Set the scene or Jump into the action?

[brittanimae]

Okay, here's a question for everyone--feel free to reference your WIP or a favorite book.

We always hear "jump right into the action," right? But take the most famous opening line of all time (or at least one of them): "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . ." all about setting the scene, right?

So which is better? Do you lay out your setting as a backdrop for your action or do you get right in there with dialogue/action and fill in the setting as you go along?

And yes, this is because I'm trying to figure out the best way to rewrite the first chapter of my WIP. Looking forward to hearing from everyone! :)

[Toothpaste]

This is again one of those questions that can't really be answered. One is not better than the other. One might be more readily acceptable, and possibly in general a smarter choice, but so long as whatever you choose to do you do well, then it will work.

Most say these days to "jump right into the action" especially in children's books where kids supposedly will get bored otherwise. I think this is good advice, especially for newbies who tend to write chapter after chapter of backstory, when really their novel begins in Chapter 4. At the same time, as you yourself pointed out, there is a more old fashioned tradition of scene setting.

It's a matter of taste. My book starts with scene setting. And I got many rejections telling me my book was well written, but too oldfashioned for today's market. It did get accepted and published eventually, but I had to take the risk that people wouldn't like my style having written in a not as popular way (my book is also episodic, which is very out in children's literature these days - it used to be the style du jour ie "Alice in Wonderland" "Peter Pan" etc - and so I have to deal with the fact that I will stumble upon reviewers who really don't like that style and find it pointless).

Point is, as ever, there is no "right" way nor no "better" way to write a story. There is the "right" way and "better" way to tell your story. But that you are going to have to decide for yourself.

[Torgo]

The Hobbit starts off with a dissertation about what exactly the hell a hobbit is. The crucial thing is that it's interesting, and entertainingly written. By all means set the scene, as long as it will not cause your readers' eyes to glaze over. On the other hand if there's really no need to set the scene (i.e., there's no need to explain what a nightclub is, or a high school, or a knife and fork) why bother?

[Zoombie]

If you can, set the scene while blowing it up.

[MsJudy]

Here's what I'm starting to figure out: The first words, line, scene, draw your reader into your world. So the answer depends very much on what kind of world you're drawing them into. At the Big Sur conference, everyone liked my opening scene except one editor. She kept saying, get right to it. Start with the witch. And she was right. Why? Because I'm targeting young boys, there's non-stop action, and setting the scene was just getting in the way. It took me several tries before I found the way to do what she was suggesting, but once I did, I knew it was so much better than what I'd had. But the thing is, I got advice from 10 different people. I only followed that of one person. And i had to try it for myself before I knew if it would work or not.

The other project I took also got very good feedback. They liked the 3 chapters they read. But I've decided to cut almost all of it, because again I was getting in the way of the story I wanted to tell. I had stuff that was clever and charming but pointed in a different direction, so that a kid reading Chapter 1 would never guess where we'd be in Chapter 4. Now we get there by the end of Chapter 1. Now someone picking up my book will know by the end of the first few pages whether this is the kind of book he or she is looking for.

But I'm writing silly fantasy adventure. If I were writing historical fiction, or deeply emotional character-based drama, setting the scene would be so much more important. In the first, we need to know where we are, when we are. In the second, we need to care deeply about these characters. Those can't really happen in the middle of quick action.

But I do think that for any kid's book, brief is better. Setting the scene doesn't need to take a chapter. Sometimes just a sentence or two is all it takes, if they're the right sentence! Someone who I think is really good at setting the scene quickly is Gail Carson Levine. She doesn't jump right into the action, but she does let us know early on what the character's problem is going to be.

[ishtar'sgate]

This is a difficult call. Scene setting can be just as engaging as action and dialogue, it all depends on how it's done. My novel was marketed as young adult and although many readers commented on the fact that I took a bit of time setting the scene, it didn't seem to bother them. The First Vial is historical and opens as the black plague approaches England in the 14th century. The first line alludes to what's coming.
It is said death rides a pale horse and that when he unsheathes his sword to manifold slaughter he falls on the unwary, for amid the common mortality of man, no on perceives his coming.
The second line tells the reader where they are.
In gothic grandeur like the rest of its brethren rooted in the Christian soil of England, the church keeps haughty and unsuspecting watch over the village of Claringdon, while the village rots at its feet in an untidy skirt of rude thatched cottages.
The balance of the first chapter amplifies the setting and the period by giving a glimpse into a common occurance in the village - a funeral. The main characters aren't introduced until the second chapter.
Linnea

[~grace~]

If you can, set the scene while blowing it up.

:roll:

genius.

