A popular post from January 2008
by Annette Lyon
Where should you start your story?
That's the magic question so many writers wrestle with. I'm one of them; I usually rewrite my first chapter a dozen times before it's right, and often it'll end up as a different scene altogether, starting at a different moment in the story.
Regardless of how difficult the beginning is to spot and capture in your writing, doing so is critical. A reader (or, more importantly, an agent or editor) won't give you the benefit of the doubt and keep reading to page 63 where it really gets good.
You must hook the reader immediately and give them a solid reason to keep going. You have to earn the reader going on to the second sentence, the next paragraph, the next page.
In my editing experience, the most common mistake with beginnings is that the writer tries to tell too much of the back story too soon, as if we just have to know right away what got John to this point in his life.
When this happens, the reader doesn't get to the actual story without wading through the history, perhaps in flashbacks or large sections of "info dump." (Big hint here: if you're beginning your story with a flashback, you're starting in the wrong place.)
Your beginning should open at a time of change for the main character. By the end of the first chapter, their life has to be turned upside down.
And most importantly, something must be happening. Never, ever, have your first chapter filled with a character sitting on a mountaintop (or in the car, or by the beach, or in bed) recalling past events or what they need to do about them.
Remember "show don't tell"? Do it here. Show your character in a difficult situation. Show your character reacting to it, struggling to decide what to do next.
When past information is critical to include, drop a tidbit here and there, just enough to keep the reader informed while the story keeps moving forward. Avoid writing more than a couple of sentences of back story at any point; when you do that, you stall the story, no matter how fascinating the history is. Let us discover the past a piece at a time.
The majority of manuscripts I see with the problem of opening overload eventually find their beginnings. I can often spot it two or three (or more) pages into the piece. Sometimes I'll star that spot and say, "Start here. This is the real beginning."
What about everything before it? Hit the delete button. Really. It's all what David Fryxell from Writer's Digest calls "throat clearing," where you're just warming up and finally you reach the point you've been trying to make all along.
Reread your work with an eye out for any "throat clearing." You might just find you've already written a brilliant opening . . . on page 4.
Showing posts with label beginnings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beginnings. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Monday, January 23, 2017
Starting Your Book
A popular post from August 2009
By Heather Moore
When I meet writers who are looking to get published, they often ask me how I decide where to start my story, who the characters will be, and how I plot.
So as I’m preparing to write my next book, I thought I’d give you some insight into my process.
1. Thinking. Maybe mulling is the more correct word. I have to have the main character pretty well defined in my mind before starting to write. The secondary characters come into the story to support the main character—and sometimes they surprise even me.
2. Creating a schedule. Writing, of course, is not always controlled by that effervescent muse (Annette—I’m probably using effervescent wrong). Writing is part creativity, and part science. Editing definitely falls into the science category, as well as actually completing a book. Like any writer, I’m constantly pulled in different directions. But once I decide on a book, I need to create the schedule to get it completed, and limit any other stories in my head that are trying to derail priority number 1. For example, if I decide to turn in a book on December 1st to my publisher and I start on August 1st, I divide the word count by the number of writing days. And I leave a couple of weeks in for editing. August: 25,000 words (average 1,000 words a day, 5 days/week). September: 25,000 words, October: 25,000 words, November: 10,000 (2 weeks), 2 weeks of edits.
3. Character sketching. This is an evolving process and changes and grows as I get further into the writing process. For instance, when I write my first draft, my character motivations aren’t usually ironed out. I’m writing mostly plot and dialog. About half-way through draft 1, I’ve had to make solid decisions about my characters, so I’m adding information to my character sketches as I go. So during the 2nd draft, I’m inserting more characterization to the beginning of the book.
4. Point of view & tense: I take into consideration who my audience will be and who the most important characters are. Will the story happen in real time (present tense) or past tense? Will my characters speak in first person (ideal for YA), or third person? It’s a lot of work to change this part of the process, so doing your research beforehand will save you a lot of time later.
5. Conflict. This goes hand in hand with character sketching. I have to ask myself what is the main conflict of the book, and of each character.
6. Beginning. Now that I have some basics going and I actually sit down to write, I usually concentrate on where I want the story to begin. Not to say that the first chapter I write will be the actual first chapter of the book, but I start pretty near the beginning. Before I start a chapter/scene, I ask myself: “What is the point of the chapter? What will be accomplished? What will it show that may/may not be relevant to the story as a whole?”
7. Creating a scene. I create scenes in several phases. Phase 1: writing and not caring too much about “fleshing out” the characters or the description, but I am nailing down the direction of the scene. Phase 2: revising the scene and inserting more description, making more concrete decisions about the character. Phase 3: this will happen when the whole book is drafted and maybe new developments have happened along the way. So I now have to go back through each scene to make sure the story is properly directed. As you can see, creativity has just been replaced by careful analysis (science).
