Okay, after losing my post last night due to an unfortunate sequence of keystrokes, let's try to start on "Beginnings" again.
It's well known that beginnings need to start with a bang, a hook, some way of getting your reader interested and keeping them interested and turning your pages. It's been said, variously, that you have 5 pages (Noah Lukeman, The First Five Pages), 200 words (various), a single paragraph, 30 seconds (various), etc. to grab a reader and keep them interested.
Now, while reading Stephen King recently I started to realize how he was constructing his novels and beginnings. Reading King gives one an idea as to how a Master constructs such enormous works, but we'll look at a few others as well. Without revealing any spoilers, King's Under The Dome is constructed in a similar manner to some of his other massive tomes - I'm thinking about The Stand, Tommyknockers, It, and quite a few others. Here's how I think King does it.
King starts small. usually a single small event or occurrence that sometimes seems fairly insignificant, but not unimportant. It usually involves only a single character or a handful of characters, not ll of whom survive the event. What's important is that the event does not always seem all that significant, but it's important and has wide-ranging impact and, it's important and interesting.
King then strays off into a series of what are essentially character sketches. He gives us shots of individual characters and their lives. He progressively begins to involve the characters in the event. Usually, in King's case, the involvement by the characters may not always seem to be terribly important. In fact, some readers may find themselves wondering just exactly why King put these particular characters where he did in the first place. What's important here is tht King involves us in the event through these character sketches and how the event is affecting them. He even makes us like, in many case, or at least be interested in, the villains.
Next, King starts introducing small, incremental scenes which begin to affect the characters in fundamental ways and really involve them in the event. The event pushes the characters toward an end or in the direction of a purpose. Often enough, it's simply enough to escape the event or the consequences of the event or their own actions. Sometimes it's a push by the character to achieve their own individual dominance over the event and their own surroundings and situation.
Somewhere, King selects a single character and pushes them, in a tiny way which may may not appear fundamentally obvious or influential at first reading, over the edge.
This sets King's entire house of cards, that he has spent so much time painstakingly constructing, tumbling in a cataclysmic train wreck hurtling towards his conclusion.
So, in my opinion, King begins his better novels by setting up a flimsy, house of cards, foundation that is set to tumble down as soon as he selects which character will set it all in motion.
By contrast, in Afraid, J. A. Konrath starts with a quiet scene of a man fishing on a lake in the middle of the night with a bright moon hanging overhead.
Then a helicopter explodes.
Hook, line, sinker - literally.
In Watchers, Dean Koontz begins with a man hiking in the forested mountains outside of Los Angeles. He shows us a man who is, quite literally, looking for a place where he can commit suicide. Koontz then introduces another character and the chase is on. Nearly the same thing happens in Lightning, Midnight, and a few others. In Odd Thomas, Koontz introduces us to a character who is haunted by the dead, but not just ghosts of his past - these are the literal dead who can speak to him and sometimes even interact with him.
Notice that in each case the author introduces us first to a character or several who they manage to make interesting by thrusting the character(s) into an event over which they have no control. The event takes over the character's lives and propels them in a direction chosen by the author.
The authors do not, however, give us lengthy character descriptions or personality profiles. We see the weather occurring around the characters, but we do not have it described to us. We see their surroundings, but none of these authors beat us over the head with it. We're introduced to the main characters, shown their surroundings, and then see an event occur that immediately involves them. Sometimes the event appears small at first, and then grows incrementally more and more important to the character(s) as they find themselves and their lives more and more revolving around the event.
