Story Beginnings — Part 1

Next week I'll be a part of the faculty at the Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) Spring conference in Portland, Oregon. Besides teaching various workshops, I have the privilege to participate in a WOW panel. In WOW, attendees pre-submit the first page of a manuscript. The first pages are read aloud (anonymously) and in random order, after which Scholastic editor Anna Bloom and I must respond. Distilled to its blunt essence, a WOW session asks the question, "Would...