Okay, looking over this list makes me wonder why I even start a new book. Every writer has what works for them. My style might be convoluted, but you never know, it might work for you as well.
By Heather Moore
When I meet writers who are looking to get published, they often ask me how I decide where to start my story, who the characters will be, and how I plot.
So as I’m preparing to write my next book, I thought I’d give you some insight into my process.
1. Thinking. Maybe mulling is the more correct word. I have to have the main character pretty well defined in my mind before starting to write. The secondary characters come into the story to support the main character—and sometimes they surprise even me.
2. Creating a schedule. Writing, of course, is not always controlled by that effervescent muse (Annette—I’m probably using effervescent wrong). Writing is part creativity, and part science. Editing definitely falls into the science category, as well as actually completing a book. Like any writer, I’m constantly pulled in different directions. But once I decide on a book, I need to create the schedule to get it completed, and limit any other stories in my head that are trying to derail priority number 1. For example, if I decide to turn in a book on December 1st to my publisher and I start on August 1st, I divide the word count by the number of writing days. And I leave a couple of weeks in for editing. August: 25,000 words (average 1,000 words a day, 5 days/week). September: 25,000 words, October: 25,000 words, November: 10,000 (2 weeks), 2 weeks of edits.
3. Character sketching. This is an evolving process and changes and grows as I get further into the writing process. For instance, when I write my first draft, my character motivations aren’t usually ironed out. I’m writing mostly plot and dialog. About half-way through draft 1, I’ve had to make solid decisions about my characters, so I’m adding information to my character sketches as I go. So during the 2nd draft, I’m inserting more characterization to the beginning of the book.
4. Point of view & tense: I take into consideration who my audience will be and who the most important characters are. Will the story happen in real time (present tense) or past tense? Will my characters speak in first person (ideal for YA), or third person? It’s a lot of work to change this part of the process, so doing your research beforehand will save you a lot of time later.
5. Conflict. This goes hand in hand with character sketching. I have to ask myself what is the main conflict of the book, and of each character.
6. Beginning. Now that I have some basics going and I actually sit down to write, I usually concentrate on where I want the story to begin. Not to say that the first chapter I write will be the actual first chapter of the book, but I start pretty near the beginning. Before I start a chapter/scene, I ask myself: “What is the point of the chapter? What will be accomplished? What will it show that may/may not be relevant to the story as a whole?”
7. Creating a scene. I create scenes in several phases. Phase 1: writing and not caring too much about “fleshing out” the characters or the description, but I am nailing down the direction of the scene. Phase 2: revising the scene and inserting more description, making more concrete decisions about the character. Phase 3: this will happen when the whole book is drafted and maybe new developments have happened along the way. So I now have to go back through each scene to make sure the story is properly directed. As you can see, creativity has just been replaced by careful analysis (science).
Okay, looking over this list makes me wonder why I even start a new book. Every writer has what works for them. My style might be convoluted, but you never know, it might work for you as well.
Friday, November 11, 2016
Moving Past the Re-editing Block
A popular post from October 2008
by Annette Lyon
Reader question:
I've been having the same problem for a long time. Whenever I write a few pages, I cannot resist the urge to re-write them again and again to the point that I end up throwing them out and starting over. I know I'm not going to get anywhere with my manuscript if I keep this up, but I still can't resist doing it.
I was wondering if I could get a little advice on how to curb my desire to edit and re-edit and re-edit.
On one hand, it's not uncommon for writers to reread what they wrote yesterday, tweak it a bit, and get into the groove again before going on to the next scene. But of course, doing so is useless if you don't keep going. Getting back into the groove is a different animal from reworking chapters to death and then throwing it out and never making progress.
First and foremost, it sounds like your internal editor/censor is yelling at you all the time. If that's the case, your editor will continue to hold back your creative side. The critic isn't a good writer. It's a good editor. Your writer brain needs freedom and creativity, but it's being strangled by your critic.
You do need your critic, obviously. But at the right time, not all the time, and most definitely NOT when you're trying to get out of the gate and finish a manuscript in the first place.
Just like every writer finds their own way to get into "flow," every writer has to discover their own way to silence the critic when it's not time to edit. I wrote about the inner critic here, and that post might have some ideas to help you out.
But there are other things you can do as well. The creative brain is difficult to tame, and at times, you have to trick it to behave.
Here are a few ways to trick the critic into going back into its cave:
Give yourself permission to write garbage. In fact, make a point of writing garbage for a day or two (or a page every day), just to prove you're capable of it. This kind of exercise stumps the critic (Wait, it's supposed to be bad? Then what can I yell about?) and gets him to move aside.
