Description
In this fiction workshop, we’ll look at the intimidating statistical realities of the publishing world, then we’ll focus on ways to improve our openings scenes to tilt the odds in our favor.
Agents, editors, and more importantly, readers, are often turned on or off by the first chapter, even the first page. In this fiction workshop, we’ll pull back the curtain on this unforgiving publishing ecosystem. Then we’ll analyze opening scenes with the focus on immersing the reader, sinking story hooks, banking and spending emotional currency, creating likeable protagonists (or loveable anti-heroes), and examine the types of contracts we make with readers on page one.
About Jamie Ford
Jamie Ford is the great grandson of Nevada mining pioneer Min Chung, who emigrated from Hoiping, China, to San Francisco in 1865, where he adopted the western name “Ford,” thus confusing countless generations.
Jamie’s debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, spent two and a half years on the New York Times bestseller list and won the 2010 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. It was also named the #1 Book Club pick in 2010 by the American Bookseller Association and is now read widely in schools all across the country. This multi-cultural tale was adapted by Book-It Repertory Theatre, and has been optioned for a stage musical in NYC, and for film, with George Takei serving as Executive Producer.
An award-winning short-story writer, his work has been published in multiple anthologies, from Asian-themed steampunk set in Seattle in the Apocalypse Triptych, to stories exploring the universe of masked marvels and caped crusaders from an Asian American perspective in Secret Identities: The first Asian American Superhero Anthology, and Shattered: The Asian American Comics Anthology. He’s also written in other genres: speculative, dystopian, crime noir, and middle-grade horror.
His latest novel, The Many Daughters of Afong Moy, was named #1 IndieNext list pick for August 2022.
He currently lives in Montana with his wife, a one-eyed pug, and his imaginary friends.
View all Classes with Jamie Ford
