Blogger: Janet Kobobel Grant
I love that the Bible begins in just the right spot: “In the beginning God created.” Chaos succumbs to order. It’s the ultimate conflict! Genesis’s beginning makes so much sense to us; I can’t imagine a better opening.
Unfortunately, the choices aren’t so obvious when it comes to our own writing. I remember hosting a dinner table at the Writing for the Soul Conference a couple of years ago and asking each person what he or she was working on.
One woman recounted her novel’s storyline and then asked me if I thought she should cut the first couple of pages, which some of her critique partners had suggested. She was having trouble murdering those darling paragraphs that she had labored over for months.
I do believe a hush fell over the table as I said, “I think you should start the story in the middle of the manuscript. Everything before that point is backstory.”
Everyone at the table, including me, wondered how the writer would respond to such a radical concept. She chewed on the idea, and as she did, her expression lightened, and she exclaimed, “That’s perfect! Why didn’t I see it before?” Then she rattled off how that would open up new vistas in the novel.
Now, I wish I could proclaim myself some sort of genius for having made the suggestion, but the truth of the matter is that I’ve read enough manuscripts that I know starting in the wrong place is a common malady.
Often the writer is so immersed in the story, has done so much research, and knows the characters so well, that she is tempted to do a brain dump in the book’s opening. So much detail is clogging the writer’s mind that she wants to bring the reader up to speed right off.
What the novelist forgets is that the reader isn’t ready to discover the complex underlying motivations for the protagonist’s first actions. Rather than introducing the character to us, the author in essence pulls out the character’s entire psychological profile. I’m so not ready for that! Why, I’m not even on a first-name basis with the character yet. Ease me into the relationship with a gentle introduction.
I also don’t need the complete physical description. Don’t provide me with any until it naturally fits in the story.
In addition to wanting to provide too many details about the character (or characters), writers are tempted to start with the backstory. I just finished reading a manuscript in which the story began with a woman calling a restaurant to make a reservation. The next thing I knew, I was being told the restaurant owner’s life history. Totally backstory stuff. I didn’t care yet. I hadn’t even met that character; I’d only been introduced to the woman phoning the restaurant, which made the backstory material all the more confusing for me. I wasn’t sure who the novel’s key character was.
The more complex the story, the more tempting to provide too much information too soon. The political atmosphere, the setting, and the main characters all demand to be front and center on the first pages, which quickly turn into a traffic jam, with the poor reader overwhelmed by all the detail.
As a reader, what I look for are “anchors” that settle me into the story and keep me from being carried off by strong winds. I want to care about the protagonist; give me reason to do so. I want to know the elemental details about the story’s setting. And I want to know what conflict the character is facing right now. Drop the anchors in the middle of a pensive moment. Fill in details later.
How do you know where to start your novel? Often it’s in the middle of the story as you’ve outlined it. Go ahead, be daring, give it a try.
Do you have trouble figuring out where to begin your manuscript?
What tricks have you learned that help you to see creative options?
I had started my MS in the darkest spot in the heroine’s life. Like, REALLY dark! But after some sage advice from a very gracious and generous Yoda, I re-tweeked things. Now the MS begins at the happiest spot. A wedding is coming, silk is involved, beads and lace have come to dance, beauty is everywhere.
Or is it?
My heroine thinks she’s about to marry Mr Right, but by the end of the sunny, perky, rainbows and unicorns, candy and roses first chapter, WE know her life is about to explode.
I think it was Heather Day Gilbert who first got me thinking about using the very last line of a chapter to give my readers whiplash and make them yell “what??” then rip over to the next page.
Dialogue can care of backstory, but try not to go all “Days of Our Lives” with it.
Colour can provide backdrop and set a mood, while saving word count for more important things- “the early morning sky was the colour of cold steel” or “waves of soft cloud swam against warm cobalt across the afternoon horizon”.
