Enjoy.

Thing is, I believe the policy here is that you only post 13 lines of your work. Because otherwise your work is unpublishable.

We don't want you to use up your electronic rights by posting the whole thing here (and we don't want to fill up the website that way, either).

The first 13 lines gives people a taste of your story and allows them to volunteer to read and comment on the whole thing for you.

quote:

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I'm new to this writers shop. So let me get this straight. It's called a writers shop but we can't send more then 13 lines to be reviewed. I thought that all we wanted to do here was make our stories, novels whatever you call them, better? But what can people do with only 13 lines for people to review over. Oh and if some one tells me otherwise, I don't think that this writers work shop has thousands of people reading these clips of books. Yea, maybe a number in its double digets, but out of any of those numbers, which one of us reads everysingle one of these book clips? I'm just saying that if I wanted to make my story more readeable I don't see the problem with sending more then 13 lines.

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What he said.

Believe it or not, having someone critique just the "hook" of your story will give you a more powerful beginning. And if you want more feedback, then you ask for volunteers to read the whole thing.

I think we've all cheated, if line thirteen comes at a bad point, we'll go to line fourteen or fifteen. But anything more is unneccessary.

Manuscripts have about 26 lines of text on each page. It is recommended that you start the first page of text in a manuscript halfway down (which means 13 lines). This is to give the editor space to write instructions to the typesetter when the story has sold and will be published.

So the first text page of a manuscript (short story manuscript at least) should only have about 13 lines on it.

The first page of a novel manuscript can be the title page, with no story text on it, and the beginning of the text can start at the top of the next sheet, but, as MaryRobinette said, we're not just doing novels here.

I'd recommend that if you want feedback on a novel, you post a synopsis instead of the first 13 lines because that will give people a better idea of what you're working on.

I would also recommend that if someone is willing to comment on your novel, you send them no more than a "partial"--the beginning (usually up to 20 pages) and an outline of the rest.

The point is not to post your work for feedback. The point is to get volunteers to give you feedback on the whole thing. (Which you then send via e-mail and so it is not giving up any rights at all.) You don't even have to do this by posting 13 lines. You could post a summary of the story and see if people are willing to read. You can combine a summary with up to 13 lines. In fact, you should at least provide a genre and word count.

13 lines is only a paragraph or two, but in a paragraph or two I can tell if someone has such terrible grammar or such a loathesome writing style that I may as well not bother. I can also often tell if the story is something I would enjoy reading. (I am not likely to request more of an epic fantasy, for example.)

If you think about it, this is actually a very good system. It gives you a place to start to find people to give you feedback, and over the year that I've been here I've found a small group of people I can usually count on. The best way to start is to volunteer to read someone else's work to show good faith.

As to 13 lines, we've had lots of discussions about those 13 lines. In a short story they do represent a hook past which an editor will not read if the writing is bad or if nothing interesting has happened at all.

Go ahead and delete this thread, and I'll make another to follow the rules...

Edit: The name should be a different color b/c the line that says administrator is waaaay too small to bother looking at when reading through a thread. Sometimes I don't even read the name, and I find that lets me judge the post and not the poster more. But if I see blue, or red, or whatever over there, I know that this isn't just another poster, and I also know this person knows the rules if that's what we're talking about.