What an editor listens for in the first ten pages

We read every submission from the first page. Not every one to the last, but always long enough to hear what the writing is trying to do. Most of that impression forms in the first ten pages, so here is what we are listening for while we read them.

1. A voice that knows where it is going

Confidence on the page is not the same as loud prose. Some of the strongest openings we see are very quiet. What they share is control: sentences that choose their words, and a narrator who seems to know why they are telling us this.

Try this: read your first page aloud. Wherever you stumble, a reader will too.

2. A reason to turn the page

That does not have to mean an explosion in the first line. It means a question we want answered: a strange detail, a tension between two people, a promise that something is about to shift.

Try this: write down the question your first chapter asks. If you can't name it, the reader can't feel it.

3. Trust in the reader

Openings often over-explain: the backstory, the setting, the history of the house. We would rather work a little. Give us the moment, and let the context arrive when we need it.

4. Specific, not general

"The kitchen was old" tells us little. A cracked enamel kettle with a burn mark on its handle tells us about the kitchen, the people who use it, and how long they have been there. Precise details are how a world becomes believable.

5. The right starting point

Many manuscripts truly begin on page twelve. The first pages are the writer warming up. If your story catches fire somewhere in chapter one, consider starting there.

Before you send

Make sure the pages you send are the strongest you have, that the formatting is clean and readable, and that your covering note says in a sentence or two what the book is and who it is for. Then send it, and let it speak for itself. We are listening.

How we work: editorial standards and corrections.