I have a huge file entitled “back story” on my computer(thank you Christina Berry!), that way, I can add bits and pieces of information and not drown my reader with boring back story.
Great ideas! I just started a file called “deleted scenes”. Maybe it will be a special section on my author website someday 🙂 I know Stephanie Meyer did that with Twilight, of course readers wanted every little extra piece they could… if you are a fan of course.
Mine is called “cutting floor”. 🙂
HA–I think Heather Day Gilbert might HAVE mentioned using a massive HOOK at the end of the chapter, yes. And you have used it well, my friend!
And Janet, I agree that we, as the authors, have to put a LOT of thought into where we drop into our story. I love my prologue (and it’s necessary), but it took me no less than four or five complete re-writes on chapter one to land people RIGHT where I wanted them–snugged up w/my MC, ready to go on a hook-a-liscious ride into Viking times.
Haha. Heather, the fact that you just used “hook-a-liscious” just cracked me up! 🙂
And welcome back, Jennifer!!
Thank you, Heather and Morgan!
You crack me up, Miss Jennifer! Just remember, someone taught me to cut my backstory as well! 🙂
I love your idea of keeping a separate file for backstory, Christina.
That’s a great idea! I need to do that, because sometimes I have the backstory all figured out OR have a little moment of genius that unfortunately passes quickly. With a backstory file, I could bop over, type my great idea in and not lose it. I do keep a file entitled “cut” because that makes it easier for me to cut pretty prose that is in the way of the story.
I just cut my first page, its completely gone! I never thought I would do that. Now I’m going back through, its painful, but what emerges is more concise and intriguing. It’s actually a little freeing to give yourself permission to let go.
Lisa, that’s a good point: It can be freeing to decide to cut a darling page or 20. Because suddenly you see the way forward so clearly.
This is great. I am still not sure I’ve landed the opening of my book. One thing I’ve learned is to place my character in an active setting, where s/he is doing something. So, if one setting isn’t working to begin my story with a bang, then I can brainstorm a different setting. I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s the theory I’m working with right now. 🙂
Thanks for your insight and wisdom, Janet!
A change a venue is a good plan, Jeane. If that doesn’t work, then maybe the action you had planned is the problem.
Thanks for the thought, Janet. You’re right. More for me to consider. 🙂
Opening the book or chapter with action is imperative, but don’t forget to introduce a question to the readers mind as well. Withholding information can create delicious tension.
You’re absolutely right, Jenni. Causing the reader to ask a question is imperative to a good beginning.
I love questions! When you use them, Jenni, do you state it, or do you show it through a character’s internal thoughts?
Wow. Exceedingly helpful! This blog is my daily writing vitamin. : )
Shauna, so glad we can provide the essential nutrients you need for your writing.
I agree, Shauna. Even when I don’t comment, I soak up inspiration and ideas here like a thirsty sponge.
My first effort started waaay in the wrong place. But by book #3 I’ve finally learned something about starting in the midst of action and angst. Now I think I do a much better job.
A trick I’ve learned to make sure EVERY chapter moves the story forward is to do a chapter-by-chapter outline. Once I’ve written “The End” I write down a 2-3 sentence summary of what happens in each chapter. Which is how I came to cut Chapter 10 of The Memory of Drowning. What happened? Um, nothing. CUT. I gotta say, it’s pretty liberating.
Oh, and I recommend entering contests like ACFW’s First Impressions and Genesis. The readers will SO tell you if you start in the wrong place (and offer advice about how to make it better!).
Entering contests is a great way to test your book’s opening. Great idea!
I teach a workshop in my daughter’s school where the students start their story in the middle, then write a scene that takes place after it, then a scene that takes place before it, and finally they write a scene or two that connects them all to make a short story. I’m a fan of starting in the middle, though I don’t always do it for my own projects. Why is that? Hmmm…now you have me thinking.
What an intriguing writing exercise. I wonder what would happen to your manuscripts if you started them in what you thought was the middle…because it might be the beginning.
