Dale James Arceneaux has a lively post on how to stage a good opening for a novel. I disagree with him slightly, in that I believe that the opening for Demon: A Memoir is actually perfect, not just okay.*
As for me, I'm a hundred pager. If I make it to page 100 and am not yet engaged in story, I'll put it down for good. I also realize that I am not the droid that Penguin is looking for.
*The line is this: "It was raining the night he found me." It works because ostensibly, we are reading a memoir. In eight words, Tosca tells us that this is a biography of a man who is sought under unfriendly conditions, that the story is about a relationship between two people who are not intimate with each other, but needful, and that our hero is hiding from something. If you can say that compellingly in less space, I'd love to see it. The paragraph that it introduced is haunting and tense.
In short, the devil had me at "Hello."
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Opening Line of a Novel - Important or Just Crucial? You Decide!
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3 comments:
Thanks for the mention. I would like to say for the record that Demon is tied for my favorite novel of all time. I believe it is nothing short of brilliant and Tosca has earned a fan for life. Go here if you'd like to read my review: http://daylejamesarceneaux.blogspot.com/2007/10/best-christian-novel-ive-read-so-far.html
The point I was making was from the perspective of what writers such as myself have been taught. The experts say don't start a sentence with "It" and don't use "was".
I'm glad she got away with it and I wouldn't change a word.
I can't wait to read it again about a year from now.
Oh bother. Humans commenting again. I suppose I should address it.
I, too, cringe at my own writing when a "was" shows up, also due to the popular guidelines of the day. I think it is good to be aware of passive verbs, but I don't think it means that they don't have use.
Let me put it this way: how else could that sentence be written?
Rain fell that night he found me.
It rained the night he found me.
Rain soaked everything the night he found me...
Ack!
The driving climax of the sentence is "the night he found me" and we readers need to know that it is raining, too.
In other words, I believe in the strategic "it" and "was" and all the other less active, more general parts of speech that writers have a kneejerk reaction to.
They become dulling to the story when they are overused, repeated or due to laziness. I'd argue that the opening possibly has the best strategic opportunity for the proper application of passive verbs: the reader hasn't hit any yet. Especially because Lee goes almost passive-free for the rest of the book, the opening is even stronger in light of that.
Here's the really incredible thing: I could write about five paragraphs like this for every sentence in the book. That, I think, gives me some idea why those who love this book really, really love this book.
You are so sweet. Both of you--and thank you!
It's so weird to struggle with something like a story and then throw it out there convinced it's a piece of crap and wondering how ridiculed you'll be for it, and then have people react to it, be touched by it, or remember it. Now I understand the proverbial "it's a God thing," because a piece of me is super overwhelmed and still convinced it's a piece of crap and people just haven't noticed it under the candy coating.
Eww. That's a super gross image.
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