[MsJudy]

This is a difficult call. Scene setting can be just as engaging as action and dialogue, it all depends on how it's done. My novel was marketed as young adult and although many readers commented on the fact that I took a bit of time setting the scene, it didn't seem to bother them. The First Vial is historical and opens as the black plague approaches England in the 14th century. The first line alludes to what's coming.
It is said death rides a pale horse and that when he unsheathes his sword to manifold slaughter he falls on the unwary, for amid the common mortality of man, no on perceives his coming.
The second line tells the reader where they are.
In gothic grandeur like the rest of its brethren rooted in the Christian soil of England, the church keeps haughty and unsuspecting watch over the village of Claringdon, while the village rots at its feet in an untidy skirt of rude thatched cottages.
The balance of the first chapter amplifies the setting and the period by giving a glimpse into a common occurance in the village - a funeral. The main characters aren't introduced until the second chapter.
Linnea

What i was saying! Two sentences. But you have to make those two sentences really, really strong.

[brittanimae]

So many good responses. Not that I personally am much closer to deciding--"the one" hasn't quite come to me yet. I love your opening Linnea--it creates drama even without immediate action. I've been looking at so many books lately to get a feel for things. I love the snarky Lemony Snicket openings, but they seem directed at older readers. I also really liked the SYW post that started with a hot-dog flying through the air recently--that's a great opening. Toothpaste's opening absolutely drew me in, and danced between snarkiness and action beautifully. Peter and the Starcatchers is another I've been reading--straight scene set-up for a couple of pages. But I think it's the books that really mix the two together well that I like the most. I just started reading The Secret Life of Nicholas Flamel at the bookstore the other day, and that has a great opening--someone describing on a cell-phone the mysterious strangers outside the coffee-shop.

Of course an opening doesn't mean much without a plot--I am about 2/3 of the way through my book and suffering from writer's block. I suddenly wound up on an entirely different continent than I had intended. Oops! Back to work I guess.

[Zoombie]

Okay, I think I'll explain more.

Setting the scene is vera important. In fact, without a scene, you have no floor. With no floor, your characters will plummet down into limbo...or at least they would if there was gravity, which is also part of the scene.

Fortunately, a lot of these precepts (gravity, oxygen, and what not) are already in your readers mind and you don't need to call attention to them.

Unless, of course, your character begins the story drifting outside of his spaceship, holding his breath for as long as possible while his blood boils out of his ears.

So, you just need to take the most important parts of your scene, the parts that stick out to drag in your readers. And, if you have to start in a dull place, please blow it up at the beggining of the story. Because nothing attracts readers more than giant, unexplained explosions.

Or, really, anything inexplicable or odd. Beucase we as humans have this crazy need to figure out why things happen.

I mean, an anvil falls out of the sky and smashes Aunt Jaqualine into red paste and we don't go, "OH god! Aunt Jaq!"

No, we (or at least, I did), go like this, "How the hell did an anvil get up there? Did someone built and anvil launching machine? Was this foul play, or some hidious mistake?"

And with those questions, your readers with walk further into your book. Hopefully they won't notice the murderur untill he sneaks up behind them.

[Viral]

I think about this dilemma often. Some people quote old, famous books, which are notorious for setting the scene and beginning with something we otherwise would call boring, or an infodump.

It depends on the audience. Our modern audience is used to the television, the internet, the news - getting your information as fast as possible. Our culture, as a whole, wants things faster. They're used to getting everything fast, and when a book drawls on something they feel they could have gotten in one sentence, they look elsewhere.

While it's not accurate for all genres, remember books are entertainment, and we're competing with the television, the internet, and video games. If we can't deliver as fast as them, we'll get punted out the door - unless we have a reasonably sized audience that likes what we do enough to put up with waiting.

I don't think that's the case for most authors - having a reasonably sized audience willing to wade through mood and scene-setting. This is especially true for my audience, children and young adults, who are exposed to television and video games as alternate methods of entertainment. It's already difficult to get kids to take books as an alternate. It has to be worth it to them, and action seems to be the way.

That's my take on it.

These are my opening lines (they go together, I guess):

Oh snap. I’ve really done it now. As if screwing up the rest of my life isn’t enough for one day, I managed to cut everyone else’s lives to… well… let’s say they’re lucky if they live another two years.

[MsJudy]

Zoombie and Viral, totally agree. And even within the "kids" age, it varies so much by age. It seems like the young ones really need a sentence or two to get started. Like the PB Tacky the Penguin, which starts out, "There once was a penguin." (Well, no duh? Didn't we read the title?) But for little kids with those teeny-weeny attention spans, you just have to state the obvious.