I don’t remember where I heard this, but someone said to write a book with no back story. Then at the end, read through it and sprinkle in the little bit here and there that the reader must get to understand it. The idea was to trust your reader to be smart enough to figure things out.
To me, that advice has worked well. The back story does play a part in my current WIP, but I’ve never needed to stop, go back, and share the past. The things my characters are thinking and saying right now make it all clear.
That’s very interesting. I never thought of working that way. I would like to try it.
I agree with Sarah about entering contests. My first novel started way wrong, and although I still love the idea, it’s in a drawer for now. By my second novel, I had learned from Angela Hunt about starting in the character’s regular world but with some sort of disturbance or problem. It doesn’t have to be big, just something interesting that helps the reader learn about the character. So, I started novel #2 completely different, and a multi-published award-winning judge told me she loved how she met my MC in the beginning of the book.
That’s a wonderful affirmation that you’re learning those important, elemental concepts that are so easy to lose sight of.
Janet, the issue of backstory is exactly what I’m dealing with right now. I write inspiration historical and it’s sooo hard not to overload readers with backstory and historical fact to “get them to speed.”
I am currently going through my novel once more to cut out these backstory moments. I’m involved with the ACFW critique loop and the feedback has been incredible and so helpful.
Morgan, you do have a double challenge: historical detail and backstory. Either or both can so muddle the story. Yet both can be key to understanding what’s going on.
My original first chapter on my current wip is now chapter 4 🙂 I had the opposite problem with this one. I do try to start as close to the “end of the world” moment for the mc, but in this case, I needed to get the reader to care about the characters earlier. So I created some drama for them—drama that does weave its way into future chapters, so it’s not drama for the sake of drama—and showed the reader the relationships between the characters earlier than before.
And that suggestion came from the editor I’m working with, so I trusted the “add a little more” onto the beginning, and she made sure it wasn’t boring back story 🙂
Those are very helpful tips, Sarah. Thanks for sharing them.
Can I just be the cold water here? I HATE that I ALWAYS have to ax my first chapter. But inevitably, I do. And inevitably, it’s always a better story. And inevitably, I’m glad I did. But if I know I’m going to ax it, why do I ALWAYS write that awful first chapter? ALWAYS!
Then again, maybe that’s my method…. Maybe I HAVE to write that bit of back story just to solidify it all in my head. I’m a bit of a pantser (okay, a LOT of a pantser) and the first chapter might just translate into someone else’s outline/plotting/3x5card file…..
Thanks for your post today – lots to chew on.
Blessings,
Becky, yup, some authors have to write that first throwaway chapter. It’s maddening, isn’t it? But apparently this is how you get into your story.
Because I understand the odds, I suspect my first novel will never be published. I do believe, however, that my opening lines and paragraphs are pristine.
Your site has helped me accomplish that. Thank you.
Shirley, I’m so pleased that we were able to help you reach “pristine.” While the odds are tough, a great opening to your novel goes a long way to catching publishing professionals attention.
And, umm, at the risk of sounding like I’m sucking up, which I am most certainly not, can I say something?
I’ve been out of town for 2 1/2 weeks, and holy smokes, I MISSED THIS BLOG!!! To be unable to here was rather challenging.
It’s good to be back.
*to connect here
Thank you, Christine. And thank you Janet.
That went well…
And you were missed, Jennifer. Welcome back. 🙂
Let me just say that I missed you as well.
Do you have that friend that starts to tell you something really exciting but gives so much backstory you want to reach over and yank the news out of her throat and beat her w/ it?
Yeah, that’s my Chapter 1 🙂 I always have to kill it. But it gets me to where I’m going.
Ahahaha! This was brilliant!! What an excellent analogy! Yes, I have a friend like that and my brain glazes over whenever she calls. I will remember this for my own work. Thank you!
Damn. I am one of those friends! They tell me to edit constantly when I’m speaking a story. But, for some strange reason, I don’t seem to do that in my fiction because it drives ME nuts when other authors vomit backstory and descriptive on the page. Go figure, but I do feel bad for my friends!