Write out of order. If you have a basic idea of where your story is going, there's no reason you're obligated to write chapter one and then two and then three. Do you know what the exciting climax will be? Write it today. Have a scene you're especially excited about getting to? Put it down now. You can always bridge the scenes together later. And sure, the parts you write this way may need changing when you reach them the "real" way. But who cares? You're making progress.
This trick is another way of putting the critic off-guard. He has a hard time knowing what to do with the situation (and how to yell at you because of it), because it's not what's "supposed" to come next.
Write on a different computer than the one holding your manuscript. Walk away from your PC and borrow a laptop. Heck, use plain old notebook paper. Use whatever, just so long as it doesn't have the rest of your manuscript on it. Forcibly cut yourself off from the rest of the book so you can't keep tweaking it. Instead, you have a fresh screen or piece of paper waiting for the next part of the story. Paste the new scene/s into the file later. (Then save and close the file. Do not tweak!)
Even better, use an AlphaSmart Neo or Dana. The Neo does the same things as above (keeping you away from the rest of the file), but it has an additional perk: since you can see only a few lines of text at a time, you're less likely to go back for tweaking even during today's drafting session. As you type away, you're mostly oblivious to how many words or pages you've written, and you get lost into the story itself.
Set specific goals and attach rewards to them. It's shocking how well this works. While you do want an overall goal ("Finish this book by my birthday"), getting past the re-edit-treadmill type of block takes smaller goals. ("I'm going to write 1,000 words a day.") Reward yourself with something small and concrete whenever you reach a goal. It can be your favorite treat from Cold Stone, a DVD rental, a nap, or the latest episode of The Office. Whatever is enough of a carrot to keep you going.
Withhold something. This is the flip side of rewards. Our own Julie Wright often puts a book she's dying to read on top of her desk but doesn't let herself crack the cover until she reaches a writing goal. Once when I was bemoaning a big revision, my husband challenged me to have no chocolate until I got through a six-inch stack of manuscript critiques. That one got me moving fast! Something I'd been avoiding for weeks was suddenly done during a weekend. Motivation is an amazing thing.
Best of luck getting off the re-editing treadmill and reaching the end of your book! You can do it.
Readers: Have additional ideas? Let us know in the comments!
by Annette Lyon
Reader question:
I've been having the same problem for a long time. Whenever I write a few pages, I cannot resist the urge to re-write them again and again to the point that I end up throwing them out and starting over. I know I'm not going to get anywhere with my manuscript if I keep this up, but I still can't resist doing it.
I was wondering if I could get a little advice on how to curb my desire to edit and re-edit and re-edit.
On one hand, it's not uncommon for writers to reread what they wrote yesterday, tweak it a bit, and get into the groove again before going on to the next scene. But of course, doing so is useless if you don't keep going. Getting back into the groove is a different animal from reworking chapters to death and then throwing it out and never making progress.
First and foremost, it sounds like your internal editor/censor is yelling at you all the time. If that's the case, your editor will continue to hold back your creative side. The critic isn't a good writer. It's a good editor. Your writer brain needs freedom and creativity, but it's being strangled by your critic.
You do need your critic, obviously. But at the right time, not all the time, and most definitely NOT when you're trying to get out of the gate and finish a manuscript in the first place.
Just like every writer finds their own way to get into "flow," every writer has to discover their own way to silence the critic when it's not time to edit. I wrote about the inner critic here, and that post might have some ideas to help you out.
But there are other things you can do as well. The creative brain is difficult to tame, and at times, you have to trick it to behave.
Here are a few ways to trick the critic into going back into its cave:
Give yourself permission to write garbage. In fact, make a point of writing garbage for a day or two (or a page every day), just to prove you're capable of it. This kind of exercise stumps the critic (Wait, it's supposed to be bad? Then what can I yell about?) and gets him to move aside.
Write out of order. If you have a basic idea of where your story is going, there's no reason you're obligated to write chapter one and then two and then three. Do you know what the exciting climax will be? Write it today. Have a scene you're especially excited about getting to? Put it down now. You can always bridge the scenes together later. And sure, the parts you write this way may need changing when you reach them the "real" way. But who cares? You're making progress.
This trick is another way of putting the critic off-guard. He has a hard time knowing what to do with the situation (and how to yell at you because of it), because it's not what's "supposed" to come next.
Write on a different computer than the one holding your manuscript. Walk away from your PC and borrow a laptop. Heck, use plain old notebook paper. Use whatever, just so long as it doesn't have the rest of your manuscript on it. Forcibly cut yourself off from the rest of the book so you can't keep tweaking it. Instead, you have a fresh screen or piece of paper waiting for the next part of the story. Paste the new scene/s into the file later. (Then save and close the file. Do not tweak!)
