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Oct 23 2016

Start at the Last Possible Moment

THIS IS THE MOMENT WHEN, in your story world, everything has changed. The stranger has come to town, the father has died, the mother has left, the best friend has announced that she’s moving to Pakistan.

Like In Media Res, in which you begin in the middle of the action, this technique relies on triggering a reader’s curiosity. The world has suddenly changed. What will happen now? That’s the question you want in the back of your readers’ minds at all times, but especially at the beginning.

Some examples: In The Lovely Bones, it is the moment when Susie, a teenage girl, gets lured into a neighbor’s secret bunker. In The Hobbit, it is the moment when the wizard Gandalf appears and talks to Bilbo, then leaves a mysterious mark on Bilbo’s front door. In The Light Between Oceans, this is when the childless couple manning a lighthouse finds a baby in a lifeboat.

This technique answers the question of why a reader should care by creating drama immediately that will result in—what? We want to know what. If you start big, you can afford to fall back a bit afterwards, a least for a bit. Layer in some characteristics; maybe even give a bit of back story. You have won the first battle: getting the reader’s attention.

Starting at the last moment possible allows for a dramatic chapter one, which is great, but it raises the stakes. Your reader will probably want more of the same. Of course, it would be difficult for the writer and tiring for the reader to have constant, building drama. There is an ebb and flow to everything, even our attention. Down time is important—but not too much. The writer needs to create enough sparks in chapters two, three, and so on to prepare for the next dramatic moment without losing readers.

And a dramatic moment doesn’t have to be a natural disaster or a gunfight; it can be as small as one character’s timely decision. Drama in the Greek means “Action.” Think of how many kinds of action there are in life! So don’t worry if your novel begins not with a death, but with a simple decision to write an anonymous letter. That’s an action. That’s drama. That’s starting at the last possible moment.

Previous posts in “The Cold Open” series:

In Media Res

Oct 08 2016

The Cold Open – in media res

STARTING A NOVEL, writing that very first sentence, is as exhilarating and intimidating as riding a bicycle for the first time without training wheels.

Many new writers think they need to explain a good deal more than they need to explain. They think that the first chapter is about laying a foundation so that the story — the real story— can begin in chapter two.

They could not be more wrong.

In this and in the coming weeks, I’ll be writing a blog series about those hooks—different techniques writers have successfully to capture their reader’s attention.

In media res, or “in the middle of things,” drops your reader into the middle of the action with no warning. In other words, the action of the story began off stage, before the very first sentence, and the reader must play catch up. A great example of this is from “A Room with a View” by E.M. Forster. Here are the very first lines from Chapter One:

“The Signora had no business to do it,” said Miss Bartlett, “no business at all. She promised us south rooms with a view close together, instead of which here are north rooms, looking into a courtyard, and a long way apart. Oh, Lucy!”

“And a Cockney, besides!” said Lucy. . . “It might be London.”

Yes, the reader will be confused at first, and in fact that’s what you want. Whenever you put a question in a reader’s mind, the reader is more likely to keep reading so she can find out the answer. Of course, too much confusion results in a book thrown across the room in disgust, but usually this doesn’t happen on the very first page. When you open using the “In Media Res” technique, there is an implicit promise that whatever you are throwing your reader into will be explained. But not quite yet.

This logic also addresses the worry that readers won’t know (and care) enough about the characters to be sufficiently interested. Readers are generally patient for a few paragraphs or a page or maybe even a whole chapter, if you’re lucky. We want the writer to make us interested; that’s why we opened the book!

I’ll talk about another technique in the next blog post, which can be used in conjunction with “In Media Res”: starting at the last possible moment. And don’t worry, it’s not a pitch for procrastination (most writers don’t need that pitch, anyway).

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Martha Conway’s novel Thieving Forest won the North American Book Award in Historical Fiction, and her first novel was nominated for an Edgar Award. Her short stories have appeared in The Iowa Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Folio, and other journals. A recipient of a California Arts Council Fellowship, she teaches creative writing at Stanford University’s Online Writer’s Studio and UC Berkeley Extension.

Her new novel, Sugarland, is available now.

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Sep 07 2016

What? I thought I was done!

IT’S BEEN SIX MONTHS or more since I looked at my last novel, the one that was “done.” That novel is gearing up to go into production now, and I have a few notes from my editors, stuff to change. As I read through the manuscript for places to cut back or to develop a character more, I am getting re-acquainted with my protagonist and her dilemmas. She hasn’t changed. The problem is, I have.

I’m six months older; some things in my life are different, some aren’t, but it all goes into what I want to write about—what I think is important.

The good news is, there are a few problematic scenes that, six months later, I don’t feel as tied to as I used to. Great—get rid of them. And I have a better sense of how other people are reading the novel, not just me. I still have my own secret story of what the novel is about, but once you put a book out to the public, it becomes something else, as well. One reader might think The Great Gatsby, for instance, is all about social change; another reader might lean more toward the personal relationships depicted therein. No doubt Fitzgerald had his own views (that should go without saying!), but after a while, weirdly, his work is no longer just his.

