Beginnings and Openings
One of those wavelets has been going around the Net. At least, a week or so ago, when I was writing up some thoughts on beginnings that work for me and don't, others were thinking along the same lines.
coneycat was talking about it here, mentioning in particular a riff by Patricia Wrede here where she talks about implied promises, and gaining reader trust.
Reader trust is almost as hard to pin down as taste; some trust as soon as they identify the category of the book. If the author doesn't venture too far outside the implicit rules, the reader is along for the ride.
An author's readership is made up of those who trust that author enough to buy anything they write. A new writer has a tougher challenge, to pique the reader, and then to gain their trust.
This can be an especial challenge with sf and f because the opening has to do so much more work than a novel set in the present, in a familiar setting. So writers resort to long prologues (after all, Tolkien did it!) or Battlefield Openings, or some character sitting in a room thinking their past at the reader.
Anyway, what openings work for you, or don't?
coneycat was talking about it here, mentioning in particular a riff by Patricia Wrede here where she talks about implied promises, and gaining reader trust.
Reader trust is almost as hard to pin down as taste; some trust as soon as they identify the category of the book. If the author doesn't venture too far outside the implicit rules, the reader is along for the ride.
An author's readership is made up of those who trust that author enough to buy anything they write. A new writer has a tougher challenge, to pique the reader, and then to gain their trust.
This can be an especial challenge with sf and f because the opening has to do so much more work than a novel set in the present, in a familiar setting. So writers resort to long prologues (after all, Tolkien did it!) or Battlefield Openings, or some character sitting in a room thinking their past at the reader.
Anyway, what openings work for you, or don't?