Even better, use an AlphaSmart Neo or Dana. The Neo does the same things as above (keeping you away from the rest of the file), but it has an additional perk: since you can see only a few lines of text at a time, you're less likely to go back for tweaking even during today's drafting session. As you type away, you're mostly oblivious to how many words or pages you've written, and you get lost into the story itself.
Set specific goals and attach rewards to them. It's shocking how well this works. While you do want an overall goal ("Finish this book by my birthday"), getting past the re-edit-treadmill type of block takes smaller goals. ("I'm going to write 1,000 words a day.") Reward yourself with something small and concrete whenever you reach a goal. It can be your favorite treat from Cold Stone, a DVD rental, a nap, or the latest episode of The Office. Whatever is enough of a carrot to keep you going.
Withhold something. This is the flip side of rewards. Our own Julie Wright often puts a book she's dying to read on top of her desk but doesn't let herself crack the cover until she reaches a writing goal. Once when I was bemoaning a big revision, my husband challenged me to have no chocolate until I got through a six-inch stack of manuscript critiques. That one got me moving fast! Something I'd been avoiding for weeks was suddenly done during a weekend. Motivation is an amazing thing.
Best of luck getting off the re-editing treadmill and reaching the end of your book! You can do it.
Readers: Have additional ideas? Let us know in the comments!
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
How NOT to Start a Story
A popular post from October 2008
by Annette Lyon
I'm terrible at writing opening chapters. Inevitably, I rewrite them a dozen times, and quite often, something else entirely ends up as the first chapter. Sometimes I back up further and begin earlier, and sometimes I start later. Regardless, my "first chapter" curse has become a running joke with my critique group.
But since I have my sixth book coming out in a few months, I figure I've managed to pull off a decent opening chapter more than once . . . with work. And I've learned a few things a long the way.
The biggest mistake writers make in their opening chapters is trying to include too much back story too soon. This includes throwing in numerous flashbacks.
Hint: If your book opens with your main character waking up, sitting in a bath, looking out the window, taking a shower, brushing teeth, driving to work, or otherwise not doing much of anything but thinking, or if your first chapter includes a flashback, you're starting in the wrong place.
These openings are B-O-R-I-N-G. Why? Because you're beginning with massive info dump and back story. That's not a story. That's a summary of events.
Do we need to know your character's background? Sure. (Although to "get" the story we probably need less of it than you think we do.)
And chapter one isn't the place for it. Throw us into the middle of the action, where something is happening, something is changing in the hero's life, and we see them reacting to it.
Later on, you can work in some back story, but even then, it can generally be woven in using brief snippets here and there so you never have a section where the story stops cold and the reader sits back for a giant history lesson (or, more likely, puts the book aside).
As an example, think back to Raiders of the Lost Ark and its opening scene.
Do we know that Indiana is an archeology professor when the huge boulder is chasing him, when the arrows fly, when the booby traps are set off? No. We know essentially nothing about this guy beyond the fact that he's a treasure hunter on a potentially deadly adventure.
That opening scene is engaging. Even though we didn't know much about this guy, we did see his personality through his words and actions (tackling problems with wits like using the bag of sand to get the idol, rescuing his hat even when a wall is coming down, a snake phobia on a man who, we thought, feared nothing).
Through it all, the audience is wrapped up in each frame, despite the fact that most of them probably didn't even catch Indie's name in that first scene.
Once the audience is hooked like that, then the story slows down a bit. We see Indie teaching a class and then scholarly men discussing ancient artifacts and history, trying to get him to start a new adventure.
Yes, the pace has slowed down a bit, but note that the story still moving forward. There's not an extraneous scene in the entire movie. Every single one is necessary. This doesn't pertain to just the opening of your book. Don't include scenes where characters are sitting around talking.
Every scene needs a point, whether it's to reveal character, give the reader information, add conflict, propel the plot, or something else. Preferably, each scene will do more than one thing. But if it's just there as a place holder or something to mark the passage of time, cut it.
As with any writing "rule," the info dump one can be broken, of course. Large sections of back story can work. So can flashbacks. Both can be done well. But beginning writers tend to lean on them as their primary way to tell a story, and generally speaking, there are more effective ways, and amateurism will show if all you do is info dumps.
The times I've personally seen flashbacks and back story dumps work the best have been at the hands of masters. Also at the hands of NY Times best-selling authors who have proven themselves and can now type the phone book and get a million copies pre-sold. They can break the rules because of who they are. But even they rarely do it in the opening scenes.
Are you starting in the right place? Scroll down to page five of your manuscript and start reading there. You might just have a better beginning hidden on that page. Does the action really get going there (or on page 3 or 6 or 12)? Very often the first several pages are what's commonly called "throat-clearing" and not really where you want to start.
