I am the first stop on the blog tour but I have included the blog schedule below so that you can follow it throughout the week. Today, Shelley Weiner, a Faber Academy Tutor who has a wealth of experience, discusses her thoughts on That Vital Opening Line:
How
far can an enticing opening line go towards selling your
novel? In the innocent days when writers were advised to kill their darlings
and to show rather than tell, the first sentence or two were seen to be vital. Now we know differently. We try and understand our darlings and are acutely
aware that both filicide and streaking can land us in jail. As for that vital,
lucrative opening sentence – in our current state of financial uncertainty, it
takes a far more than a cute phrase to loosen the purse strings of a punter,
publisher or not.
‘But
wait!’ you say. ‘Where would Tolstoy have been without that immortal opening to
Anna Karenina – you know, that stuff about happy families etc...? Or Moby Dick
without that resonant “Call me Ishmael”?’
I wonder.
Had I, in a position of fiscal power, come upon the words, ‘It is a truth
universally acknowledged ...’ I might have yawned and thought, maybe not.
Orwell’s ‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking
thirteen,’ on the other hand – that, without a doubt, is striking. It’s chicken
and egg, though. What came first, the initial hook or the rich fictional
terrain in its wake?
In my
experience, it’s the latter. Only once the novel itself has achieved substance,
its shape settled and its tone confirmed, does an apt opening line tend to
occur.
Nestling
between that snappy first line, though, and the long-haul fictional journey
that demands suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader, is the opening scene. And here it is vital that the
stage (and parameters) are set for what follows. This scene serves as a kind of
contract with the reader, setting the tone for what follows and promising that
particular characters, in a
particular place, at a particular time are important. Hence the vital
questions I encourage new writers to ask of their novel opening:
-
Why here? Is the setting for this first scene
significant in the story?
-
Why now? Is this the best point of entry to the
story? What is special about this particular time – is it a high point? A low
point? A crisis?
-
Why these characters? Readers assume that a character on
page one will feature largely in the chapters to follow and might feel a little
cheated to discover that the pretty young girl who arrives with the tea
trolley, say, is neither victim nor perpetrator but a casual employee who pops
into the novel, never to be heard of again.
All the
above, however, doesn’t preclude the importance of that essential hook for a
reader, who has to be somehow intrigued. It’s one of those ineffable qualities,
like charm or charisma. An irresistible invitation to share a secret? Something
strange ... ?
And so,
while the first line may not be quite
enough to sell a novel, the initial few paragraphs certainly can. Unless, like
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, you’re immortalised primarily for a seven-word
opening to a novel few have read. Paul Clifford (1830) begins with the words that ‘Peanuts’
beagle, Snoopy, plagiarised for years. Even Snoopy, however, couldn’t get past
the first phrase, for the tortuous sentence in its entirety reads: ‘It
was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at
occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept
up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the
housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled
against the darkness.’
Shelley Weiner is an acclaimed
novelist, short-story writer, journalist and creative writing tutor at Faber
Academy. Her summer course ‘The 5 Day Short Story’ begins on 4 August. To view
the summer programme visit www.faberacademy.co.uk @FaberAcademy
4 comments:
What an interesting blog post! It all makes perfect sense, of course but I hadn't really thought about the "why's" before. I will never look at the beginning of a new book the same way again.
Great post, Dot!
Thanks Kim, it really made me think how often I've been put off a book when I've read the opening line.
As another participant in the Faber blog tour, I’d like to pass on Versatile Blogger Award. Your blog definitely seems to fit the bill. No obligation to accept, but I’ve found it fun. Details on my blog post today:
http://annegoodwin.weebly.com/annecdotal/5-tips-for-writing-a-powerful-short-story-by-shelley-weiner
where there’s also a link back to “the rules” of the award:
http://annegoodwin.weebly.com/annecdotal/on-versatility-awards-a-womans-place-and-camping
Do let me know if you decide to join in.
Thanks Anne, that's very kind of you xxx
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