QUIZ: How should you start your novel?

18 July, 201313 December, 20164 Comments

First, a Pop Quiz

I’m going to give you four openings of books, and you tell me how they hook the reader. Why does the reader keep reading?

1. In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

2. First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack.

3. When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course, she did. This is the day of the reaping.

4. When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special significance, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

Here are the sources for the openings:

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Here are my answers of what might be going through a reader’s mind as s/he reads the openings:

That’s an intriguing idea. I wonder what more the author has to say or show about it. (Answers)
I want to know more about this guy; he seems interesting. (Character)
Immediate: What’s the Reaping? By the end of the chapter: What happens next? (Answers, Time)
Who’s Bilbo? Where’s Bag End? Eleventy-first birthday? A Party? Hobbiton? (World)

Earlier this week I posted about WATCH, a method of figuring out which of four elements your novel focuses on. Each novel has all four, but novels generally stress one over the others. When you know which element is your focus, you have a good idea of how to start and end your novel, giving it continuity. The four elements are World, Answers (or theme), Time (or events), and Character. Read about them on the previous post.

Tricky Beginnings and Endings

Beginning and ending your book with your focus element is a helpful tip. It isn’t a rule. To Kill A Mockingbird begins with a statement about Jem, Scout’s brother, then talks about events leading up to his injury, and then the book ends on theme.

Tuck Everlasting begins with a mystery and ends with a theme, but the epilogue ends with more events. All together, the story is a Time story—readers want to know what happens next.

The Outsiders starts by talking about the narrator and ends with him wanting to tell the world about his friends. The book’s themes and plot and world are important, but the story begins and ends with character.

A Study in Scarlet is a mystery, but the first chapter is about Dr. Watson introducing himself and then being told about Sherlock Holmes. But even the character of Holmes is its own mystery, which is why the reader doesn’t want to know how the characters grow so much as answer the question of who they are.

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation begins with an “excerpt” from the Encyclopedia Galactica. It’s not difficult to guess that World is definitely a focus in his books.

A Note Regarding Prologues

Agents want to read and represent a book that hooks them from the first paragraph. That’s why plenty of agents despise prologues. But wait, you say, plenty of fantasy and sci-fi books start with prologues. If World is your focus, you’re more likely to get away with a prologue. If the focus is Character or Answers, then you likely should not have a prologue—backstory and answers should be revealed throughout the book. Don’t give your milk away for free if you’re trying to sell a cow.

If you are debating about including a prologue, first consider the following:

Is there any other way you can effectively incorporate this information without putting it at the beginning?
Is it really that necessary?
Do you care that many readers will skip over it?
Do you care that it might annoy potential agents or publishers?

If you absolutely must include a prologue, I suggest titling it Chapter One rather than Prologue. Include a date or time stamp there and on Chapter 2 to show a shift in time or place.

YOUR Beginning: Another Quiz!

When writing or revising your beginning, ask yourself what is important to you as a writer and as a reader.

Answer each question yes/no. Then rank your “Yes” answers in order of what matters most to you.

Do you want to be thought of as poignant or thought-provoking?
Do you want to be known as exciting?
Do you want to be known for your imagination?
Do you want to be known as an intimate person?
Do you read books to escape?
Do you put down a book if it’s boring?
Do you enjoy books that make you think?
Do you tend to forget about the plot in books you’ve read, but always remember the people?
Do you want people to fall in love with your characters?
Do you want people to enjoy your fictional universe as much as (or more than) you do?
Do you want your book to be memorable for its themes?
Do you want your book to be a page-turner?

What matters most from questions 1–4: ___ (1-A, 2-B, 3-D, 4-C)

What matters most from questions 5–8: ___ (5-D, 6-B, 7-C, 4-A)

What matters most from questions 9–12: ___ (9-C, 10-D, 11-A, 12-B)

If you answered mostly A’s (Answers)—Start your book with a theme and end it with the final statement on the theme. For the rest of the novel, be sure to illustrate (show) rather than explain (tell) so you don’t get preachy. These are the books that, when thematic and done right, change people’s lives and become their most beloved books. When structured as mysteries or capers, these are the most open to becoming series.

If you answered mostly B’s (Time)—Start your book immediately with the inciting incident, and end each chapter with a change of events. Finish the book with a final change of events (which might be a cliff-hanger if this is part of a series). These books are the ones that people can’t put down and recommend to their friends because it’s such a thrilling read.