I’ve told critique partners they needed to cut a lot at the beginning before. I think sometimes you have to write that extra stuff so you can know your characters better before the real story starts.
With that in mind, I started my mg right in the middle of an exciting scene. An agent critiqued the first ten pages and told me while she liked what I wrote and my voice, she needed to know the characters before they were in harms way and recommended a couple hf books to read. She was right. It lets my readers see who my characters are under normal circumstances before the Blitz. 🙂
Yup, we need to care about a character so, when the character is in peril, it matters to us.
“As a reader, what I look for are ‘anchors’ that settle me into the story and keep me from being carried off by strong winds.”
I love this, and I think these words are a bit of an anchor for ME, as this is one of the lessons I’ve been learning. I do tend to over-write detail. I also just finished Jeff Gerke’s “the First Fifty Pages,” and in it he warned against any shred of backstory in the first 50 pages unless it was absolutely critical at that very moment. That gives me at test to run my details through as I write: is this absolutely necessary at this very moment, or can I wait to drop it in at a more meaningful place?
Thank you, Janet!
The first 50 pages with no backstory is a great challenge. Good for Jeff for suggesting it.
I’m a student in the Steven Moffat School of Characterization and Storytelling. In other words, I’m a massive Doctor Who fan. One of the key phrases for Doctor Who right now is this: Every story has a beginning, a middle and an end. Just not always in that order. Watching the development of River Song has been an amazing learning experience. Her timeline is told in a more screwed up way than the Doctor’s. We met her at the end of their story and I hated her. Then as we traveled backward in her timeline and forward in the Doctor’s, I fell in love with her and now I miss her when she’s not in an episode. It’s nothing short of sheer genius.
When I’m writing, and reading, I love his POV best. Don’t know why, always have. So of course I usually start in his POV. But this works even if it’s her. My personal rule is to find THE moment my hero’s life changes and start in the middle of that moment. So far it’s worked pretty well for me.
It’s fascinating to see the different types of prompts each writer has to help her to start a story in the “right” place.
Another Doctor Who fan here, from way back! Those newer shows are great, too!
I’m on a huge learning curve with my WIP. I’ve had to do more world-building for this YA dystopian/steampunk novel than I have for my previous supernatural romances. All that world-building is a good thing, but it paralyzed me for awhile. Then I realized all that matters for now is my heroine’s view of her world and the events happening to her. I decided to start the book on the very edge of normal, meaning the last few moments of normal life for my heroine. That tiny bit of normal and the inciting incident show her world more effectively than pages of backstory. At least, I hope they do.
I’m especially excited to edit and rewrite this story, weaving in all the details of my world-building where appropriate. And perhaps taking some unnecessary details out. I won’t know until then if I’ve truly started in the right place.
Your comments just go to show what an adventure writing is. One doesn’t know sometimes whether the writing is going well or not. Sure, we all have our instincts, but adding layers can reveal structural issues you didn’t realize you had.
Thank you, Janet, for this. You’ve given many good points to think about.
I had to write five drafts of my adult psychological novel before I knew where to begin. In the first draft, I told the story in chronological order which was, to be blunt, boring. The story is about two friends whose codependent relationship leads to a violent episode between them (ultimately it is a story of forgiveness). By the second draft, I knew that I wanted to start with “the incident,” but I still ended up doing it wrong. In drafts two through four, the story opened with paramedics working on two males in their mid-twenties, both of whom were unconscious. I got lots of feedback that I had a good hook. The opening scene was action-packed. There were two problems though: a)readers thought the main characters were the paramedics and b) the real main characters were unconscious!
