I may also sound off on whatever takes my fancy.
Here's something I wrote for the Canadian Writers Guide (I think that was the title) some years ago. It's still good advice.
START YOUR STORY WHERE THE STORY STARTS
Every novel has a point where the hero(ine) embarks upon the main conflict at the heart of the story. It's when Dumbo wakes up in a tree; it's when a Louis L'Amour cowboy dives for cover as a shot rings out.
That's the place to begin your manuscript. Why not first establish the character and setting? Because you may have only a few lines to hook that most crucial of readers -- an agent.
I've heard a major New York agent tell this story at writers conferences: one Friday afternoon each month, he and his associates gather around a table that holds a stack of sample chapters they have asked to see, after winnowing through several hundred query letters. Now they decide which chapters to read over the weekend.
Each manuscript is passed around. Agents read the first page. If the ms grabs someone's attention, it goes in a briefcase. If it doesn't grab anybody, it's gone.
If that was the opening of a novel you spent years writing, that Friday peek was your only shot. Your story catches fire on page three? Too bad; page one didn't hook anybody.
So put your main plot point in the first para of page one. Get your story started, and then layer in the back story as you keep going. Your chances of landing an agent will take a quantum leap, and that is the first step into the big leagues.
Besides, once you've sold the book, you and your editor can always rewrite the opening.
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ReplyDelete(drat, no option to edit) My Google-fu proved inadequate to find the source of the instruction, "Start the story where the brick goes through the window," or words to that effect. So Attr: Somebody else, not me. Me, I spend a lot of time hunting for the brick. I seem to wind up with three shape of brick: main character takes action, main character is in a fix, or main character is about to learn something that kicks them into action or lands them in a fix.
ReplyDeleteA story’s protagonist has a situation that is normal to that character. Then something happens to change that situation, creating a conflict that has to be resolved. That’s your brick through the window.
ReplyDeleteIt’s the point in the story when Dorothy realizes she’s not in Kansas anymore. When Dumbo wakes up in a tree and doesn’t know how he got there. When a farm boy in a galaxy far, far away pokes a second-hand droid and out pops a hologram of a princess begging for help. Or when a handsome, brilliant and prosperous detective suddenly finds himself ugly, stupid and broke and has to find out why.
That’s where the story starts, and that’s the place to start telling it.
The story I'm working on now has the following first line:
ReplyDelete"If I can avoid the Warriors until Syarell dies, they cannot punish me for what I have done."
Backstory follows, explaining who Syarell is, why she is dying, who the main character is and what she's doing to take advantage of Syarell's death.
The trick is to keep the story moving forward -- i.e., keep the protagonist in conflict -- while that backstory is getting layered in. So if she's fleeing the Warriors, they've got be on her trail, closing in, and she's got be making efforts to confuse, lose or outrun them. You're constantly raising the stakes.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Now I'll go back and read my p.1 with different insight to see if I think it's doing the job it ought.
ReplyDelete