Openings

Lauretta · Nov 8, 2009

Hi all,
I am sure this has been discussed somewhere else, I just can't find it. So if it has, feel free to move it around.

This morning (GMT) I have received the Writer's Digest email.
At a certain point it reads:

Tip #2. Your First Page Is Critical.
Most agents can tell from the first 5 pages whether or not they're interested in your book. And many writers make rookie mistakes on page 1, such as: the alarm clock wake-up, the dream sequence, the coffee-and-eggs opener.

I do understand what the dream sequence means, but can you please help me with the alarm clock wake-up and the coffee-and-eggs?
Does it mean the character wakes up and has his breakfast?

Thanks.

Lady Ice · Nov 8, 2009

Yes. It means the character does his daily morning routine and it is boring to read.

gothicangel · Nov 8, 2009

When I'm browsing a bookshop for a book to read I expect some kind of hook in paragraph one (preferably sentence one). When I do editorial work I'm the same, if there is nothing to hook me in the first paragraph then I start to wonder 'where is this going, where is the plot/story?

Bufty · Nov 8, 2009

I'm prepared to read beyond paragraph one before striking a story hook or story question, but I do expect the opening paragraph to at least be interesting.

gothicangel said:
When I'm browsing a bookshop for a book to read I expect some kind of hook in paragraph one (preferably sentence one). When I do editorial work I'm the same, if there is nothing to hook me in the first paragraph then I start to wonder 'where is this going, where is the plot/story?

Lauretta · Nov 8, 2009

Ok, thank you all.
I usually tend to read more than the first paragraph, but of course if the first one is boring I do not see myself committing to read the entire book...

Libbie · Nov 8, 2009

Somebody on the forums -- I really wish I could recall who -- recently said to start the story in the place where your character's life goes pear-shaped. If getting up in the morning and making breakfast is really, incredibly unusual for your character, start the story there. If it's not, start the story where life becomes unusual.

ishtar'sgate · Nov 8, 2009

laurafre said:
Hi all,
I do understand what the dream sequence means, but can you please help me with the alarm clock wake-up and the coffee-and-eggs?
Does it mean the character wakes up and has his breakfast?

Thanks.

Pretty much. It's boring. It's just daily routine. Now if the alarm clock gets up and dances around the room when it goes off, that's different.

Lady Ice · Nov 8, 2009

Libbie said:
Somebody on the forums -- I really wish I could recall who -- recently said to start the story in the place where your character's life goes pear-shaped. If getting up in the morning and making breakfast is really, incredibly unusual for your character, start the story there. If it's not, start the story where life becomes unusual.

You have to establish why the story happened on this day and not on last Wednesday, perhaps, or Tuesday 15th September 2004. The story might have been able to happen on any day but it didn't, it happened on this certain day- and you have to show why.

Linda Adams · Nov 8, 2009

A lot of books that get rejected start with an alarm clock going off, then the character waking up, going through his normal routine, and then eating breakfast. Or, in the case of a dream, the story opens with a dream that's pretty exciting--at least until the character wakes up, and the reader realizes the story hasn't started.

I think of this as warm up writing--a place simply to start to help the writer get into the book. It's a first draft detail that should be removed in favor of an opening that gets the story started. Story started doesn't mean having a body on page one or screaming zombies or jumping in the middle of action scene. It basically means there needs to be a hint of something actually happening that pulls the reader into the story.

BigWords · Nov 8, 2009

Only include the morning rituals if the MC chokes to death on his toast. Or drinks sour milk that gives him diahorrea for the rest of the novel. Or electrocutes himself on the toaster. Or steps on the cat, setting off a chain of events that leads to WWIII. Or...

third person · Nov 8, 2009

BigWords said:
Or steps on the cat, setting off a chain of events that leads to WWIII. Or...

goodness! is that taken already?

cooeedownunder · Nov 8, 2009

I think it means, normally the most interesting part of the story isn't the moment the alarm clock goes off, but sometime later.

backslashbaby · Nov 8, 2009

I had the urge to begin with a scene as a regular day, the calm before the storm - get to know the character and setting for a minute. Apparently, that doesn't translate into print the same way as in movies where I like it.

I'd probably still enjoy it in print, but most readers and definitely agents checking out the work won't read enough of the story. So you have to lose the slow beginnings nowadays. Fair enough, I say

I just began reading an awesome work by Cesar Aira that fails this advice completely... in case you write like him and know his agent

MGraybosch · Nov 8, 2009

Libbie said:
Somebody on the forums -- I really wish I could recall who -- recently said to start the story in the place where your character's life goes pear-shaped.

I put it a lot more crudely; I said that if you can't show the shit hitting the fan, at least show the shit flying towards it.

Chrisla · Nov 8, 2009

Libbie said:
Somebody on the forums -- I really wish I could recall who -- recently said to start the story in the place where your character's life goes pear-shaped. If getting up in the morning and making breakfast is really, incredibly unusual for your character, start the story there. If it's not, start the story where life becomes unusual.

But sometimes you're writing about somebody because their life is unusual, even though it may not be unusual to them.

cbenoi1 · Nov 8, 2009

> Most agents can tell from the first 5 pages whether or not
> they're interested in your book.

That sounds like how people shopping for books on the Internet can check the first pages on Amazon before buying. Coincidence? Hardly.

An exercise you can do is check how various authors begin their stories and count the number of novels that have boring beginnings.

-cb

Exir · Nov 8, 2009

You can start with a slow or routine opening, it's just that it is now much more important that it be interesting as well.

Which, IMO, isn't necessarily a bad trend. Literature, like all human endeavors, should progress with time.

