Jeffe's 3 Principles for Crafting a Beginning

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.

1. Establish genre
2. Pose a question
3. Create sympathy for the protagonist

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. 

Should You Reference the COVID-19 Pandemic in Your Writing?

So exciting! DARK WIZARD, Book #1 in a totally new series - new world, new magic system, new everything! - is coming February 25, 2021. You can preorder now. 

Available at these Retailers

    

Yes, I know I just released a book last week, but sometimes this is how balancing an Indie career with a Trad one works out. Probably we could do a theme week on that topic. Suffice to say, I'd already planned out and begun the Heirs of Magic series, when this book - finished and very sparkly to my eye - was returned to my aegis. I could have sat on it. Or I could just launch this series, too! 

You all know me (or you should, by now) - I checked my Gantt charts and decided to go for it. 

Our actual topic at the SFF Seven this week is *not* filling the pipeline with projects in order to juggle the demands of a career as a hybrid author. It is, however, not entirely unrelated. We're discussing topicality and making choices about what to write and publish - "In These times of plague: Writing about the real world in fiction."

I recall, lo these many years ago, when I was a newbie author and soaking up All The Advice, a writing professor at my university pronounced (you may add stentorious tones, if you wish) that we should eschew anything of popular culture in our work. Such references only dated the work, and made it less than. I vividly recall everyone nodding along sagely and making erudite remarks about the banality of popular culture. So much so that, for once, I kept my mouth shut.

Though I didn't agree.

People sometimes support this argument by pointing out that Jane Austen doesn't mention Napoleon in her novels, though that was the overshadowing political force at the time. She does, however, include the presence of the regiments. The movements and stationing of The Officers! (feel free to read in Lydia's excited squeal) are omnipresent to the milieu of the stories. They're such a seamless part of the world that we don't really remark on it. Except... why are there parades of uniformed soldiers marching through these idyllic, rural hamlets? 

My point is that, even if we make the conscious choice not to mention Napoleon, the tenor of the war will invade the story regardless.

I've seen a number of authors in various groups asking about whether others are including the COVID-19 pandemic of 2019-2021 in their books. Do we show characters in lockdown? Wearing masks? Avoiding public superspreader events?

Putting those realities of our lives in this extraordinary time into our books feels... fraught. Do we really want that stuff in our escapist fiction? And yet, the alternative - at least for contemporary fiction - is to pretend it never happened, or risk our characters looking foolish, cavorting maskless in a pandemic world, coming within six feet of PEOPLE THEY DON'T KNOW.

I don't know about you guys, but I flinch now watching movies where people attend parties in close spaces, embracing and kissing on others. It didn't take all that long, relatively speaking, for my habits and worldview to change.

The advantage of writing alternate fantasy as I do is that I don't have to worry so much about this kind of thing. On the other hand, this is the world *I* live in, and - like The Officers! - aspects will infiltrate the milieu of my stories.

I've seen a number of interviews now with directors talking about how the pandemic changed their films in profound ways, leaking in where they didn't expect it. I also saw Locked Down (Baby's First COVID-19 Movie™) and enjoyed it very much. However, filmed in London in early 2020, it already felt dated in marked aspects. 

Cue sagely nodding of sycophantic students. "See?" they say. "Dated. Less than."

I disagree. Capture the moment, if that's what calls to you. As artists, we observe the world and reflect it through our own lens. That includes *gasp* popular culture. 

Besides, it's going to leak in anyway.