So, we are one third of the way into NaNoWriMo. How is it going? Report your progress and I will update the goals box.
Goals
Blueshift — 50k goal
Bonetti — 50k goal — at 26,000 as of 11 Nov
Clio — revise Fog — started
DConrad — 75k goal — at 15,385 as of 10 Nov
ElenaCarlena — 20k goal — will start after the election -- prep work as of 10 Nov
MettleFatigue — 1 short story — 12 words as of 10 Nov
NoBlinkers — 50k — at 1,722 as of 4 Nov
Reppa — just write! — at 2,000 as of 5 Nov
RexyMeteorite — 80-100k goal — at 20,800 as of 4 Nov
Strawbale — The Travellers — unk as of 4 Nov
TheRiversChild -- novelette to be 8500-10,000 words -- a few hundred as of 10 Nov
Then tonight, we will focus on polishing that all-important opening of our works.
In my front page Pocket of Firefox, I found this enthusiastic analysis of a novel’s opening paragraph. It is a good paragraph, certainly. I don’t think I would give it the top rank this author does. But the analysis is worth reading, and thinking about, as we try to polish the beginnings of our own stories.
The function of that first paragraph is to grab the reader. Intrigue them, involve them in story or character so they want to know more.
Start with character, or with conflict? Your choice depends partly on your writing voice. The analyzed paragraph, from We Have Always Lived In The Castle, starts with character in first person, and establishes a quirky, dark, and maybe a little twisted character as the narrator. A third person voice would not establish a narrator, but may focus on a key character to start off, or might begin in media res, in the middle of the action. Or it might focus on setting, if that will play a major role in the story. Dialogue is a way of starting with both action and character.
Some examples off my shelves:
Setting, with a bit of character:
It had been raining all day, a cold, dismal rain that penetrated through clothing and chilled the heart to numbness. Glenda trudged through it, sneakers soaked; beneath her cheap plastic raincoat her jeans were soggy to the knees. It was several hours past sunset now, and still raining, and the city streets were deserted by all but the most hardy, the most desperate, and the faded few with nothing to lose.
“Werehunter”, Mercedes Lackey
Dialogue/action:
“Meg! Guess what I found in your basement?”
I looked up from the box I was unpacking to see Dad standing in the basement doorway, his round face shining with excitement.
“A body?” An unlikely guess, but Dad was a big mystery buff — perhaps if I amused him, he’d stop playing guessing games on moving day.
“Oh, rats — you already knew? Well, how soon will the police get here? I need to move the penguins — we don’t want them any more upset than they already are.”
He disappeared down the basement steps without waiting for an answer. I abandoned my unpacking to call after him.
“Dad? I was joking. Did you really find a body? And why are there penguins in our basement?”
The Penguin Who Knew Too Much, Donna Andrews
One of my all-time favorite characterization openings:
There was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. His parents called him Eustace Clarence and masters called him Scrubb. I can’t tell you how his friends spoke to him, for he had none.
…
Eustace Clarence liked animals, especially beetles, if they were dead and pinned on a card. He liked books if they were books of information and had pictures of grain elevators or of fat foreign children doing exercises in model schools.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis
Action:
The first-quarter rocket from Moonbase put him down at Pied-a-Terre. The name he was traveling under began -- by foresight -- with the letter "A"; he was through port inspection and into the shuttle tube to the city ahead of the throng. Once in the tube car he went to men's washroom and locked himself in.
Quickly he buckled on the safety belt he found there, snapped its hooks to the wall fixtures, and leaned over awkwardly to remove a razor from his bag. The surge caught him in that position; despite the safety belt he bumped his head -- and swore. He straightened up and plugged in the razor. His mustache vanished; he shortened his sideburns, trimmed the corners of his eyebrows, and brushed them up.
"Gulf", Robert Heinlein
For a challenge, pull two of your favorite books off your own shelves. Analyze what made their opening paragraph attract you, and how it was fulfilled later in the book. Discuss in comments.
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