- Joined
- Jun 28, 2008
- Messages
- 2,557
- Reaction score
- 571
- Location
- SE Michigan
- Website
- www.bofexler.blogspot.com
I'm going to hazzard a guess that most people do not just open a random book to page one and start reading. If nothing else, we all read the back of the book to find out what might be in there, and to decide if that particular book is going to be a flavor we like.
So something that confuses me is that some of the critiques I get for my first chapters is that I haven't introduced my character at all. This may well be a valid complaint. I admit that I am rather sparse in the introduction.
My question is-- should I or should I not count on the back of book providing a partial introduction to the character and some initial conflict?
I looked at a bunch of the books I've read lately and most of them seem fall into two camps. Camp 1 has all the books that barely introduce the character, hop right into story and often (since they are all written in first person POV, same as my novel) don't even give the narrator's name until later. Often two or three chapters in. These books often don't describe the narrator's appearance, sometimes not even minimally.
Camp 2 has an info dump where the first chapter is full of all the details about the character, then slowly winds into the mystery come chapter two or three with the first part of the book.
Part of my problem is that I'm writing first person and half the things that I think about the character "thinking" that would explain her to the reader gets stuck in my muse's hands because people don't think like that when they meet someone new. (I certainly don't think about my hair color or jean size when I notice someone looking at me, for example... but man, how often do I read that sort of thing in a book!)
Just for the record, I'm exceptionally gratefull for everyone who's willing to beta my stuff. I'm just trying to understand something here.
Should (can) I count on the reader having at least a basic knowledge of my character and the intial conflict? Or not?
So something that confuses me is that some of the critiques I get for my first chapters is that I haven't introduced my character at all. This may well be a valid complaint. I admit that I am rather sparse in the introduction.
My question is-- should I or should I not count on the back of book providing a partial introduction to the character and some initial conflict?
I looked at a bunch of the books I've read lately and most of them seem fall into two camps. Camp 1 has all the books that barely introduce the character, hop right into story and often (since they are all written in first person POV, same as my novel) don't even give the narrator's name until later. Often two or three chapters in. These books often don't describe the narrator's appearance, sometimes not even minimally.
Camp 2 has an info dump where the first chapter is full of all the details about the character, then slowly winds into the mystery come chapter two or three with the first part of the book.
Part of my problem is that I'm writing first person and half the things that I think about the character "thinking" that would explain her to the reader gets stuck in my muse's hands because people don't think like that when they meet someone new. (I certainly don't think about my hair color or jean size when I notice someone looking at me, for example... but man, how often do I read that sort of thing in a book!)
Just for the record, I'm exceptionally gratefull for everyone who's willing to beta my stuff. I'm just trying to understand something here.
Should (can) I count on the reader having at least a basic knowledge of my character and the intial conflict? Or not?