the first 250 words. That’s why when I get bad CP emails about my first 250 that I want to kick and scream and shout SCREW THIS.

Don’t worry. I’ll read my CPs’ emails. I’ll look closely at their suggestions and I’ll fix what I need to…just not now. An afternoon or evening would work better for me.

There will be issues, though. I know this without reading their comments. The more people who read your first 250 and the more times your CPs read it, the more things you’ll have to fix. Everyone has a different opinion. If you want proof, check out Authoress’s Secret Agent contests and read the comments other writers post on each entry. Yes, there are times when people agree and those are the things that you have to fix before you submit anywhere else. But you’ll also see people disagreeing. Some love this sentence, while others think you should cut it or revise it. Some like that verb, while others think it’s weak or too overdone. Some think you’re starting your MS in the right spot, but someone else will tell you that you have to start somewhere else. My first 250 were there for January, so I know what this is like. I was torn, frustrated.

So what do you do when this happens? I thought about this A LOT and I think I’ve figured out an answer. It’s what I tell one of my CPs whenever she has this happen. YOU HAVE TO GO WITH YOUR GUT. You have to go what works for you because in the end, you’re the one who has to be happy with what you’ve written. You can’t go around thinking but all these other people said I should make it like this when a contest or agent rejects you. It’s easy to blame them—trust me, I wanted to email my CPs back this morning and say IT’S NOT MY FAULT because I’ve made so changes based other people’s suggestions. But it is my fault. The ultimate decision is mine. The fate of my MS will be determined by these 250 words, so I’ve gotta make ‘em good, damn good.