Barbara Kyle Seminar

​This week I was fortunate to take part in a coaching session with Barbara Kyle at the Sudbury Writer’s Guild. The main topic was how to "Crafting the Page-Turner: Magic and Verve in Your First 30 Pages".

Barbara spoke about three elements that can enhance the beginning of your novel:

1. The Hook

2. The Inciting incident

3. Getting the most juice out of setting

The hook should be in the first sentence or paragraph and should promise some kind of excitement. This is what captures both the reader and the agent. This can be accomplished by any of these eight techniques:

1. The Character’s name

2. Raise questions in the readers mind

3. Tell something about the plot

4. Foreshadow something about the plot

5. Show a personality quirk of the Main Character

6. Show Attitude by speech

7. Render suspenseful or mysterious

8. Start at Climax and backtrack

The Inciting Incident is the incident, moment or situation that throws your main character’s world out of balance and everything they do from that point on is to get what they want, change the situation, or get revenge.

This should happen as close to the beginning of the novel or story as possible.

Finally, the setting should have sensory detail, all five senses if possible. If should create:

1. Atmosphere – Tone that follows throughout the story

2. Phycology – How it feels, IE. Does the setting give you the creeps?

3. Reveal Character through attitude or feelings – Consider a while field of flowers as seen through the eyes of a grieving widow as compare to a young lover.

If you are interested, Barbara does do Submission Evaluations as well as speaks to different writer’s conferences. You can contact her through her website at

http://www.barbarakyle.com/