If you answered mostly C’s (Characters)—Start and end your book with interesting details about the character. Voice is everything. So is making the character sympathetic by using rooting interests. These are the books that people fall in love with, that generate the most fan fiction.

If you answered mostly D’s (World)—Fascinate them with the world you create. Start with a regular day, if it’s really amazing. Otherwise begin with the most interesting places or event in your world, and end once the world finds a new normal. These are the books that people immerse themselves in—the ones that generate the most cosplays and fan art. They have a very high potential for spin-offs. (They are also the ones that have the highest costuming and CGI budgets when transferred to film!)

Relevant Links

The Writing Journey

26 June, 2013Leave a comment

My husband is letting me take the evening off! You know what that means!

No, sorry, not blogging. Working on my book! (Which really means staring at a blank screen and pouring out drivel for a few hours…I’m still working on the first draft!)

But I wanted to share this writerly advice from Jennifer Eifrig, “Six Steps on the Writing Journey.”

Check it out. Be back…sometime.

I have a treat for you all! I just need to finish it. It wouldn’t be such a problem if my baby weren’t so adorable and cuddly, but there you have it.

Author Chats: Stephen King

26 March, 20131 Comment

So I read this lengthy interview of Stephen King, and I can’t decide if it made me like him more, or like him less. I suppose it just made him more real to me, since all I’ve read of his is his nonfiction about writing (which is stupendous).

I think it’s a worthwhile read, but it is hard to sum up, since the interview spanned a few years. Here are some topics to think about and reflect upon after reading the interview.

Getting Ideas

King often takes experiences and observations, then asks “What if ____” over and over again, until a story sprouts. He refuses to focus on the next idea while his current work is in progress:

“I mean, I’ve always got a couple of ideas for future stories whenever I’m working on something. But you can’t think about what you’re going to do next. You’re like a married guy who’s trying not to look at women in the street.”

Movie Adaptations

King positively hates Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining.

Where to Write

“It’s nice to have a desk, a comfortable chair so you’re not shifting around all the time, and enough light. Wherever you write is supposed to be a little bit of a refuge, a place where you can get away from the world. The more closed in you are, the more you’re forced back on your own imagination. I mean, if I were near a window, I’d be OK for a while, but then I’d be checking out the girls on the street and who’s getting in and out of the cars and, you know, just the little street-side stories that are going on all the time: what’s this one up to, what’s that one selling?”

Writing Every Possible Day

PARIS REVIEW—Did you write this morning?

KING—I did. I wrote four pages. That’s what it’s come to. I used to write two thousand words a day and sometimes even more. But now it’s just a paltry thousand words a day.

Using a Computer versus Longhand

PARIS REVIEW—You use a computer?

KING—Yes, but I’ve occasionally gone back to longhand—with Dreamcatcher and with Bag of Bones—because I wanted to see what would happen. It changed some things. Most of all, it made me slow down because it takes a long time. Every time I started to write something, some guy up here, some lazybones is saying, Aw, do we have to do that? I’ve still got a little bit of that scholar’s bump on my finger from doing all that longhand. But it made the rewriting process a lot more felicitous. It seemed to me that my first draft was more polished, just because it wasn’t possible to go so fast. You can only drive your hand along at a certain speed. It felt like the difference between, say, rolling along in a powered scooter and actually hiking the countryside.

Finishing the First Draft

PARIS REVIEW—What do you do once you finish a first draft?

KING—It’s good to give the thing at least six weeks to sit and breathe. […] When you return to a novel after that amount of time, it seems almost as if a different person wrote it. You’re not quite as wedded to it. You find all sorts of horrible errors, but you also find passages that make you say, [that’s] good!

Your Editor’s Suggestions

“I don’t think it’s me, I don’t think it’s a best-seller thing, I think it’s a writer thing, and it goes across the board—it never changes—but my first thought was, She can’t tell me that. She doesn’t know. She’s not a writer. She doesn’t understand my genius! And then I say, Well, try it. And I say that especially loud.”

Popular Fiction and Literary Fiction

“The keepers of the idea of serious literature have a short list of authors who are going to be allowed inside, and too often that list is drawn from people who know people, who go to certain schools, who come up through certain channels of literature. And that’s a very bad idea—it’s constraining for the growth of literature.”