You can also do what I do: Begin the first page with "Chapter ?" That way you aren't so stuck on the idea of this being Chapter 1 that you can't let it go or renumber it.
That little question mark can be rather freeing.
by Annette Lyon
I'm terrible at writing opening chapters. Inevitably, I rewrite them a dozen times, and quite often, something else entirely ends up as the first chapter. Sometimes I back up further and begin earlier, and sometimes I start later. Regardless, my "first chapter" curse has become a running joke with my critique group.
But since I have my sixth book coming out in a few months, I figure I've managed to pull off a decent opening chapter more than once . . . with work. And I've learned a few things a long the way.
The biggest mistake writers make in their opening chapters is trying to include too much back story too soon. This includes throwing in numerous flashbacks.
Hint: If your book opens with your main character waking up, sitting in a bath, looking out the window, taking a shower, brushing teeth, driving to work, or otherwise not doing much of anything but thinking, or if your first chapter includes a flashback, you're starting in the wrong place.
These openings are B-O-R-I-N-G. Why? Because you're beginning with massive info dump and back story. That's not a story. That's a summary of events.
Do we need to know your character's background? Sure. (Although to "get" the story we probably need less of it than you think we do.)
And chapter one isn't the place for it. Throw us into the middle of the action, where something is happening, something is changing in the hero's life, and we see them reacting to it.
Later on, you can work in some back story, but even then, it can generally be woven in using brief snippets here and there so you never have a section where the story stops cold and the reader sits back for a giant history lesson (or, more likely, puts the book aside).
As an example, think back to Raiders of the Lost Ark and its opening scene.
Do we know that Indiana is an archeology professor when the huge boulder is chasing him, when the arrows fly, when the booby traps are set off? No. We know essentially nothing about this guy beyond the fact that he's a treasure hunter on a potentially deadly adventure.
That opening scene is engaging. Even though we didn't know much about this guy, we did see his personality through his words and actions (tackling problems with wits like using the bag of sand to get the idol, rescuing his hat even when a wall is coming down, a snake phobia on a man who, we thought, feared nothing).
Through it all, the audience is wrapped up in each frame, despite the fact that most of them probably didn't even catch Indie's name in that first scene.
Once the audience is hooked like that, then the story slows down a bit. We see Indie teaching a class and then scholarly men discussing ancient artifacts and history, trying to get him to start a new adventure.
Yes, the pace has slowed down a bit, but note that the story still moving forward. There's not an extraneous scene in the entire movie. Every single one is necessary. This doesn't pertain to just the opening of your book. Don't include scenes where characters are sitting around talking.
Every scene needs a point, whether it's to reveal character, give the reader information, add conflict, propel the plot, or something else. Preferably, each scene will do more than one thing. But if it's just there as a place holder or something to mark the passage of time, cut it.
As with any writing "rule," the info dump one can be broken, of course. Large sections of back story can work. So can flashbacks. Both can be done well. But beginning writers tend to lean on them as their primary way to tell a story, and generally speaking, there are more effective ways, and amateurism will show if all you do is info dumps.
The times I've personally seen flashbacks and back story dumps work the best have been at the hands of masters. Also at the hands of NY Times best-selling authors who have proven themselves and can now type the phone book and get a million copies pre-sold. They can break the rules because of who they are. But even they rarely do it in the opening scenes.
Are you starting in the right place? Scroll down to page five of your manuscript and start reading there. You might just have a better beginning hidden on that page. Does the action really get going there (or on page 3 or 6 or 12)? Very often the first several pages are what's commonly called "throat-clearing" and not really where you want to start.
You can also do what I do: Begin the first page with "Chapter ?" That way you aren't so stuck on the idea of this being Chapter 1 that you can't let it go or renumber it.
That little question mark can be rather freeing.
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Hooking (And of Course I'm Talking About Books!)
A popular post from April 2012.
By Julie Wright
I have a manuscript I've been working on that is a zillion shades of totally awesome. The characters are fleshed out. The plot is compelling and fresh. The dialogue is believable. The title makes me grin every time I think about it. Everything sings in this manuscript. But it isn't ready to submit. Not a chance.
Because while the rest of the manuscript might be singing, the opening is doing something closer to croaking. It isn't that the opening isn't interesting. It isn't that the writing is bad. But the opening doesn't hook the reader. It doesn't compel them forward to the rest of the page. It doesn't compel them to turn the page, or the page after that, or the page after that.
A hook in your opening is totally necessary. Think of Dan Brown's DaVinci Code. The first paragraph has the curator to the Louvre museum lunging at a masterpiece painting and yanking it off the wall. This is not typical curator behavior--especially at one of the world's most famous museums. The opening paragraph makes the reader wonder, "What is this lunatic guy doing?" It compels them to read more because they want their question answered.
