Openings

A conversation arose on a message board today about the opening of a book. Someone was fretting about his opening, and rightfully so. It is a crucial part. I assume everyone knows it has to grab the reader, yadda, yadda, yadda...

What I find problematic in the pieces that I critique is that most people don't really know how to put together a good beginning. It's popular now to start with a chase scene, a murder, a battle, or something along those lines, and that's not what I mean when I say the beginning has to grab the reader. There are countless ways to do that. In The Hobbit, Tolkien starts by telling the reader what a hobbit is. That's not action, but it is interesting, because he's describing something otherworldly. In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy opens by describing the true feelings of an adulterer. No action, but the reader is mesmerized because it's a view into a man's soul. In Sense and Sensibility, Austen starts by making an observation on mankind which happens to frame the plot.

Trust me, it doesn't have to be fast paced, it doesn't have to be violent. It simply has to be interesting. That said, it is far easier to come up with an opening that grips the reader if you do include one of those things. Murder mysteries have an inherent advantage of having a default starting point, the crime to be solved. The rest of us have to figure something else out.

Most of the beginnings I crit that start with the fast pace or violence feel forced. The author hasn't built up any natural tension, so the reader must be told of how nervous the character being chased is, or perhaps the reader is given the medical report, you know, "her heart beat furiously in her chest, so furiously, she thought it it would burst through the ribcage and dance on the pavement". Shit. Don't get impatient. Tell the reader something cool, something funny, something profound. If you have to resort to the chase or the violence, make it evolve naturally.

This chapter's drinking my blood

No need to feel blue. But I'm getting impatient again. This chapter is the spawn of hell.

When Tom Clancy writes his books, he ends up with about 100 chapters at an average of 1000 words. His novels are written for people with attention deficit disorder. And a LOT of people suffer from that. The chapter I've been working on for the last month is currently sitting around 6500 words. That's a lot for someone to digest, particularly sci-fi fans who tend to be minimalists. I wish I could just say that it's fine the way it is, but I can't. I know I need to trim it, and that means trimming more sections I like. I suppose the good news is that I like the sections.

I joined a new forum a couple nights ago, a sci-fi forum. The guys on there are brutal. Very critical of even the classics like The Foundation Trilogy. I want to scream at them, "Do you know how hard it is to do this shit, fuckwad!" But they have every right to be critical of the books they buy. They paid the money. But there are such vicious arguments that go on there about the genre, what's good and what isn't, that it actually eases my mind somewhat about whatever reviews I'll get some day. If these guys have SUCH differing opinions over classics, some like them, some hate them, then I know getting one star reviews is unavoidable. I mean, these guys are on polar opposites of the spectrum. Hopefully, there will be some sci-fi readers out there who like long chapters.

The page 99 test

Someone posted a link to a site that tests your 99th page. The theory is that the 99th page of your book should be good enough to make the reader turn the page. Many people have commented on this. My favorite blogging authors like Kirstin (Pub Rants in the side bar) have mentioned that they'd turn away most of the PUBLISHED books when they were presented with the 99th page. I put it to a test and found that just about every 99th page I looked at of the novels I loved was dull. You know the ones that weren't dull? The classics. The biggest sellers I loved. Books like Treasure Island. There's a lesson to be learned there. Make every chapter count.

I looked at the 99th page of my WIP and it was...okay. It was polished enough to pass for writing, but not particularly engaging. It tells me I'll have to revisit that section. I'm not sure anyone who doesn't write can fully appreciate the self-control it takes to go back to a section you've revised a dozen times and decide that it's just not good enough. Think about it this way, if you were baking a cake, troweling a floor with grout, singing a jingle, pricing a project, deciding on whether a part of a business works, would you go over it a dozen times, and then decide to do it again? Now, that's just one page out of, oh, about 400. Then do the same for each chapter, and for each primary section of the book. It is a tedious, grueling task, and I have no doubt that most people don't make it in the writing world because they are too impatient and want to see what the results are of what they've done before they can honestly say they have pushed forth their best effort.

Bottom line is, do not assume your reader will accept a slow or dull part in the book, simply because you need it for a transition. I know I have a ton of work to do in my revisions.I pray I can make them half as good as the masters did when they wrote the classics.

Assembling the Story

Jean over on her blog Discarded Darlings asked What does your moment when all the threads fall into place feel like?

What does it feel like when everything stacks up and you know you have a story on your hands? Well, since this is my first, I can only go by this one and any subsequent stories may be a different matter, but this one felt like I'd just assembled a building with no instructions, and it stood on its own.

We are Robinson Crusoe, and there is no Friday out here to help us. The people with suggestions as to how to write stories can't tell you how to write your story. Keeping in line with the assembling things vein, they can tell you how to assemble a car, but they can only get you so far because they don't see what kind of car it is you're trying to assemble. So, telling you to put screw #9 in slot #2 is useless. Yes, we can get input from critiquers and betas, but writing is a loneliest act I've ever undertaken.

I'm not happy with the chapter I'm currently working on. It's too slow. It's one of the last chapters, and it moves like an old lady with a cane leaving the church on a hot Sunday. I'm going to have to re-design the opening paragraphs somehow, and I have no fucking clue right now how I'm going to do that. My MC is too passive. I need to bust him over the chops and get him pissed off a little I think.

New work knocking at the door

I cut a couple more thousand words from the Frankenstein chapter, and it's now down to around 13,000 from almost 18,000. I'm about halfway done arranging it. Like a sculpture, I'm chiseling away the excess rock to hopefully reveal a swan underneath, but who the fuck knows. The problem is, the closer I get to making this one a story, the more the ideas for the next thing I'll be working on battle in my head for attention. And I've got a shitload of work left to do on this one. I need a pill for this.

