The First Paragraph
Posted on | October 15, 2009 | 26 Comments
How do you start a book?
I’ve been thinking a lot about this question since ninja agent/blogger Nathan Bransford began running his “The 3rd Sort-of-Annual Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph Challenge”.
I put in the first paragraph of my work in progress and forgot about it for a day or so. When I went back there were almost 2000 entries. I read a few, skimmed a few and bailed out of most of the entries I read within a few words. Of the hundred or so I read first, and then the almost five hundred I read after that I found around ten that would have enticed me to keep reading.
That’s not a good way to begin your book.
So how should you do it? I can only give you my personal likes and dislikes, as there are as many ways to start a book and there are words in every language on earth. There are a few things that stood out to me though:
Short and snappy
If your opening paragraph is too long, say more than five sentences, then there is every chance you’ve started your book to soon and are trying to give me too much detail. I don’t need to know the time, weather, clothes your character is wearing or what they had for breakfast. All I really need to know in that first paragraph is that something is happening. You have the rest of the book to describe the scene to me. Of course there are exception, there are some great writers that start out with some direct scene setting details and it still works, but the vast majority of the bad entries to Nathan’s contest* tried to cram too much into a small space.
I don’t need a full name
I’m not saying you can’t have a full name in there, but you need to work it in casually. Personally I prefer it if a writer gives me a first name to start with a works in a surname later.
Death’s Allusion
If you’re going to start with violence or death, allude to it; don’t just dump a corpse on me (figuratively speaking). A friend of mine is writing a forensics type novel and she sets up the first death scene so well that you actually care about the character when the killer gets to them. I can’t care about a character death if it happens in the first line or two.
Voice
This is a little harder to define, but let’s say I’m browsing a book store and I pick up your story. I’ll read the blurb and the first page or so to see if I want to buy it. If I don’t like, or even worse, can’t get a feel for how you write in that first page, then I probably won’t be taking your book to the counter. The best way to impart your voice to a page is to lay off the direct description and let me try and work out what’s going on for myself. A good example of that kind of opener is from Stephen King’s Dark Tower series:
“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”
How could I not want to read on? King doesn’t burden us with details, but he does establish that the gunslinger is chasing the man in black for some reason, and the gunslinger’s pursuit so bothers the man in black that he’s fled across a desert to get away.
What was my first paragraph? For the current work it’s:
Hunting down one amongst thousands of zombies is never easy. It’s worse when your brother is in your ear telling you what to do.
I tried to keep it short and snappy without dumping anything in anyone’s lap. I’m far too close to my own stuff to be really objective**, but I quite like it.
Of course the rest of your book has to be good, but in order to get a chance to show someone that you’ve got a great story, you need a great opening or there’s every chance the good stuff will end up in the bin/rejection pile/bonfire with the bad.
P.S Special message for Carrie of Heim Binas Fiction: Enter the contest. You’re really good, show the world!
* They’re not all bad. There are some in there that are good enough to restore my faith in mankind.
** A couple of days ago I wrote something so bad it endangered literature.
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October 16th, 2009 @ 3:35 am
(Did my comment not post? DRAT!)
Yesterday I drafted a blog post about this exact contest, and was writing how I didn’t think my first paragraph was contest-winning, even though I think it’s just right for my story… and then I wake up today and read this! Thank you for the vote of confidence!
I linked back to you in my blog today. And yes, I’ll reconsider entering Nathan’s contest.
I think your first paragraph is awesome — a hint of action, a hint of amusing characters and a family relationship… (Is the brother older or younger or twin? I wanna know!)
October 16th, 2009 @ 3:36 am
Oh, and I’m quite sure you never endangered literature.
October 16th, 2009 @ 4:58 pm
I don’t know, it was pretty bad. Perhaps literature is safe from me for the time being, but you never know what I might write this evening.
October 16th, 2009 @ 4:59 pm
I hope you entered/will enter, of course you don;t have too, but I think you’re in with a shot!
October 17th, 2009 @ 2:44 am
That’s VERY kind of you! Because of your encouragement, I DID enter my first paragraph, even though it’s only one sentence, and only 4 words long!
And I won’t feel bad if I don’t make it to the final round… there were 2,651 comments/entries. That’s HEARTSTOPPING. Maybe at least my super-short entry allowed for a bit of mental rest among the long entries…
October 17th, 2009 @ 8:50 pm
Another of the most awesome openers i’ve ever read is from The Graveyard Book : “There was a hand in the darkness and it held a knife.” I want to be Neil Gaiman when i grow up.
October 18th, 2009 @ 12:22 am
We all want to be Neil Gaiman when we grow up, sadly Neil himself really has the market cornered on being Neil Gaiman.
December 18th, 2009 @ 10:55 pm
[...] Jack’s Writing Blog addresses The First Paragraph, inspired by literary agent Nathan Bransford’s First Paragraph Challenge. This is a double [...]
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