RITA ® Award-Winning Author of Fantasy Romance
//Thoughts today on focus, how to rebuild concentration, and the alarming truth that every interruption costs us 23 minutes of time to regain previous focus. Also more data on trad publishers buying mostly full manuscripts.
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This week at the SFF Seven, we’re talking about beginnings and our principles for crafting them.
But first, I want to tell you all a little story.
A few years back, I was involved in a local writers group where, as a fundraiser for the group, I volunteered – along with several other experienced authors – to read and critique works from others in the group. On one submission, another author (much more successful and famous than I) and I agreed that the book started in the wrong place, and we offered thoughtful feedback on what beginning might work more effectively. There was pushback from that author and the group, a feeling that we had been much too critical, and several people were upset that we had suggested the book had started in the wrong place. One person said to us that the author in question had already been published, implying how dare we suggest they didn’t know how to begin the book.
We were both taken aback by this protest because, and I retell this tale because I think this is so important:
FIGURING OUT WHERE AND HOW TO BEGIN NEVER GETS EASIER.
Both my fellow critiquer and I revisit the openings of every book we write many, many times. Getting that opening right is key. It’s also not easy.
So, what are my principles for crafting a beginning? I think a beginning should do three things.
Establish genre
This one might sound like a no-brainer, but I only learned to do this deliberately, after writing many books. The opening lines of the book or story should ground the reader in what kind of story this will be. This grounding is more important than many authors might think. Sometimes we, especially as newer writers, have this impulse to play coy, as if keeping the reader guessing in this way will intrigue them. Trust me: it doesn’t. Think of your favorite books and their opening lines; I bet you they all tell you what kind of story you’re about to read.
Example: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen.
Look at how much you learn about the story to come from this one sentence.
Pose a question
THIS is where you intrigue the reader! Some writing teachers refer to this aspect as the “hook,” but I think a lot of us have trouble understanding what a hook is supposed to be. Instead I think of this as posing a question. It doesn’t have to be THE central question(s) of the entire story, but it should connect in some way. Suggest that there’s a secret. Pose a conundrum. Put something in there to make the reader wonder – and to keep reading to find out the answer.
Example: “The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation. He’d been dead for ten days before they found him, you know. We hadn’t intended to hide the body where it couldn’t be found. In fact, we hadn’t hidden it at all but simply left it where it fell in the hopes that some luckless passer-by would stumble over it before anyone noticed he was missing.” The Secret History, Donna Tartt.
I skipped a bit there for efficiency’s sake – but the whole opening prologue is worth studying! – but see how she introduces the core mystery and poses a number of questions?
Create sympathy for the protagonist
I’m not saying your characters have to be likable, or even that the protagonist has to appear in the first few pages, or that there even has to be a single, identifiable protagonist. What I am saying is, whatever characters do appear at the beginning, the reader needs a reason to want to be in their heads, to take this journey with them. If there’s nothing interesting or appealing about the characters in the story’s opening, why should the reader keep going?
Example: “It was a dumb thing to do but it wasn’t that dumb. There hadn’t been any trouble out at the lake in years. And it was so exquisitely far from the rest of my life.” Sunshine, Robin McKinley
Feel that instant interest in the character, the clarity of the voice, and how there’s a sense of feeling for the person, whoever it may be?
Really, all of these examples serve in all three principles. There’s lots that goes into a good beginning, but these three are key. Beginnings are a challenge and take time and effort to get right. And totally worth it.
//A slight divergence into thoughts on fashion and how the pandemic affected that. Also, being a hedonist. More on topic: why do book sales vary so much by platform? Some books sell only on certain retailers and I don’t know why.
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It’s been a tumultuous week in my world, so I missed posting on Wednesday, my usual day. Fortunately, I’m able to catch up today!
For those who don’t listen to my podcast or otherwise follow me on social media, this week a good friend came to visit bearing a life-changing gift. Mary Robinette Kowal, fabulous author and even better friend (which is saying something), spent a week here with us in Santa Fe. Like my husband, David, her mom had Parkinson’s Disease and, now that her mom passed away, Mary Robinette brought us her mom’s stability service dog, Captain. She spent the week teaching David (and me) how to work with Captain and helping us all assimilate to a new phase of life. It was a surprising amount of work and emotionally exhausting in a way I didn’t predict. But things are smoothing out now and we’re so grateful for this tremendous gift.
Our actual topic at the SFF Seven this week is our favorite hero that we didn’t write. The other contributors have offered terrific, thoughtful takes on their favorite, with a satisfying range of genders/inclinations, romance and otherwise. That gives me room to go super-traditional with my alpha-male, cis-het favorite: Roarke, from J.D. Robb’s In Death books.
Roarke has been my favorite since the first book, Naked in Death, came out in 1995 and he continues to thrill me today. Yes, I absolutely read the latest in the series, book #57, Payback in Death, the moment it released earlier this month. Yes, I’ve read the entire series and re-read it, more than once. (Though, to be fair, there were only 40-odd books when I did my most recent re-read.)
Roarke is the love interest I wish I’d written. He’s the perfect combination of powerful and sensitive. With a traumatic background, he’s a reformed bad boy who hits all my buttons. Sexy, charming, wealthy, nurturing – he’s the perfect man. My first and enduring fictional love.
//About my tumultuous week and how wonderful Mary Robinette Kowal is. Also, by request, an explanation of what AI is and isn’t, and what it has to do with writing stories and creating art.
//I’m talking about author finances today and the challenge of a variable income – particularly if you don’t have a salaried spouse – and how that works out for predicting taxes. Also why I don’t think advertising is the be all and end all for Indies.
//Great week for me! Talking about being up front with my new editor on how I *can’t* write an outline, a bit about knife-throwing and learning to relish failure as much as success, and the monsoon rains of autumn.
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A praying mantis friend found her way onto my skirt the other day. Just one of many special blessings coming my way lately!
Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is the most unpublishable niche story we ever wrote.
Mine isn’t necessarily a niche story – although it was of indistinguishable genre – but it was absolutely unpublishable and totally, as KAK puts it, cringe. In truth, it’s because I can’t think of this piece without that soul-deep cringe, that it springs to mind here. It wasn’t even worthy of the word “story,” it was that terrible.
See, I’d decided to become a writer. I’d cut bait on my PhD, got my MS, got a job as an editor/writer to build my chops, and was taking night classes to learn. But I hadn’t gotten very good at the actual WRITING part. As in, I had no writing habit, I hadn’t finished much of anything, and I was pretty much just farting around. Then I heard on the radio that Wyoming Arts Council (I lived in Wyoming at the time) was offering fellowships in literature. They had a rotating schedule between fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. I could either submit something for that year’s award or wait three years. Since three years seemed like an impossibly long time then, I was determined to enter the competition that year.
Only I didn’t have anything much to submit. But! I decided that I could enter the first few pages of a novel I’d started – the only pages I had of it – and trust that the judges would be so dazzled by the sheer promise of my work that they’d fall all over themselves to give me the fellowship.
Cringe cringe cringe
I have no idea what those judges thought of my fragmented pages of nothing. I obviously didn’t win, nor did I receive any comments. Only much later did I realize just how delusionary I’d been.
But you know what? Many years later, I did win one of those fellowships. It just took time, lots of dedicated work, and pulling my head out of my delusions.
//Update on my super-exciting news! I’m still having to be circumspect, but I’m sharing broad strokes, what this means to me, how utterly thrilled I am, and what it means to persist and not set a deadline on goals.
//Some exciting (though vague for now) news for me! Also a roundup of the various platforms I use for my self-published books, since I’m wide. Also how “adult” seems to mean erotic now, and how annoying that is.
