Author Challenge: Submit your first page!

Read on, and don’t forget to join the conversation on Twitter by using the hashtag #sytycw.

Are you up for the challenge?

From a great opening line to an intriguing character, snappy dialogue to an enticing setting, how will you get the editor to take notice, put down her coffee and clear her appointments for the rest of the day? Do you have what it takes to immediately captivate your readers and plunge them into your story on Page One?

Here are a few things to keep in mind when drafting your first page:

1. Don’t get bogged down in eloquence. Just start writing your story. You can finesse your words later.
2. Make sure your romance starts in an exciting place. Don’t have the heroine thinking about her entire life, where she was born, her first job out of college, how it went, why her first boyfriend left, and so on. The characters should be moving somehow, even if they’re actively grappling with a dilemma.
3. Don’t forget to describe the physical elements of your setting and characters. Immerse us in the story.
4. Remember that this opening page is a way to hook your reader. Show us what you’ve got! Great opening lines can live forever.
5. Characterization is essential in a romance novel. Since your reader has to live with these characters for hundreds of pages, you should show the hero or heroine through action, dialogue, point of view—or all of the above. Make us have to take their journey with them.

Send us your first page at ucanwrite@harlequin.ca by 10:00 a.m. EST today (May 21^st, 2015)! In the subject heading, be sure to write: SYTYCW First Page Challenge. A group of expert editors will randomly select five entries and get to work reading!

The randomly selected first pages and our critiques will appear on the website at 2 p.m.

Oh, and before you get started, here are a few things to remember:

1. One entry per person, and please only from people who haven’t been published by Harlequin Enterprises before.
2. And just keep in mind that by sending this in, you’re giving permission for the material to appear on our website.
3. Good luck!