In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* Yesterday
* Don’t Tighten Your Shoelaces…
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day
“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.” Christopher Reeve
Yesterday
Yesterday was a forced day off. My brain went on hiatus, overpowered by red emotions with black edges. I wrote no fiction and only this little bit of nonfiction. I hope to get back to writing fiction today.
Life stuff. I won’t bore you with details. Suffice it to say I was in no mood yesterday to do anything but chew wheels and spit nails.
I hope to get back to some semblance of normal today. First I have to wait for my skin to shift from green to normal again and change this ripped-out t-shirt.
Anyway, to help me out my buddy Dan volunteered one of his blogettes. It actually follows nicely after my mention of openings in yesterday’s post.
Don’t Tighten Your Shoelaces After the Starting Gun Goes “Bang!”
by Dan Baldwin
I ran track in high school, and early on I learned a valuable lesson that applies to writing beginnings: Races are often won in the first second after the starting gun.
The opening of a novel (short story, screenplay, novella) is critical. If you fail to grab the reader’s attention at the very beginning, he will never race on with you through the middle and to the ending.
I have discussed this with a lot of writers. Many of them are obsessed about writing the best, most powerful, beginning possible. I’ve seen this obsession lead to a self-imposed case of writer’s block.
In the struggle to write the perfect opening, the writer becomes bogged down. He becomes frustrated and angry, which clouds his mind, slows him down even more, and only creates more frustration and anger.
I have quoted Gabriel García Márquez on beginnings before: “The most difficult thing is the first paragraph. I have spent many months on a first paragraph….”
Márquez is a great writer, but what works for him does not work for me.
I do invest time in writing an opening. I want that “grabber” of an opening, but I don’t obsess about it. I write a paragraph or a page and move on with the story.
My process is to start the writing day by reviewing the previous day’s product. I’ll touch up anything that needs a bit of work and then start on the new material. The opening gets the same treatment and that’s it.
For example, here’s my opening to the political thriller Sparky and the King:
(HS Note: My paragraphing of Dan’s openings might be off.)
“Fer Chrissakes, Jack, you’re getting blood on the customers!”
Jack ruby’s grasp on the drunk’s collar tightened as his target struggled to get off the carpeted floor of the night club. The victim’s heels kicked and slipped and he reached back to support himself for the inevitable next blow.
Jack, straddling his prey, struck his customer once more in the face, letting go of his grip at the same time. The back of the guy’s head hit the floor with the sound of a watermelon striking pavement. Jack backed away and started to straighten his hair, stopping in mid-motion because of the blood on his hands.
The opening paragraph of my thriller Vengeance begins with the thoughts of the villain.
“Dem bones, dem bones, dem… dry bones? Naw, that’s not it”. The man with the red-line eyes wiped a bit of drool from the corner of his mouth. “Foot bone connected to the leg bone. Leg bone connected to the knee bone.
No. There were more bones, lots of bones, lots and lots of bones. He scratched his left wrist as if trying to dig out the answer from his flesh. Dry bones? Bone dry? Bonehead? Boner?
The words banged around the inside of his skull like a handful of pebbles rattling in the skin of an old, dried-up gourd. They shattered and splintered into sharp, ragged pieces that punched tiny holes into his brain, holes that itched like the mosquito bites folks get back in the deep swamps. He desperately wanted to claw the inside of his head.
He was a scrawny, dried out stinkweed of a man with a sad face that could easily morph itself into the warm glow of sincerity them bumming a smoke, a ride or a hump out in the parking lot. That same face could just as easily twist into an ugly, profane snarl spiting out the devil’s own curses upon hearing the inevitable “No, sorry or get the hell out of my face!
I wrote each of those in one pass, read them over, changed a word or two and then moved on. By the end of page one or two the reader had been
- introduced to the main character,
- knew the time and place, and
- was confronted with a problem.
Those are the key elements of a good beginning.
Once you have those covered, you can safely start sprinting toward the finish line with confidence that you’re off to a good start.
When covering the three essential elements to a good beginning, remember to include sensory input. Hitting with the “sound of a watermelon striking pavement” is an example.
Soon after reading that passage the reader is introduced to the sounds of small band, the feel of table tops wet with booze, and the smell of cigarettes, cigars, cheep booze and even cheaper perfume.
In short, within a page or two the reader knows enough about the character, his setting and the problem at hand to want to read more.
Note: the problem the character faces in the opening does not have to be even related to the ultimate problem or challenges addressed in the book. It just needs to get the story rolling and the reader interested in seeing what happens on the next page.
I never obsess over writing the first paragraph when I can move on to writing the second, third and so on and so on. The real key in writing a beginning paragraph or page is to trust my subconscious mind to tell me what the characters are really up to.
I do not trust my critical mind; the sneaky little bastard always wants to “fix” my words, and that never ends well.
Beginnings are extremely important, but obsessing over an opening blocks the writer from moving on to finishing the work.
While someone following Márquez’s formula spends months drafting his opening, you can *finish a complete novel.
While the other writer is finally moving on to his paragraph number two, you’re moving on to formatting, cover design and getting the work to the marketplace. And writing the opening for the next story.
The Bottom Line: Openings are critical. But so is finishing the damn thing.
*Yes, you can. Figure 1000 words a day—a modest word count—for three months and you have a 90,000-word novel on your hands. Skip weekends, holidays and that unexpected visit from Uncle Ernie and his clan, and you can still write a good novel of a decent size within that timeframe.
***
Thanks as always, Dan.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
What Writers Need to Know About Readability The author gets into fiction writing a little way down the page. Thanks to Catherine M for the link.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 1240
Writing of Blackwell Ops 29: John Quick
Day 1…… 1781 words. To date…… 1781
Fiction for October……………………. 29181
Fiction for 2024……………………….. 770689
Nonfiction for October………………… 10790
Nonfiction for 2024……………………. 314380
2024 consumable words……………… 909108
Average Fiction WPD (October)……… 3242
2024 Novels to Date……………………….. 14
2024 Novellas to Date……………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date…………………. 17
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..……. 96
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………. 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………..… 254
Short story collections…………………….….. 29