Let me just say that this was a very difficult decision. Weekly Writing Assignment received many, MANY excellent entries in it’s first month of existence. There are some fantastic writers out there, and I hope they keep on doing what they’re doing.

And now…the moment you’ve been waiting all month for. Weekly Writing Assignment’s first monthly winner is…

This week, your assignment is simple. Write 20 first lines. Make them progressively more interesting.

Weekly Writing Assignment received many great entries in the past month, but only one will win. Following is a list of all the Monthly Finalists. While we don’t have a voting system (yet…coming soon, I swear), let us know which one you think should be the first ever Weekly Writing Assignment Monthly Winner!

In just a single month, this site has garnered more than 2,000 visits from more than 1,300 unique visitors. What’s great is that people are really reading the assignment entries, visiting an average of 2.5 pages per visit, and staying on the site for more nearly 2 1/2 minutes! If you’re not familiar with web site statistics, this is way above the benchmark of average sites of this size.

It’s often tempting to make a character sketch narrative. But a character sketch should really be more of a series of small, yet detailed, observations that when taken as a whole give the reader insights into the character. Think of it like a hill of sand. All the different grains of sand themselves are insignificant, but take a shape when put together. The most important thing is to make the character is three-dimensional, and in doing so bring them alive.