[brittanimae]

Pshaw, cold fingers? You live in California my friend--how cold can they really be? (Actually, I was in San Francisco over the holidays and I did need my coat. Mmmm, that was a nice trip. I had the most awesome lobster bisque on the Pier--nothing like that in landlocked SK. But alas, I digress).

Okay, uh, back to the thread. I was just thinking that we wade through those opening scene settings (how great is Anna Karenina? or Alice in Wonderland? or A Christmas Carol?) because those books are already classics. I wonder if people would have fallen in love with Harry Potter if JK Rowling had skipped that first chapter. Nathan Bransford had a contest not long ago for best opening sentences--how good an idea is that?

[Hedgetrimmer]

Personally, I don't like being sucker punched. I prefer to know WHO is throwing the punch and, if at all possible, WHY they are throwing it.

There is a reason catalogs exist with famous opening lines dating back hundreds of years: They appeal to the higher senses rather than the trendy, formulaic, Hollywood crap that has begun to flood the publishing industry today.

[Ziljon]

Personally, I don't like being sucker punched. I prefer to know WHO is throwing the punch and, if at all possible, WHY they are throwing it.

There is a reason catalogs exist with famous opening lines dating back hundreds of years: They appeal to the higher senses rather than the trendy, formulaic, Hollywood crap that has begun to flood the publishing industry today.

I agree with Hedgetrimmer.

[Zoombie]

Personally, I don't like being sucker punched. I prefer to know WHO is throwing the punch and, if at all possible, WHY they are throwing it.

There is a reason catalogs exist with famous opening lines dating back hundreds of years: They appeal to the higher senses rather than the trendy, formulaic, Hollywood crap that has begun to flood the publishing industry today.

I still think it's better to punch and explain. It makes it just as punchy and just as...explainy.

It's also fun. I'll make up an opening line that sets a scene, starts up questions and blows something up.


"Another car exploded next to our school today."

Well, the scene this sets should be obvious. Somewhere dangerous, somewhere filled with unrest, somewhere where there are cars and people use them as weapons of terror, targeting children...very of terror. But the tone of the sentence is sorta casual, almost blase. It's first person, "our" so the narrator goes to this school, either a teacher or a student. Either way, this kind of thing has happened plenty of times ("Another" car, remember), often enough to have become normal.

See, you can cram plenty of juicy thoughts into a "formulaic Hollywood crap" line.

[Hedgetrimmer]

I suppose what it really boils down to is what type of fiction a person likes to read and/or write. There will always exist a preference for different styles, and that's how it should be.

My problem with first lines that attempt to grab the reader with some over-the-top action is that it too closely mimics Hollywood. It's a little gimmicky. I don't pick up a book looking to be knocked over the head as though I were in a movie theatre.

Consider this line, which is not my own: "They say that behind the mountains there are more mountains."

I read that first line in a bookstore years ago and, by the sheer quality of the writing (voice, imagery, tone), took the book to the cash register. I was not disappointed either, as the author went on to deliver a prose style that I find completely absorbing.

I suppose a writer also should consider what purpose she intends her writing to serve. Does she expect her book to backlist well, to appeal to readers years from now and possibly remain etched in their brains forever? Or is she okay with something more fleeting and disposable?

[brittanimae]

My problem with first lines that attempt to grab the reader with some over-the-top action is that it too closely mimics Hollywood. It's a little gimmicky. I don't pick up a book looking to be knocked over the head as though I were in a movie theatre.


What? Like Law and Order?
Two women walk down the street talking about their boyfriends' failure to dress fashionably enough when . . . whoa! there's a gory, bleeding, detatched arm lying in front of them on the road!

That would be a funny thread (no I'm not starting it)--everyone submits a Law and Order opening scene. It would make a fun contest too.

[Danthia]

"Setting the scene" doesn’t necessarily mean description. It’s portraying a situation or environment that is (hopefully) about to get very interesting. My YA novel opens with a gal stealing eggs, and commenting on the difficulty between that and stealing actual chickens. My goal was to show a hungry girl doing something a little bit wrong to survive, while having a sense of humor about it. To get a sense of her character (and voice) and to like her and want to root for her. That scene snagged me an agent (three offers actually) so it worked. But no where do I describe the world or even the chicken. Nor do I have “action” until a page later when she caught. Once she’s running for her life I get down to description and world-building. But until the reader is interested in my protagonist and her problem, they don't really care about the world.

Setting the scene is about flavor, a small preview of what it to come, a sense of tone and style. It’s not about listing details of what things look like.

[MsJudy]

(hey, we get snow in California! plus my furnace has been broken for a week! poor me!)