There are lots of different kinds of hooks, but they all have something in common. They all promise something to the reader. And that promise is what carries them to the rest of the book.
My story starts with a girl snapping a rabbit's neck. This isn't exactly a bad opening, but the way I'd written it is filled with exposition, introspection, and a lot of other things that weigh the story down and give it kind of a "meh" sort of feeling. It isn't anything that makes the reader sit up and say, "I have got to find out what happens next!" I can't submit until I find a better opening hook.
An interesting thing about hooks is that you can place them in more than just one spot. My friend, James Dashner, likes to place a hook at the bottom of every page so the reader feels compelled to turn the page. He also puts them at the end of every chapter--a place where a lot of people feel comfortable putting a book down so they can go do something else. James puts that hook there so it's almost impossible for a reader to choose to put the book down. J. Scott Savage does the same thing. So does Dan Wells. Those mini hooks throughout the book carry the reader all the way to the end in one sitting (or two if they just can't help it, but they aren't happy about putting the book down). Hooks used well bring a level of greatness to a novel. It creates its own buzz among readers. Everyone loves talking about the book they simply could not put down.
Opening hooks work best when:
Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.
Hap Hazzard didn't believe in ghosts, but he was afraid of them.
Scientists say that the brain chemistry of infatuation is akin to mental illness--which gives new meaning to "madly in love."
Clocks don't strike thirteen. That's interesting and doesn't fit. This would also be the curator yanking paintings off a wall. His actions don't fit the persona of a museum curator. Or a newspaper reporter doing an interview with a vampire. Vampire interviews aren't the first thing a rational person thinks of when considering who a reporter could interview.
The point of any book opening hook is to garner enough interest in the reader to make them keep reading. The point of the little hooks placed throughout the book is to keep them reading to the end.
So I am off to write a better opening for my new novel. I wish you well in the hook you'll be using for yours.
By Julie Wright
I have a manuscript I've been working on that is a zillion shades of totally awesome. The characters are fleshed out. The plot is compelling and fresh. The dialogue is believable. The title makes me grin every time I think about it. Everything sings in this manuscript. But it isn't ready to submit. Not a chance.
Because while the rest of the manuscript might be singing, the opening is doing something closer to croaking. It isn't that the opening isn't interesting. It isn't that the writing is bad. But the opening doesn't hook the reader. It doesn't compel them forward to the rest of the page. It doesn't compel them to turn the page, or the page after that, or the page after that.
A hook in your opening is totally necessary. Think of Dan Brown's DaVinci Code. The first paragraph has the curator to the Louvre museum lunging at a masterpiece painting and yanking it off the wall. This is not typical curator behavior--especially at one of the world's most famous museums. The opening paragraph makes the reader wonder, "What is this lunatic guy doing?" It compels them to read more because they want their question answered.
There are lots of different kinds of hooks, but they all have something in common. They all promise something to the reader. And that promise is what carries them to the rest of the book.
My story starts with a girl snapping a rabbit's neck. This isn't exactly a bad opening, but the way I'd written it is filled with exposition, introspection, and a lot of other things that weigh the story down and give it kind of a "meh" sort of feeling. It isn't anything that makes the reader sit up and say, "I have got to find out what happens next!" I can't submit until I find a better opening hook.
An interesting thing about hooks is that you can place them in more than just one spot. My friend, James Dashner, likes to place a hook at the bottom of every page so the reader feels compelled to turn the page. He also puts them at the end of every chapter--a place where a lot of people feel comfortable putting a book down so they can go do something else. James puts that hook there so it's almost impossible for a reader to choose to put the book down. J. Scott Savage does the same thing. So does Dan Wells. Those mini hooks throughout the book carry the reader all the way to the end in one sitting (or two if they just can't help it, but they aren't happy about putting the book down). Hooks used well bring a level of greatness to a novel. It creates its own buzz among readers. Everyone loves talking about the book they simply could not put down.
Opening hooks work best when:
- A change has just occurred or is about to occur in a character's life.
Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.
- A specific description or identifying statement that feels like it reveals a person or setting, and promises conflict to come.
Hap Hazzard didn't believe in ghosts, but he was afraid of them.
- A general abstract statement that isn't necessarily tied to anything, but that sparks interest.
Scientists say that the brain chemistry of infatuation is akin to mental illness--which gives new meaning to "madly in love."
- A juxtaposition that doesn't fit.
Clocks don't strike thirteen. That's interesting and doesn't fit. This would also be the curator yanking paintings off a wall. His actions don't fit the persona of a museum curator. Or a newspaper reporter doing an interview with a vampire. Vampire interviews aren't the first thing a rational person thinks of when considering who a reporter could interview.