Stijn Hommes · Nov 9, 2009

A dream opening can be a good thing too if, for example, your main character has prophetic dreams. Unfortunately, when the character wakes up, the reader will assume the dream wasn't real, so you need to do some establishing along the way. And it's been done to death, you better be good if youw want to start like that.

In general, opening with something original gives you a leg up with the agent and the publisher.

Kalyke · Nov 9, 2009

Stephan King made a gold mine off of "calm before storm" type openings. In his books, he reveals the "monster" little by little, and has his characters usually doing something perfectly normal, (driving a car in at least 3 books I can think of). The very beginning, I am told, needs to set the scene, tell the reader what the story is about. I've tried to set my books in the middle of some action, but usually get critisized for it, so I have revised them to be at the threshold of the action-- preparing for the action and so on.

I personally feel that everything you do as a writer is experimental, and you should at least "try" some different beginnings before settling on one.

Bufty · Nov 9, 2009

Stephen King is Stephen King. He has an established following and could open with the character yawning and turning over for another forty winks and a dream.

He has also proven he can deliver.

The great unwashed among us (myself included) haven't, and don't have the luxury of an established following who will wait patiently while page after page of nothing unfolds.

Ellefire · Nov 9, 2009

I think I'm guilty of this. My nano novel starts on a normal Sunday with dinner in the oven and the kids playing outside. Then the reader gets to meet all the 'main players' as they arrive for dinner. Except for the fourth sibling, who is supposed to arrive and doesn't. It's quite subtle but that's when the shit starts flying.

So in the first 1200 words you meet five people and know that something is wrong. By 2000 words, they gone looking for him

Exir · Nov 11, 2009

Ellenfire: that sounds like a good way of starting things out -- subtle, but with conflict from the beginning.

One thing I've found out is that a beta reader often reads in a completely different frame of mind than your average reader. So, sometimes they might point out things just because things are "supposed" to be one way or another, when they wouldn't have had any problems if they were just picking the book off the shelf. I think that's often the case with subtle openings -- they might criticize an opening for not being "hooky" or "flashy" enough because as a critiquer they feel like they have to look for certain things, when in fact they wouldn't have felt that way at all if they weren't consciously looking for anything and just read like a reader.

Maxinquaye · Nov 11, 2009

I'm always very sceptical about what you're "supposed to do", and I'm not even sure I buy the 'you don't have any following so do it the PROPER way'. So I would have to say that I'm a bad target audience for that kind of writing advice.

In fact, it sorts of annoys me on some level because I get the sense that marketing considerations overtrump story considerations.

I'm not really sure I want to represented by an agent that takes one page to decide if a good crafted book is worth it or not, because that suggests to me that this agent won't be that efficient in selling me as a writer and a craftsman, or possibly even an artist (though I make no such assertions about my work because it's not my job to say my writing is art or not).

Furthermore, writing is a hard slog, and writers want confirmation along the way that they are going somewhere and not standing still. I sometimes get the sense that we buy into short term things like that piece of advice for that reason, and not for story reasons.

For that reason we tend to dither with writing the PERFECT query letter, or we dither about the PERFECT opening sentence.

Writing stories doesn't even work with sentences, after all. The paragraph is the smallest unit of a story.

Hope my little rant is clear to anyone.

blacbird · Nov 12, 2009

Lady Ice said:
Yes. It means the character does his daily morning routine and it is boring to read.

Unless maybe the eggs explode, releasing a dragon.

caw

kaitie · Nov 12, 2009

Maxinquaye said:
I'm always very sceptical about what you're "supposed to do", and I'm not even sure I buy the 'you don't have any following so do it the PROPER way'. So I would have to say that I'm a bad target audience for that kind of writing advice.

In fact, it sorts of annoys me on some level because I get the sense that marketing considerations overtrump story considerations.

I'm not really sure I want to represented by an agent that takes one page to decide if a good crafted book is worth it or not, because that suggests to me that this agent won't be that efficient in selling me as a writer and a craftsman, or possibly even an artist (though I make no such assertions about my work because it's not my job to say my writing is art or not).

Furthermore, writing is a hard slog, and writers want confirmation along the way that they are going somewhere and not standing still. I sometimes get the sense that we buy into short term things like that piece of advice for that reason, and not for story reasons.

For that reason we tend to dither with writing the PERFECT query letter, or we dither about the PERFECT opening sentence.

Writing stories doesn't even work with sentences, after all. The paragraph is the smallest unit of a story.

Hope my little rant is clear to anyone.

I agree and disagree with this. On one hand, I try to make everything as close to perfect as I can get it in general. I also know there's really no such thing, but I try to come as close to it as is within my abilities as a writer.

On the other hand, oftentimes doing something out of what is considered acceptable is what is perfect for the story. Sometimes that "ordinary" bit is what makes the story extraordinary. But it has to do something new in order to do it.

When it comes to beginnings, if you haven't read the opening paragraph contest on Nathan Bransford's blog, I suggest you do. That really opened up my eyes to the sheer number of this sort of opening there are and how few are anywhere near effective.

The rule breakers that stand out are the ones who do something original with an unoriginal concept, I think.

Openings

In the fantasy word.

Makes useful distinctions

Toughen up.

Where have the last ten years gone?

In the fantasy word.

Worst song played on ugliest guitar

living in the past

Makes useful distinctions

Soldier, Storyteller

Geekzilla

She blinded me--with magic!

Grateful for the day

~~~~*~~~~

Lunch Break Novelist

practical experience, FTW

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking

Know what you write...

Where have the last ten years gone?

Citizen Of Planet Random

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking

That cheeky buggerer

With great power comes

*