Equipped
with this information, I observed shoppers browsing in a Tallahassee book store
and watched how they pick a book. In every case they first read the story blurb
on the book flap or back cover and then read the first couple pages before
either returning the book to the shelf or heading off to the cashier with their
prize.
For
you as a writer this means you’ve got to deliver a dynamite opening sentence
and first chapter. No long wind-ups, but bang!—straight into the heart
of your story. So if you reread your first draft and realize that the story
doesn’t kick in until page twelve, that’s twelve pages too late! Ditch those
warm-up pages. If they contain important information or character development,
salvage it for insertion elsewhere in your novel, perhaps as back-story.
Even
as long ago as the First Century BCE, the Roman poet Horace (best known for his
poem Carpe Diem—“Seize the Day”)
recommended that literature begin in
media res—“in the midst of things.” In other words, with characters already
engaged in dramatic action.
Study
how the masterful Nora Roberts opens the door to her novel Witness with a sentence that immediately conveys both character and
the threat of violence:
Elizabeth Fitch’s short-lived teenage
rebellion began with L’Oreal Pure Black, a pair of scissors and a fake ID. It
ended in blood.
Maxine
Hong Kingston begins The Woman Warrior
with this hook:
“You must not tell anyone,” my mother said,
“what I am about to tell you.”
The
first paragraph of Diana Gabaldon’s blockbuster, Outlander, economically conveys intrigue and setting and
characterization:
It wasn’t a very likely place for
disappearances, not at first glance. Mrs. Baird’s was like a thousand other
Highland bed-and-breakfast establishments in 1945; clean and quiet, with fading
floral wallpaper, gleaming floors, and a coin-operated hot-water geyser in the
lavatory. Mrs. Baird herself was squat and easygoing, and made no objection to
Frank lining her tiny rose-sprigged parlor with the dozens of books and papers
with which he always traveled.
Patricia
Briggs begins Moon Called, the first
book in her paranormal romance series starring the shape-shifter, Mercy
Thompson, with a scene that introduces the heroine as an auto mechanic—with an
extraordinary sense of smell.
I didn’t realize he was a werewolf at
first. My nose isn’t at its best when surrounded by axle grease and burnt
oil—and it’s not like there are a lot of stray werewolves running around. So
when someone made a polite noise near my feet to get my attention I thought he
was a customer.
Here
are opening sentences from a few of my own short stories and novels.
Mason Drake awoke
and saw the pilot burning. Flames climbed up the dead man’s flight jacket and
the red nylon melted.
If Tom Harding had been paying attention to
his fingertips when they began to tingle, the strangest encounter of his life
would not have happened.
When my transition drew
near, an Unsurpassable Lover came to my door, her puffy-eyed silence foretelling
terrible news.
“Where were you last night?”
I rolled onto my side and a headache
thunder-clapped through my skull. A nude woman occupied with me a bed so broad
it seemed a landscape of satin sheets.
“Where did you go last night?” she said
again. Whoever she was, she was royalty. A holo-tattoo of the Imperial Dragon
coiled around the pupil of her left eye, shimmering iridescently.
Once
you’ve crafted enticing opening sentences, your readers need to be told within
the next two or three pages:
·
WHO is the story’s
hero?
·
WHERE does the
story take place?
·
WHAT conflict
does the hero face?
·
WHY should we
care? (Hint: because the hero is likable.)
All
of the above does not imply slaving over your first paragraphs, insisting that
they be perfect before you can move on with writing your story. If you feel
stuck on the opening scene, plunging deeper into the tale might be your best
strategy. After fifty or a hundred pages, when your characters and their
struggles to find love have become real and alive for you, you’ll probably have
a strong idea how to go back and rewrite the beginning.
