Beginnings and Openings

[sartorias]

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

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[links] Link salad manages to find Sunday on a map

[pingback_bot]

User jaylake referenced to your post from [links] Link salad manages to find Sunday on a map saying: [...] Sherwood Smith asks about beginnings and openings in fiction [...]

[puddleshark]

These days I don't have much patience for epic openings with Gods and histories of Kingdoms etc. I tend to be drawn in simply by character, whether it be a character observing a busy scene, a character being chased, a character trudging down a road for reasons yet to be explained...

I don't normally go for flashy openings, but having said that, my favourite ever fantasy opening is from 'The Wizard Hunters' by Martha Wells:

'It was nine o'clock at night and Tremaine was trying to find a way to kill herself that would bring in a verdict of natural causes in court when someone banged on the door.'

[sartorias]

That is a terrific opening indeed.

Sometimes familiarity makes it tougher for older readers . . . when I was a kid, the Sword of Destiny discovered by the orphan with the mysterious past was a surefire draw for me.

I don't think I ever cared for the History of the Gods--but then I have never finished the Silmarillion, either.

[tekalynn]

I've always loved the History of the Gods. I had a hard time getting through the Silmarillion because I thought there wasn't *enough* of that stuff.

[sartorias]

Heh! :-) I know several people who find that aspect of Tolkien's work their favorite.

[kalimac]

Two kinds of openings that irritate me:

1) Conversations that don't set the scene properly. Voices that are talking out of a vacuum with the reader having no idea where they're located, what they're talking about, who they are. You don't have to spell everything out, but give us some context. I'm thinking of a mystery novel that begins with a cop questioning a suspect. I'd assumed they were in a police station. Suddenly a dining-room table appears. Unintentional incongruity!

2) Authors who know they need an expository lump to fill the reader in, but are afraid to begin a novel with anything other than an action scene, so they have the characters hold "As you know, Bob" conversations with each other, or - worse - with themselves in their own heads, in the unlikeliest circumstances. I'm thinking of the historical novel beginning with the protagonist taking the time to review his own life story to himself, in implausible detail, as a huge battle is raging all around him. You can just tell us this stuff, author; don't force the

[sartorias]

Anent that first one, I get impatient with beginnings that go on with "He" or "She" for pages--I don't know why it's so important, but give me a name.

[kalimac]

This isn't limited to openings, but conversations that go on for pages without character-identification tags. OK if the two characters are strongly differentiated in speech style or in the content of what they're saying; but otherwise I have to go back and count up paragraphs from the last time they were identified to figure out who's saying what.

[sartorias]

Yeah, that's a toughie for really visual writers--who see the scene so clearly that they think their brain waves are emanating to the reader. (A problem *kaff* some of us have never quite licked.)

[kalimac]

Oh, and I've only seen this one once, and I hope never to see it again.

3) Openings in which all the characters, and even the entire world, knows what is going on and what the plot controversy is about, except the reader who is being kept in the dark by the author's attempt to create obnoxious suspense. (The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell)

[beth_bernobich]

I love openings that combine a distinctive voice with an invitation to hear something interesting.

ETA: For me, the opening includes the first page at least. A single sentence is hardly enough time for me to love or hate or get bored. (Though sometimes that happens, if the first sentence is extra clunky or cliched.)

[sartorias]

It's how we define "hear something interesting" where opinions begin to ramify. Any general observations?

[beth_bernobich]

Oh, I agree that opinions ramify. The thing is, what's interesting to me isn't necessarily interesting to someone else, and vice versa. Keeping that in mind, what I find interesting is a sense of things on the cusp of change *and* with a sense of this is someone's particular story. I want grounding and the signal that forward motion will take place Very Soon.

[sartorias]

Yes--that cusp of change, totally agree. Doesn't have to be big change right away, but something.