It's all about voice, too. And tension. There's someone interesting, who is in a bit of a pickle. Now, how much storytelling is it going to take to explain the pickle? And how much storytelling will it take to make us identify with this person? And how well can you weave the two of them together?

And sometimes you can get away with things. Anybody checked out the opening line of Bridge to Terabithia lately? I quote: Brack, brack, brack. The sound of the dad's truck warming up and driving away. Talk about your attention grabbers.... *yawn* But who's gonna argue with a Newberry? And it only takes about half a page before she's told us what the MC wants out of life.

[MsJudy]

Oh, man. Suddenly this thread is ever so relevant... I just got notes back from one of my readers of my latest, absolutely favoritest WIP. And her opinion of my opening is the EXACT OPPOSITE of the people who critiqued it at the Big Sur conference. The worst part is, I kind of agree with both of them. Because they both have valid points. You know, the one I talked about before--start with the witch. It makes for an exciting first scene, and I'm targeting boys. So, start with a bang. But my reader's point is that my original beginning did a better job of setting up the premise, the moral journey my MC goes on. (He gets caught stealing and suffers the consequences.) She thinks the book is too MUCH action and not enough focused on how he learns that crime doesn't pay.

I respect both of these women. They both make really good arguments. And they are completely contradictory! So ultimately I have to choose one or the other.

Oy, my head hurts.

[matdonna]

Personally, I don't like being sucker punched. I prefer to know WHO is throwing the punch and, if at all possible, WHY they are throwing it.


Or, at least, who is GETTING punched, even if THEY don't know who threw the punch yet

[writeroffthelake]

Write it both ways and see which works best.

Remember, though, that the example you used was written in a different time and Dickens readers 1) had less other entertainment than reading matter to choose from and 2) were less familiar with life styles/places different than their own than readers of today.

If you jump right into the action, will your reader be confused because the reader won't understand the setting, time period, place, what's happening?

If you jump right in, will your reader still be able to understand, sympathize and identify with your point of view character?

Will the reader still be able to get emotionally into the action without becoming too frustrated by missing details to want to read on?

If your reader will be confused, not able to understand sympathize and identify with your point of view character, or want to stop reading, then you've taken "jump right in" too far and you need to set up your opening scene better.

[Bufty]

If what has been written is readable and carries the reader along, wishing to read the next sentence and then the next, I don't think it matters how one starts.

[kilamangiro]

If you can, set the scene while blowing it up.

Very good!

[sheadakota]

I agree with Bufty- I also think it matters what Genre you are writing in- literary fiction is all about the pace and tone - while Mysteries are all about - well- the mystery-

The first line in my mystery novel is simply this;
Ricco ran.

[brittanimae]

It's fascinating reading some of the Nathan Bransford entries in this respect. Some of those first pages work, and some just don't.

My own take after reading around and playing around a bit is that I like to feel grounded as I get into the story. There can be action, but I need to be able to feel out where I am and what I'm doing. If I can't, the writing feels one-dimensional.

[writeroffthelake]

I like to feel grounded as I get into the story. There can be action, but I need to be able to feel out where I am and what I'm doing. If I can't, the writing feels one-dimensional.

Me too.

[Eldritch]

If you're writing for kids or young adults, start with some sort of action.
Lets face it, description is boring.

[Dana-Lynn]

If what has been written is readable and carries the reader along, wishing to read the next sentence and then the next, I don't think it matters how one starts.

Well spoken, WELL SAID!

:Clap:

[MsJudy]

Conflict, tension, a character who wants something they can't have. Enough details of setting to let us know where and when we are, to let us visualize the place.

[Lisa F]

Funny. I read this thread, and then I went to the library. I pulled books off the shelf and read the first line. Book after book. Has anyone ever noticed the first words in the first book of The Chronicles of Narnia? It reads...
"This story is about..."

[writeroffthelake]

Funny. I read this thread, and then I went to the library. I pulled books off the shelf and read the first line. Book after book. Has anyone ever noticed the first words in the first book of The Chronicles of Narnia? It reads...
"This story is about..."

Your idea of checking out hundreds of books sounds like a good one, but checking a book like The Chronicles of Narnia, which was not recently written, seems to scewer the results of your experiment.

One of my favorite authors, Dickens, wouldn't be an author whose technic I would recommend to someone attempting to write a publishable piece of fiction today.

[Lisa F]

Your idea of checking out hundreds of books sounds like a good one, but checking a book like The Chronicles of Narnia, which was not recently written, seems to scewer the results of your experiment.

One of my favorite authors, Dickens, wouldn't be an author whose technic I would recommend to someone attempting to write a publishable piece of fiction today.

On one hand I agree, on the other I thought it was funny...;)