First Paragraph-a-palooza Results

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Holy Crap a lot people submitted to the First Paragraph-a-palooza! With over three hundred submissions, this was by far the most successful writing challenge to date. The WEbook editorial staff had a wonderful time reading through all of your submissions, a big thanks to everyone who participated!

Picking winners was difficult, but we were able to pinpoint three submissions that used powerful language to quickly develop a nuanced and intriguing character.

And the winners are....

#1. Snapped, by HeatherKephart
#2. Piecing it Together by deludez3
#3. You Don't Want To Leave It Behind by Lillyscarlet

We also decided to include two honorable mentions that caught our eye:

On the Brink of Oohs and Ahs by HSMeloche
Torture, Hair Products and Hell by ishta

Congratulations to all the winners! You will receive your PageToFame coupon through a WEbook message.

The Next Challenge:

The writing challenge ball never stops rolling, so we're opening up the next challenge right away: The Inanimate Object Challenge. This one is inspired by Louise Doughty's fantastic book on writing, A Novel in a Year, which (as the title suggests) takes aspiring authors through the novel-writing process in 52 weeks.

The rules:
Write a 100 word paragraph from the perspective of an inanimate object (pencil, desk, headset, ect.). Think about what your object does, what would it find important? How would it see itself? Is it arrogant? Shy? Depressed? You decide!

As always, the WEbook editorial staff will review all submissions, pick three winners, and award them a free coupon to PageToFame. Sharp writing is always a plus, but for this challenge, creativity counts the most!

Before you start writing, take a moment and read HeatherKephart's fantastic First Paragraph. In just 100 short words, she artfully conveys tons of information about her character, and creates a vivid and hilarious scene. Enjoy!

Snapped
Two days into the new year, I was up to my wrists in deceased Tannenbaum needles. The cat was rubbing her clammy nose between my toes to the tune of my husband farting the theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and the vocal styling’s of Nascar commentators were threatening to become a permanent fixture in my auditory recesses. It was time. I plucked my new Nike runners from their spot under the Christmas tree, carried the vile things by the tips of the shoestrings over to Ms. Zerofanny's house, and flung them through her window.

Didn't win a entry to PageToFame? Never fear! You can still read and rate for free, plus you've got one more day to submit your page for the intro fee of 4.95!

Comments

[Chris]

Well, now that I know basic grammar doesn't count...a couple of these are good, but seriously?

[Elizabeth]

Yay! See Heather? Didn't I tell you it was fantastic? Well done!

[Heather Kephart]

Hey, thank you so much! As we all know, bumps, scrapes, slaps upside the head, and other forms of public humiliation are the norm when learning to write fiction.

This, however, make-a me feel good. I'll post a link so my family and friends can come over and rate me down just to mess with my head.

They're hilarious like that.

Again, thanks! I never win anything, so this is really cool. And thanks, Elizabeth. :)

[Dave]

I'm surprised ANYONE won with the amount of ridiculosly low-raters out there. Totally ruined the whole thing.

[Brian]

The WEbook staff actually reads each submission and picks the winners of each challenge based on our own judgment, rather than the user ratings.

Hope this helps!

-Brian from WEbook