Barbara's working on a suspense thriller, and I've offered to give her some crits on it. It's a cool, slick novel, and even though it's about Russians, who I don't particularly have a fondness for, critting it has me in the mood to write a suspense of my own, and I've got notes on two that I'm considering doing. On the other hand, I'd love to write an urban fantasy in the spirit of Charles de Lint, but I don't have a good solid idea for that as of yet.

Choosing what's next is simple for some people, particularly those who write fast. But for someone like me, who is the proverbial tortoise, the next project has to be right, because if the next one takes five years like this one did, then it may be my last because as much as I drink, I expect to die of liver disease at an early age. Okay, I kid, but the books I'll get to write while still of a relatively sane mind will be limited. I'd like to write ten, but there's no telling whether I'll get that much time.

On a different subject, I was going to post my strategy on naming characters, then I had a conversation with my good friend Marie Dees. Marie has a degree or maybe even a masters in writing (I can't remember for sure) and she's published a bunch of stuff the old fashioned way, not the do-it-yourself Indie plan. We were discussing a writer's website on which the writer gives lessons. I don't remember if she said the writer charged for them, but even if the writer doesn't, the advice given by amateurs like myself can do more harm than good sometimes. So I decided to put up this disclaimer instead: don't listen to anything I say. It's all bullshit. I don't know what I'm doing, and if you follow any of the advice I've given, you're a fucking moron.

There, I feel better. (The name post was going to be my best one, too. I guarantee it was going to change the way writers think about names, but now I'll keep it to myself.)

Seriously, most writers' blogs are for the benefit of their friends. Nobody in their right mind peruses blogs like this, unless they know the person writing them. Generally, they're diaries. Anyone who's seen Avatar remembers the scenes in which the MC records his thoughts for science and posterity. That's what this is. A record of milestones and bullshit, half of it so cryptic because I can't bring myself to show any words from the WIP until it's done, that the posts probably don't make sense.

I actually started blogging about ten years ago over on AOL Journals, or J-Land, as it was known. They've since nuked that part of their services since it wasn't bringing in any money. At the time, there were writers on there who weren't published yet, but have published since. One of those authors I befriended on there was John Scalzi, the very talented author who has since hit the NYT bestseller list with one or two of his sci-fi books. Scalzi's blog on J-Land was riot. Now his website is boring as shit, but it's well designed to promote his novels and book signings. There's an innocence lost I think once one is published. A hesitation to show prospective clients a seedier or more amateurish side. I think that's a shame. Presenting a controlled persona just doesn't float my boat. If I'm ever lucky enough to land an agent, it'll be one of the more interesting conversations I think I'll have with him/her. Is showing one's true colors detrimental to sales? I'd like to hear how that is.

A Little Happier With the Long Narrative Stretch

That's me, the one with the cheesy mustache, pretending to be a wino at a Halloween party. I had a mask to go with it, but it was too hot. The chick on the right was a little sister at our fraternity. I forget her name. The black book in her hand it her little black book, something we were all given upon becoming pledges. Inside the book were the fraternity rules, and interviews we were all supposed to conduct with members while we were going through the pledge ritual. She was interviewing me here. I hated being interviewed because I always felt pressure to be interesting.

Similar feelings accosted me while I worked on my long narrative section in the WIP. I got it whittled down to about a full chapter, the back half of one chapter and the opening half of the next. Still, it is scary to go that long without dialogue. I love dialogue, because I think my characters say interesting things. But I think I've got the narrative streamlined enough to take my finger off the section and move on. I think I got it to the point that the reader won't put the book down at that point. I'm pretty sure I've been on this section for at least a month. Incredibly difficult. I did my taxes today, and I'd say the two are on par as far as the pain inflicted on me.

I need a day to clear my writing palate, so I think I'll take some time tomorrow to crit.

Passed a Gauntlet

That's the boys, back before they started getting gray like me. I've trained them to give me hugs. Steeler on the left weighs in at 90 pounds. Cowboy tops out at a buck and a quarter. The brown one on the right thinks he's a lap dog, and the white one on the left thinks he's in charge. These two will be a book some day. I'm thinking it's a little too simple for YA, so MG. Definitely have to change the voice.

Anyway, I've passed the no-dialogue zone. It was a scary place, but I think I emerged with enough cuts to keep it quick and painless. Well, not painless for the characters. The next part is snapping in quickly, so I should soon get to the chapter with the greatest number of cuts to make. It's going to be brutal, deciding between which arguments to show the reader. I have to cut more than three quarters of the words I've already written and add transition and setting in without going over about 4,000 words. I don't want to slow down the story at this point because it's about to go down the ramp and the Olympic high jump. Writing should be fairly simple once I'm past this next chapter, not that I'll be done before the summer's over.

I've been fretting a lot over setting lately. I think I need to animate a couple of my secondary characters a little to add some gravy to the biscuits. One of the posters over on CC is infatuated with Updike, and he's been posting rules Updike broke. Oh, wait, they're more along the lines of guidelines.

Not a big fan of Updike's dialogue or plots, but his setting and action description is magnificent. If I'm going to get this fucking thing down under 120K words, and still give the reader a sense of his surroundings including smell, I'm going to have to come up with some innovative ways to condense setting description like Updike. Only clearer. Saying more with less is priority number one, because we have a big plot here. The three braids of the plot have to be equally clear for everything to work. Setting isn't terribly important to two of the plot threads, but it's critical to the third, otherwise, I wouldn't have to bother. Setting's the drummer that keeps the band in time.