The point of any book opening hook is to garner enough interest in the reader to make them keep reading. The point of the little hooks placed throughout the book is to keep them reading to the end.
So I am off to write a better opening for my new novel. I wish you well in the hook you'll be using for yours.
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
What I See Most Often
A popular post from September 2011
by Annette Lyon
by Annette Lyon
As an editor, I see a lot of the same things. If you can avoid these few issues in your work, you'll automatically be a step ahead of the competition.
Here are three of the most common problems I see:
Back-story Dump
Also known as "info dump." This is when the story comes to a screeching halt so we can learn the characters' history, what led up to this moment, and so on. It includes flashbacks, long strings of thought, dialog where characters recap the past (things they already know and likely wouldn't actually say to one another), and so on.
At the beginning of a story, this is a real problem. Back story may be important, although I'm betting it's less important than you think. We really don't want to hear about it in the first chapter. If the reader needs information from the past, tell us in small pieces . . . later.
Point of View Problems
I highly recommend reading Orson Scott Card's book Character and Viewpoint as a primer for learning how point of view works, how to pick the right one, and how to use it well.
Common POV problems I see include head-hopping, picking the wrong POV, having no point of view whatsoever, and having inconsistent POV characterization. POV problems pull the reader out of the story. They can make the narrative confusing. When handled well, POV helps the reader get immersed in the story.
Telling Instead of Showing
Show, don't tell, is such a common piece of advice it's almost cliche, but it's crucial. Telling creates a shallow story with flat characters. Instead of readers feeling and experiencing the story, getting wrapped up into it, they'll remain at a distance, as if reading a summary.
Good showing appears on the sentence and paragraph level (what I call micro showing) and in the overall scene, chapter, and full-length work level (what I call macro showing).
Interestingly enough, back story dumps and POV problems are often also telling problems. If you learn how to avoid these three common weak spots, you'll automatically find yourself knowing how to fix a lot of problems in your work--and avoid them altogether in the future.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
How NOT to Begin
by Annette Lyon
Okay, okay, I might not be the best person to discuss the delicate art of beginnings, because I always struggle with where and how to launch my books. Inevitably, I end up writing several beginnings before I land on one I like and that I feel works.
But my trouble is generally deciding which moment of perhaps five possibilities is the right one to begin with.
I do know enough to always, always avoid the following ways of killing your story before it has a chance to get off the ground.
Waking Up
It's morning, the sun streams through the window, and your character wakes up.
BO-RING.
Where's the action? Where's the dialogue, the conflict, the story?
Your story should begin in medias res, "in the middle of things." In other words, in the middle of action and conflict. Showing a character waking up and brushing their hair in the morning is almost as far away from action and conflict as you could get, short of opening with a scene of a sloth sleeping in a tree.
Wait, you say. We'll have action in a dream sequence, and then the character can wake up. That method usually backfires. If you've managed to get your reader engaged in the dream and its conflict, then they'll feel cheated when they find out it wasn't real.
Worse, you're basically creating two beginnings, because once the dream is over, you still have to start the real story.
Flashing Back
You know this one: a character looks out a window, observes a sunset/sunrise, notes the darkening clouds, hears a familiar song, or has some other emotional trigger and is suddenly transported back in time.
Then the reader gets a massive info-dump flashback.
The trouble here is two-fold: First (you guessed it), we're back to having little-to-no action. We're not starting in medias res.
Second, you're not trusting yourself or the reader. Trust yourself enough to know that you can dole the back story well--and in small pieces--later on. Hold off until the main story is set up and on its way. Then and only then drop a line here and there to show back story.
Also, trust that your reader is smart enough to follow the main story without needing every single detail of what happened in your character's life before now.
Tell, Tell, Tell
Those opening sentences are crucial for hooking an agent, editor, or reader. That means you have to get the reader inside the scene, feeling, sensing, and experiencing it right with the character.
Don't be so worried about getting to the exciting parts that you end up telling the scene, skipping over the chance to show what's happening.
Don't tell us that the character is creeped out. Show us with thoughts, emotions, actions, and other details.
Don't use bland adjectives to tell us what the setting is like (it's an old, rundown house). Instead show details that make the setting pop (the house has peeling paint, broken windows, and a sagging porch).
Start too Late
While you do need to begin with action and conflict, sometimes the place to begin isn't with the biggest conflict.
For example, The Wizard of Oz wouldn't be nearly as engaging if we entered the story after Dorothy ended up in Oz. The big problem? We wouldn't care about Dorothy. She's a girl from a house that blew in on a tornado. So what?
We needed to see her struggles and personality back home so that when the crisis arrived, we could empathize with her.