So as I go through and cut or expand, I’m thinking about what other people have said about my story, and how I felt about it when it started, and how I feel about it now. It’s a bit overwhelming. Here are a couple of things I’ve been telling myself:

To quote Shakespeare: “The play’s the thing.” The best guide for how to change your novel is the novel itself. Sure, I didn’t start out thinking I would write about slavery and the underground railroad, but that’s what it’s turned out to be about. Go with it. Every story has its own logic, and the best stories are the ones that stay truest to that.
Not everyone will agree with the changes, but I have to agree with them. I can always tell when, on re-reading my work (even six months later), I’ve written something just because someone else told me I should. Whatever you add has to fit the scene, the character, the tone. If it doesn’t, find someplace else to add whatever it is that agent/editor/beta reader wants. And if you can’t find a place, don’t add it.
Take more breaks. Re-reading with an eye to re-writing is basically all about making decisions. Is this okay as is? Is this? Is this? Decision after decision after decision. That’s hard on a psyche. Time to order in and watch a twenty-minute sit-com, get on the elliptical, or take the dog out for a walk. Decision-making muscles (I swear those exist) have to take rests, too, in order to work well.

A wise teacher once told me, “The hardest thing is keeping everything else out.” Like probably every other writer, I have a lot to say, and I’ll just never say it all in this novel—nor should I. When you start writing, the experience of feeling idea after idea come along is exhilarating. But unless you’re Thomas Pynchon, not all of those ideas will work themselves into your plot. And that’s a blessing for your readers, who probably just want a good read.

[social_warfare]

Sep 02 2016

Sugarland – Jazz, Speakeasies, and Mayhem

Sugarland, my latest novel, was named for the corn sugar that bootleggers used to make hooch. One of the fun things about writing about the 1920s is all the great slang I could use, like hooch. My daughter has recently expressed a wish that saying “the bees’ knees” would come back into style. I agree!

The novel is an historical mystery, and I started thinking about it one evening years ago when I was listening to the song “Si Tu Vois Ma Mere” (If You See My Mother) with the great Sidney Bechet on saxophone. I realized that in the back of my mind I was envisioning a scene: a woman was walking along a cold winter street, looking for someone or something. That’s all I knew at the time; the rest came slowly. But to this day I can still see that woman: her back is to me, and she’s wearing a hat like one that my grandmother used to wear.

You can check out the Kirkus Review here. . .

And order it here. . .

In 1921, talented young jazz pianist Eve Riser is caught in a drive-by shooting that kills the bootlegger standing next to her. Rescued by Lena Hardy, the bootlegger’s sister, Eve recovers only to find that her pregnant sister Chickie has vanished. Navigating the back alleys, jazz clubs, and speakeasies of 1920s Chicago, Eve and Lena must fight racial barriers in order to save Chickie and learn the truth behind the murder.

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Jun 01 2016

Sugarland Q & A

Recently I answered a few questions for Gef Fox’s Den for Dark Fiction about the impetus for writing my latest novel, Sugarland; writers who inspire me; and my least favorite writing advice. I thought I’d post an excerpt here.

What was the spark that made you sit down to write Sugarland?

I was listening to an early piece of jazz—“Si Tu Vois Ma Mere” played by the great Sidney Bechet, and I realized I was imagining a story in the back of my mind. A woman was walking down a cold, winter road looking for something or someone. That’s all I knew.

How long have you been toiling away at your craft, and how have you found your progression as a writer thus far?

I’ve been writing since I was about five years old, only back then it was with crayon on wallpaper. Since then I’ve graduated to paper and even sometimes computer.

My first published book, 12 Bliss Street, was a mystery, which I think is absolutely the best genre for a new writer to cut her teeth on, since writing a mystery really teaches you how to build up a plot, and prepare (and exploit) reader expectations. In mysteries, every plot point is a development of something that has happened previously. There’s no wandering (even if it seems, at times, like there’s no clear direction). That’s good practice for any kind of writer.

As I move into historical fiction I find that, whether my novels include crime-solving or not, I want the plot to move fast and have a lot of twists. But every twist has to have its own logic within the story. You have to make a case for it. Sometimes I think that writing is a lot like being a lawyer.

Who do you count among your writing influences?

Dickens, definitely, for his sense of fun and his amazing characters.

What’s the worst piece of writing advice you ever received? Or what piece of writing advice do you wish would just go away?

I studied with a teacher who used to say, “Never go into a character’s head or heart.” This lends distance to the story, in my opinion, and makes it much harder for readers to care about or engage with the character.

I also dislike this advice to new writers: “If you can do anything else, do it.” Sure, writing is hard and can be frustrating and you may not succeed with your project. But I think if you want to write (even if you can do something else—William Carlos Williams sold insurance) you should try! Why not? We’re not all of us going to be Toni Morrison, that’s true, but being creative is an activity that is rewarding in and of itself. At least, I think so.

What kind of guilty pleasures do you have when it comes to books or movies or whatnot?

I love Patrick O’Brian, all his sea-faring tales. Reading read him and Jane Austen is like eating comfort food.

What projects are you cooking up that folks can expect in the near future?

My next book will be coming out in 2017; it’s called THE FLOATING THEATRE, and takes place on a riverboat theatre on the Ohio River before the Civil War. A socially awkward costume designer gets caught up in the Underground Railroad— that’s all I’ll say. 🙂