Naming

King has been criticized for his use of brand names in literature. Excedrin, for example. Pepsi. I haven’t read King’s fiction, but I have read fiction that does this poorly. I think it’s good to be specific.

“Do you see generic shampoo, generic aspirin? When you go to the store and you get a six-pack, does it just say beer? When you go down and you open your garage door, what’s parked in there? A car? Just a car?”

At the same time, overuse of brand names can feel like a commercial. Be specific, but don’t let it come across as product placement. Your peer editors and beta readers can point this out to you if you think it’s going to be an issue.

If you’re curious to read commercial fiction that reads like the author’s been flipping through the home shopping network, try Heat Wave, the novel commissioned by ABC and written by a ghost writer posing as the fictional crime writer Richard Castle.

—

So that’s all for Stephen King for now. I hope you caught the little bit about e-readers thrown in there (the interview came from 2001-2006). It amused me, anyway.

If you have a Facebook account, be sure to become a fan of my page, where I post more frequently. It’s much easier to repost something interesting than to actually blog about it. That said, I do have some queued up blogs for the next few weeks, so hopefully we’ll start getting back on track with content over here on WordPress. And then I’ll have my baby and probably disappear again for a few weeks.

Author Chats: Julian Barnes

18 March, 201310 March, 2013Leave a comment

I took Ethan Rutherford’s advice and started reading interviews and posts on The Paris Review. One of the interviews I came across was conducted in 2000 and featured author Julian Barnes. Barnes has won the Man Booker Prize once, been shortlisted for the same award several times, and has been awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature. In the 1980s, he wrote crime fiction under the name Dan Kavanagh. One great thing about The Paris Review is that they show images of the authors’ marked-up manuscripts. Below is an image (lovingly taken from the website) of his 2000 novel Love, etc.

You can read the interview in its entirety on The Paris Review here or by clicking on the manuscript page above.

I wanted to highlight one particular passage from the interview in which Barnes talks about the writing process

BARNES—I think you should like the process [of writing]. I would imagine that a great pianist would enjoy practicing because, after you’ve technically mastered the instrument, practicing is about testing interpretation and nuance and everything else. Of course, the satisfaction, the pleasure of writing varies; the pleasure of the first draft is quite different from that of revision.

Paris Review—The first draft is fraught with difficulty. It’s like giving birth, very painful, but after that taking care of and playing with the baby is full of joy.

BARNES—Ah! But sometimes it isn’t a baby, it’s something hideous and malformed; it doesn’t look like a baby at all. I tend to write quickly when I’m on the first draft, and then just revise and revise.

PR—So you rewrite a lot?

BARNES—All the time. That’s when the real work begins. The pleasure of the first draft lies in deceiving yourself that it is quite close to the real thing. The pleasure of the subsequent drafts lies partly in realizing that you haven’t been gulled by the first draft. Also in realizing that quite substantial things can be changed, changed even quite late in the day, that the book can always be improved. Even after it’s published, for that matter. This is partly why I’m against word processors, because they tend to make things look finished sooner than they are. I believe in a certain amount of physical labor; novel-writing should feel like a version—however distant—of traditional work.

PR—So you write by hand?

BARNES—I wrote Love, etc. by hand. But normally I type on an IBM 196c, then hand correct again and again until it’s virtually illegible, then clean type it, then hand correct again and again. And so on.

PR—When do you let go? What makes you feel it is ready?

BARNES—When I find that the changes I’m making are dis-improving my text as much as improving it. Then I know it’s time to wave good-bye.

PR—What do you use your computer for, then?

BARNES—I use it for e-mail and shopping.

—”Julian Barnes, The Art of Fiction No. 165.” The Paris Review No. 157 (Winter 2000)

I much appreciate what Barnes says about the process of writing—that it should be enjoyable, because you are practicing and improving with every word. I like that he makes it very clear that the first draft is not the final product, but that you can still derive pleasure from the first draft. (I’m working on that skill.) And I like that he actually keeps on improving his drafts until he isn’t improving them anymore—it’s always difficult to know when to step back and say something is finished.

What did you think of the interview? To read more wisdom from successful writers (e.g. not me), click here for a list of Author Chats.

Lara Willard

Editor and Story Consultant

Category: Writers