Endings and Beginnings

In case you missed it, the incomparable Kathy Carmichael did a wonderful guest blog on writing great endings at Plotmonkeys this weekend. I love Kathy’s advice so much: she’s the woman who taught me to write (and adore) synopses. Don’t miss it!

One of the things I love so much about Kathy’s essays and workshops is that they are arranged in the same way as my thought patterns. Everything she says just makes sense to me, on a gut-deep level. I think that may be why sometimes, you need to hear the same advice a few different times before it “clicks” for you. Maybe it’s the wording, or the organization, or the examples given.

I was talking to a writing friend recently about the beginnings of books, and I realized that I have amassed a lot of different advice about how to start a book:

“Start at the moment of change.”
“Start on the day that is different.”
“Get in late; get out early.” (Okay, this last one isn’t specific to beginnings, but still applies.)

But sometimes writers are curious about how to reconcile these things with the oft-heard advice to give us a glimpse into the character’s “ordinary world.” I saw a debate recently that talks about how it’s wrong that so many people hold up Star Wars as the perfect example of starting with the “ordinary world” of Luke on a farm, etc., b/c that it’s all a lie, since it actually starts with Leia feeding the plans to the robot as Darth Vader invades her ship. Yes, it’s true that this is the first scene of the movie. But when you first meet our protagonist, Luke, it’s not him being all warrior-like. It’s him being a farmer, doing farm-boy things. Ditto for when you first meet Han Solom roguish smuggler, doing smugglery things (like, ahem, shooting first). Leia is also in her ordinary world– Imperial Senator, secret rebel. It’s all in a day’s work for the Princess.

(Leia, of the three main characters, probably has the smallest growth arc throughout the series, except for the fact that as Luke got stronger, they wimped her up a bit. The girl who withstands torture while imprisoned on the Death Star and watches the destruction of her home planet with little more than a flinch spends much of the last movie playing Snow White to a bunch of dwarfs Ewoks.)

But I digress. the point is, the Star Wars example is talking about introducing the protagonist, which is, in almost all cases, where you start your story. That bit on the ship is really prologue, which is what happens when you have an inciting incident (here, kidnapping the Princess, secret plans, etc.) that occurs “off screen” for the protag. A similar example would be the murder in the Louvre in The Da Vinci Code. If you’re anti-prologue (I’m not, but I know folks who very vehemently are), then you’re always talking about introducing your protagonist.

In evaluating manuscripts in contests, etc., probably the single most common problem I’ve seen is books that don’t start in the right place. I know a lot of writers who advise folks to write three chapters, then cut out the first two. I never understood that advice until I judged a bunch of contests where the first chapter was nothing except exploring the character.

That’s another thing about writing advice. Sometimes it’s easier to understand when you see examples that do it wrong. I advise new writers to judge contests. Bad books can teach you a lot about how to write well.

I think people get confused about how one can both show the ordinary world and start at the moment of change. That’s why I like the description, “start on the day that is different” a little better, because then you can see those last idyllic (or not so idyllic, depending) moments of ordinary world before things start to fall apart.

One example of this that I really love is Jana DeLeon’s debut, Rumble on the Bayou. Now, don’t tell Jana, but I judged this first chapter in a contest back in the day, and it blew me away. One of the strongest openings of any book I’ve ever read. Seriously, go read it. I’ll wait.

Now, the brilliant thing about Jana’s first chapter is that the character doesn’t even know that things have changed for her. Even the outlandishness of a gator in the town drunk’s pool is still just business as usual for the sheriff-cum-game warden Dorie Berenger of Gator bait, Louisiana. But when she pulls out that backpack of heroin, her neat little world splits wide open.

Now, keeping that in mind, let’s look at that third bit of beginnings advice: get in late, get out early. Like that? I stole it from our friends the screenwriters. Basically, it means start the scene at the last possible moment before it doesn’t make sense, and end it at the last second that it’s interesting. You’ll notice that Dorie’s “day that is different” doesn’t start with her waking up in the morning, making coffee, brushing her teeth, checking her email… heck, it doesn’t even start with her showing up at the station and getting a call to go over to the town drunk’s place. Nope, it starts whens he gets her first look at the gator in the pool.

Because that’s the moment of change.

What are some of your favorite story openers? First lines, or just summations of first scenes. Books, movies, we’re all friends here!