I did find it difficult to cut that scene. Having been a nurse, I loved all of the “Start an IV D5W to KVO” dialogue. But it had to be done and the book is much better for it. Now the story opens just before the paramedics get there. The protagonist, gazing numbly at the blood dripping from his fingers, feels as empty as the space between himself and the inert body of his former friend. Well, the space is almost empty. Lying between them is a bloody letter opener and shards of glass from a broken lamp. After a brief memory about the day the two met, the protagonist slips into the darkness.
I had great fun writing this scene because I’m playing with the readers. (Don’t shoot me; it’s not as unfair as it sounds.) Since no one will be reading the novel any time soon (I’m focusing on finishing my YA novel), I can tell you that the blood on his hands is his, not his friend’s. And his friend isn’t dead. He is inert because he is unconscious. When the protagonist slips into the darkness, he doesn’t go out into the night, fleeing the scene of the crime; he lets himself fall into unconsciousness. But the readers don’t know any of that until later, so he seems to be a murderer. Then he is more fully introduced in a flashback scene and he seems like such a likable guy, I’m hoping the readers will wonder how he could become a murderer. By the end of the chapter, the story has moved to a few days after the violent incident and the readers discover that the friend is alive, in the hospital with a head injury, and accused of the attempted murder of the protagonist. But the charge of attempted murder is based on the protagonist’s statement that his friend meant to kill him. So the first chapter sets up a what’s-really-going-on-here and who-do-you-believe situation that will make readers want to keep reading. And I owe it all to killing my paramedics. If I hadn’t bumped them off, readers would know from the beginning that Danny, the protagonist, is a good guy. Like the writer in your post, Janet, changing the beginning of my story opened up possibilities I hadn’t considered before. It gave me insight into a new and, hopefully, more exciting way to tell the story.
Thanks, Christine, for walking us through your decision-making process as you changed your opening. Your rundown on how you ending up with a different intro showcases how we often hold onto a certain direction out of personal pleasure (loving the medical conversation) rather than what serves the reader.
Death permeated the house like the exhalation of a stale breath.
This was the first line of my WIP, but alas, no more. As I continue to learn here, and in books about the craft of writing, the reader wants to see the transition that the main character takes from the ‘old’ way of life into the throes of conflict. The tasty seasonings of backstory can be sprinkled throughout, which will hopefully make the reader lick their lips, in anticipation of the next course. 🙂
You’ve got it!
Thank you for this post, Janet. Sometimes I need a reminder of how to really write a novel. It’s amazing how easy it is to fall back into old and foolish habits!!
Alas, that’s true for so much more than novel-writing.
LOL! “I Was A Middle-aged Backstory Victim!”
I am getting back into “story”, (and connecting sentences), after spending years writing verse, terse and honed, in choral, opera and scriptlets. Having tons of fun practicing, and loving it. Horridly long intros, all backstory and no plot, in media res, (but there isn’t a middle to begin with), no action, run on sentences, you name it. Great bad practice, on purpose! Learning LOTS! (And please excuse my “full” sentence construction – a skill to be regained, currently in the silly-putty phase).
…..I am also the manager of 2 rooming houses, and though I love my tenants dearly, backstory in real life doesn’t apply there, either, if there is a current problem. State the problem, here’s a solution, GO! 2 minutes, into the handle, already forward to the next action scene, as it were. Otherwise it’s 45 minutes of becoming zombified and wandering lost in Huh?land. Managing living people is SO totally applicable to pacing and writing.
….. Unless I am bored witless, (rarely), seeking and stretching out crumbs, I don’t want to hear ‘around’ it, and have developed a wicked “cut to the chase, man!” I know I don’t have the patience to wade through it. I don’t want to read it OR write it. I live in fear of putting anyone else through it. I am already traumatized on that score. (Yes, I know you miss your long passed poodle, and couldn’t get to the bank because of the blear in your eye and tear in your beer, but are you simply telling me your rent will be a day late?)
This is something I truly wish to bring (or leave out), in my writing. Thank you for reinforcing the “when it is appropriate!”.
I like Les Edgerton’s book ‘Hooked.’ Great advice for beginnings.