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image credit: 20th Century Fox

GIVEAWAY: I am so very excited to announce the Nov. 2012 release of my newest book: CREATE YOUR WRITER PLATFORM. It’s a book all about how to build your visibility, brand, network and discoverability so you can better market yourself and your books. I’m giving away 2 copies to random commenters based in the U.S. and Canada; comment within one week to win. Good luck! (UPDATE: C.L. and Staci Troilo won.)

My columns usually discuss the business of writing, but today I’d like to try a thought on writing craft — specifically: a guideline on how to start your novel.

One of the most common reasons why agents and editors stop reading sample pages is simply that the story starts too slow. Gone are the days when a book could “get good on page 12.” We also can no longer compare our writing to classic works or even books written 30 years ago that started slow and found marketplace success. Today’s novels — especially debut novels — must grab readers from the first page, the first paragraph, even the first sentence.

Despite the fact that the importance of starting strong appears to be well known by most aspiring writers, people still have a hard time with it. I was freelance editing a client’s first 15 pages last year and was dismayed to see that all 15 pages simply described a mystical woman walking across the desert heading for task at a faraway location. There was no question that the writer had talent — this was good, descriptive writing. But it was also boring as hell. 15 pages of essentially nothing happening. That is kind of an extreme example, sure, but this problem — starting too slow — also exists in smaller, more subtle forms.

This past summer, I sat with two literary agents on a “Literary Idol” panel at a writers’ conference where people read their first page and we would raise our hands when we would “stop reading” the submission, as if we were considering a real page one in the slush pile. I specifically remember two participants and the agents’ similar feedback to both. One story started out with a man stewing in his apartment about something. At the end of the (fairly boring) first page, there was a great, jarring line about how the man set down his gun on the windowsill — a gun that we did not know he was holding. The two panel agents both told the writer that this mention of the gun should be the book’s first line. The second memorable submission had the same issue. A fantastic potential first line — something like “I was forced to grow up at such an early age that I have no true memories of my childhood” — was pushed too far down in the text.

These great opening lines were buried — all because of the simple fact that writers simply do not start their book with the best, carefully chosen words and hook us in immediately. Then it hit me: Holy cow. Maybe examining the start of James Cameron’s TRUE LIES could help writers understand a simple fix to their problem. I discussed my thoughts then and there on the panel, and want to share them with you here.

(Here is as good a place as ever for me to update this older post with a quick plug: I am now taking on clients as a freelance editor. If your query or synopsis or manuscript needs a look from a professional, please consider my editing services. Thanks!)

How TRUE LIES Figures Into All This

This is how the 1994 film TRUE LIES begins (I’ll be a bit broad): It’s dark. We see tall dark trees at night. So it’s not just dark — it’s nighttime, outdoors. More specifically: an empty wintery landscape. White snow everywhere. In the distance is the only real thing to see: a big mansion — a grand chateau with warm yellow lights seen from a distance through the windows. The moonlight reflects off the white surface (snow) everywhere. Closer to the mansion now: There is an iron gate that seems to run alongside a river or lake. That water is frozen over. Patrolling the snowy grounds near this gate are guards — but a closer look reveals that the guards have machine guns, and some of them walk with snarling guard dogs. Away from the guards along the ice, the frozen top of the water cracks in a tiny spot as a very big knife cuts through the ice from below. From the tiny hole in the ice pops the head of a secret agent in black scuba gear.

This is how the movies get to start a story. This is not how a novel should get started. A movie can go outside-in. A novel should go inside-out.

If this story were a novel and you wanted to get the audience’s attention, what would your first line or two be? I’d guess something like, “Harry’s knife cut through the ice from below. His eyeline ascended above the frozen water, and he could make out guard dogs in the distance even before the fog in his scuba mask cleared…” From there, once the audience is hooked, slowly move outward, engineering the beats of the movie in reverse. The whole start to your novel could look like this:

  1. Harry’s knife cuts through the ice / intrigue.
  2. Harry secretly emerges from the freezing water / danger.
  3. Mention of the guard dogs / more danger.
  4. Mention of the men with automatic weapons / more danger.
  5. Mention of the chateau (Harry’s desired destination).
  6. Mention of the nighttime.
  7. Mention of the snow, the reflection, the darkness, the beauty of an European countryside in the winter, etc. Perhaps here you would even mention that the location is actually Switzerland.

PhotobucketThat’s how you take an opening and make it go inside-out. If you begin your novel with 2 paragraphs describing the trees and night and moonlight, then spend another 2 paragraphs describing the chateau and the yellow light and the winterscape, then the reading editor or agent will never even get to the semi-good part (the guys with guns) let alone the true “hook” line about the man/agent cutting through the frozen river on a secret mission.

I hope that my watching of James Cameron’s movies a million times over through high school & college has helped you somewhat. (Sidenote: ALIENS is awesome. It holds up so well.) Don’t forget to comment below for a chance to win a book! Happy holiday season, all!

GIVEAWAY: I am so very excited to announce the Nov. 2012 release of my newest book: CREATE YOUR WRITER PLATFORM. It’s a book all about how to build your visibility, brand, network and discoverability so you can better market yourself and your books. I’m giving away 2 copies to random commenters based in the U.S. and Canada; comment within one week to win. Good luck! (UPDATE: C.L. and Staci Troilo won.)

Other posts by Chuck Sambuchino:

 

As an editor for Writer's Digest Books, Chuck Sambuchino edits GUIDE TO LITERARY AGENTS as well as CHILDREN'S WRITER'S & ILLUSTRATOR'S MARKET. His humor book, HOW TO SURVIVE A GARDEN GNOME ATTACK, has been featured by Reader's Digest, USA Today, the New York Times and AOL News; film rights were recently optioned by Sony. He also authored the third edition of FORMATTING & SUBMITTING YOUR MANUSCRIPT (2009), and is a produced playwright, magazine freelancer, husband, cover band guitarist, chocolate chip cookie fiend, and owner of a flabby-yet-lovable dog named Graham.
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