Instructor:  Tere Michaels
Start Date: Monday, May 5, 2025
End Date: Friday, May 30, 2025
Type: Group.io
Duration: 4 Weeks
USD Fee: FF&P Member – $20; Non-Member – $25

The First Five Chapters: Your opening chapters are a book’s first date with a reader! They’re going to make decisions on if this is the right match for them based on their first impressions. So how do we write engaging, enticing, informative first chapters that set up your story, your characters and keep readers reading?

In this workshop, we’ll discuss all the factors that go into creating a smart and effective start to your book.

How much information is too much? Not enough?
Are you starting in the right place in your timeline?
What are genre expectations?
How are your readers emotionally engaging with your story and your characters?

We’ll also touch on additional topics such as POV, red herrings, worldbuilding and more!

See next month for Part Two

About the Instructor:

Author/Plot Whisperer/Developmental editor with fifteen books under her belt (and two more due out soon!). From the Metro NYC area. Let’s talk about craft! (Or Marvel superheroes…or both!)

Tere Michaels unofficially began her writing career at the age of four when she learned that people got paid to write stories. It seemed the most perfect and logical job in the world and after that, her path was never in question. (The romance writer part was written in the stars—she was born on Valentine’s Day.)

It took thirty-six years of “research” and “life experience” and well… life… before her first book was published, but there are no regrets—she doesn’t believe in them. Along the way, she worked in television, animation, arts education, PR and a national magazine—but she never stopped believing she would eventually live her life writing stories about love.

Her home base is a small NJ suburb outside of Manhattan—a city she dearly loves. Her spare time is spent watching way too much sports programming, going to the movies, doing yoga, gardening, reading from her endless TBR pile, and thinking about superheroes.

Nothing makes her happier than knowing she made a reader laugh or smile or cry. It’s the purpose of sharing her work with people. She loves hearing from them and fellow writers, and is always available for consulting, speaking engagements, visits and workshops. Send here a message through her contact page or connect with her on Instagram and Facebook.

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