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IF YOU'RE TIRED OF REJECTION, THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU.

Whether you are a novice writer or a veteran who has already had your work published, rejection is often a frustrating reality. Literary agents and editors receive and reject hundreds of manuscripts each month. While it's the job of these publishing professionals to be discriminating, it's the job of the writer to produce a manuscript that immediately stands out among the vast competition. And those outstanding qualities, says New York literary agent Noah Lukeman, have to be apparent from the first five pages.

The First Five Pages reveals the necessary elements of good writing, whether it be fiction, nonfiction, journalism, or poetry, and points out errors to be avoided, such as

* A weak opening hook
* Overuse of adjectives and adverbs
* Flat or forced metaphors or similes
* Melodramatic, commonplace or confusing dialogue
* Undeveloped characterizations and lifeless settings
* Uneven pacing and lack of progression

With exercises at the end of each chapter, this invaluable reference will allow novelists, journalists, poets and screenwriters alike to improve their technique as they learn to eliminate even the most subtle mistakes that are cause for rejection. The First Five Pages will help writers at every stage take their art to a higher -- and more successful -- level.

Average Customer Rating:

No frills, boiled down, extremely useful information for aspiring novelists

Customer Rating:

I've bought about 10 books on writing so far from different authors and Noah Lukeman's The First Five Pages has been one of the few with any real "meat." I learned so much from this book and will continue to refer to it and study it. Most of the other books I bought spend too much time telling me the obvious, or things I already knew. The First Five Pages, however, tries to tackle it all of the essentials to get published, and succeeds. It's a boiled down overview of what you need to get published, with many helpful examples and suggestions for improving your writing. Noah speaks from experiences and writes with a no-nonsense style that really hits home. Almost everything Noah said in the book, I agreed with, and have found many improvement to my writing style thanks to him. If you are an aspiring novelist, this book is a must-have. Read it carefully and then refer to it over and over again.

The First Five Pages....by Noah Lukeman	Customer Rating:
Exactly what an 'almost finished' writer needs. Noah gives detailed instruction for that last look that will make the manuscript salable. I fought him for two chapters before I admitted he was RIGHT. Thanks for every word.

Thank You Mr Lukeman

Customer Rating:

Mr Lukeman's advice is incredible in this age where all rules, mores and sexes are blended. After this book in which he defends classic methods, I felt good again about returning to Melville and Dostoevsky, not to mention one of my all time favorites, Conrad, for reading and observation of their techniques. Thank you Mr Lukeman for writing this book. I read it twice, then made notes. For aspiring writers, if you want to sell a book, first get this one; if you want to write for the internet, you would'nt be interested.

3.5 stars really

Customer Rating:

In the First Five Pages, Noah Lukeman reveals the quickest ways a manuscript is tossed into the rejection pile. Think your numerous alliterations are clever? Manuscript readers don't. Believe you're subtlety slipping in backstory when your characters discuss their pasts? Nope, it's annoying and contrived. Subscribe to the belief that the more drama, the better? Please unsubscribe. This book's value ultimately lies with Lukeman's editing credentials. He organizes this book according to what an editor first looks for when reading a manuscript. He tackles preliminary problems (adjectives, adverbs, comparisons, etc.) that can get your manuscript axed right away, and then focuses on bigger picture items (hooks, tone, setting, etc). At the end of each chapter, Lukeman provides helpful exercises to help you practice what you've just learned. His book isn't without flaws. His own writing needs a little polish (he *loves* using passive voice). I also disagreed with his frequent recommendation that writers should choose "unusual" words. He later interchanges unusual with precise (which is much more appropriate), but he should have added a caveat telling writers not to go overboard. I can picture amateur writers using this advice and swapping boxers for pugilists (not a good idea). Finally, his examples of what not to do are way over the top. Lukeman admits this, and to be fair, his examples clearly illustrate his points. But he should have added mediocre examples, writing that will *just* tip the writer into the rejection pile. However, Lukeman provides great advice with regard to dialogue, and I especially liked his chapters on subtlety. He provides much more good advice than bad, especially in his later chapters. It's funny in a way that his own book starts off rocky, but it's worth finishing it. Overall, first-time writers will get the most benefit out of the First Five Pages. More experienced writers (especially those who have been published) can do without it.

A Good Idea, Not Accomplished Well

Customer Rating:

I have to agree with the February 2001 review by "A Customer": This book doesn't teach much about writing. I would go farther and say that some of what it says is either wrong or at least very unhelpful. One can. of course, empathize with literary agents and editors who are deluged with manuscripts and must move as quickly as possible to extract a few needles of quality from the haystack of junk. There is value in this book in terms of bringing a writer -- particularly an unpublished one -- some sense of reality as to what he or she faces in the competition for attention. There is also value in making people sensitive to some of the most common "red flags" that will kill their chances for consideration. But I found this book maddening, for a couple of reasons. First, Lukeman himself has much to learn as a writer. He writes in an overly elegant, self-absorbed style that should have earned the red pen of any competent editor. It becomes a little difficult to accept his wisdom about how things should be written when his own product is deficient. He constantly switches from the first person (both "I" and "we") to the second and third person, for example, often within the very same paragraph. What grated most on me, however, was his addiction to purple in his prose: "If you look back at your dialogue and realize you have scenes that are unsalvageable (like the last example), don't collapse in despondency." (p. 90). Collapse in despondency? Puh-leeze. The second problem, to me far more serious, is that many of his exercises and proposed solutions to the problems he identifies are either useless or wrongheaded. For example, to solve the problem of pointless and mundane dialogue ("Hi there, how are you?" "I'm fine, and you?" "Nice weather we're having, huh?") he doesn't send people to reputable sources of help for writing effective dialogue; rather, he suggests that a writer should "train [his] ear." He writes: "Begin to pay attention to how dialogue is used in everyday life by different types of people. Eavesdrop on people -- in the subway, in a diner, walking on the street, in a store; especially try to eavesdrop on people who might be similar to your characters." (p. 89). This suggestion is a recipe for disaster. Writing effective dialogue requires far more sophistication than the aimless guesswork that Lukeman suggests here. It would be far better for an aspiring writer with problems in this area to spend time with Gloria Kempton's Dialogue or Tom Chiarella's Writing Dialogue, to name just two helpful resources. My suggestion, then, is that this book might be worth a look for the insights it provides into the most common mistakes that inexperienced writers may make in writing and submitting their manuscripts, but not for much help in solving these problems (except for those that can easily be avoided, like improper formatting of manuscripts). Rather, a writer who wants to create a commercially viable work should take advantage of some of the excellent resources available that really get into the hard issues that a writer must confront. Some of the most valuable books I have benefited from include: Beginnings, Middles & Ends: How to Get Your Stories Off to a Roaring Start, Keep Them Tight and Crisp Throughout, and End Them With a Wallop by Nancy Kress; Plot & Structure: Techniques And Exercises For Crafting A Plot That Grips Readers From Start To Finish by James Bell; and Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Dynamic Characters and Effective Viewpoints, also by Nancy Kress. There are many others, of course, but a writer who thoroughly applied the advice in these three -- provided he or she had the basic ability to write in proper English -- would have a significant leg up in getting into print.