The movie (rightly) begins with a smaller but relevant conflict: Dorothy tries to run away from home with her dog, Toto. That's enough conflict to get the audience engaged long enough for the major conflict to show up. In this case, that big conflict is a foil to the earlier one: now Dorothy wants nothing more than to go home.
You can't expect a reader to sympathize and connect to a character's plight until they've walked a few pages in their shoes. Having a page one where a character burst into tears, screaming how unfair life is pretty meaningless unless the reader has spent enough time with the character to care.
This is surely why Shakespeare included a brief scene with two very minor characters, a mother and son, in his play Macbeth. The mother and son never show up again.
Why did he bother adding the scene? Because we find out later that they are killed. The audience has a bond of sorts with the mother and son, making for a much more heart-wrenching murder than hearing about a nameless, faceless mother and son would be.
Start with action and conflict, but not so late into the story that the reader is spinning and disoriented. And be sure to connect us to your characters before they're thrown into the fire.
Avoiding these pitfalls certainly won't guarantee a great opening (my constant revisions are proof of that), but they will increase your chances of creating a great first chapter that readers won't be able to put down.
Okay, okay, I might not be the best person to discuss the delicate art of beginnings, because I always struggle with where and how to launch my books. Inevitably, I end up writing several beginnings before I land on one I like and that I feel works.
But my trouble is generally deciding which moment of perhaps five possibilities is the right one to begin with.
I do know enough to always, always avoid the following ways of killing your story before it has a chance to get off the ground.
Waking Up
It's morning, the sun streams through the window, and your character wakes up.
BO-RING.
Where's the action? Where's the dialogue, the conflict, the story?
Your story should begin in medias res, "in the middle of things." In other words, in the middle of action and conflict. Showing a character waking up and brushing their hair in the morning is almost as far away from action and conflict as you could get, short of opening with a scene of a sloth sleeping in a tree.
Wait, you say. We'll have action in a dream sequence, and then the character can wake up. That method usually backfires. If you've managed to get your reader engaged in the dream and its conflict, then they'll feel cheated when they find out it wasn't real.
Worse, you're basically creating two beginnings, because once the dream is over, you still have to start the real story.
Flashing Back
You know this one: a character looks out a window, observes a sunset/sunrise, notes the darkening clouds, hears a familiar song, or has some other emotional trigger and is suddenly transported back in time.
Then the reader gets a massive info-dump flashback.
The trouble here is two-fold: First (you guessed it), we're back to having little-to-no action. We're not starting in medias res.
Second, you're not trusting yourself or the reader. Trust yourself enough to know that you can dole the back story well--and in small pieces--later on. Hold off until the main story is set up and on its way. Then and only then drop a line here and there to show back story.
Also, trust that your reader is smart enough to follow the main story without needing every single detail of what happened in your character's life before now.
Tell, Tell, Tell
Those opening sentences are crucial for hooking an agent, editor, or reader. That means you have to get the reader inside the scene, feeling, sensing, and experiencing it right with the character.
Don't be so worried about getting to the exciting parts that you end up telling the scene, skipping over the chance to show what's happening.
Don't tell us that the character is creeped out. Show us with thoughts, emotions, actions, and other details.
Don't use bland adjectives to tell us what the setting is like (it's an old, rundown house). Instead show details that make the setting pop (the house has peeling paint, broken windows, and a sagging porch).
Start too Late
While you do need to begin with action and conflict, sometimes the place to begin isn't with the biggest conflict.
For example, The Wizard of Oz wouldn't be nearly as engaging if we entered the story after Dorothy ended up in Oz. The big problem? We wouldn't care about Dorothy. She's a girl from a house that blew in on a tornado. So what?
We needed to see her struggles and personality back home so that when the crisis arrived, we could empathize with her.
The movie (rightly) begins with a smaller but relevant conflict: Dorothy tries to run away from home with her dog, Toto. That's enough conflict to get the audience engaged long enough for the major conflict to show up. In this case, that big conflict is a foil to the earlier one: now Dorothy wants nothing more than to go home.
You can't expect a reader to sympathize and connect to a character's plight until they've walked a few pages in their shoes. Having a page one where a character burst into tears, screaming how unfair life is pretty meaningless unless the reader has spent enough time with the character to care.
This is surely why Shakespeare included a brief scene with two very minor characters, a mother and son, in his play Macbeth. The mother and son never show up again.
Why did he bother adding the scene? Because we find out later that they are killed. The audience has a bond of sorts with the mother and son, making for a much more heart-wrenching murder than hearing about a nameless, faceless mother and son would be.
Start with action and conflict, but not so late into the story that the reader is spinning and disoriented. And be sure to connect us to your characters before they're thrown into the fire.
Avoiding these pitfalls certainly won't guarantee a great opening (my constant revisions are proof of that), but they will increase your chances of creating a great first chapter that readers won't be able to put down.
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