Arrive late; leave early.
It’s a splendid mantra for mandatory office parties, but it also applies to scene setting.
Don’t begin the scene with tedious party preparations, the highlighting and contouring needed to turn Plain Jane into Beautiful Belle, or the inevitable staring at one’s reflection as a means of self-description.
ARRIVE LATE. Begin the scene with the swish of silk and the striking of her heel against the marble tiles as heads turn to stare…
LEAVE EARLY. End the scene with the glistening of her crimson lips against the glass as the poisoned champagne slips down her throat.
We don’t need to know how bystanders fumbled for cells phones. We don’t care about the 911 call, or that the EMTs arrived late because of the traffic jam on 17th Street. Those details lessen the final image of beauty’s glittering contact with death.
Each scene is a unit of the whole—the novel. The novel’s start is critical. It sets the context for story and propels the reader forward.
One of my recent novels began with:
No one ever expected to die in the happiest place on Earth, which, to Zara Itani, made Disneyland, California, the perfect place for a kill.
That opening yanked my readers straight into the mind of a trained assassin.
Another recent novel began thus:
Ten dead in as many days.
It had reached the scale of an epidemic.
Thirty-year-old Dr. Connor Bradley braced himself for accusations of brutish ignorance and downright incompetence as he pushed on the door to enter the store.
The elderly gentleman behind the counter looked up with a smile. “Connor!” Moments later, his smile slipped, and the kindly blue eyes lost their friendly twinkle. “Another one?”
Connor nodded.
“Are you eating them for breakfast?”
“I don’t know what’s going on.” Connor held up a plastic container. “I brought a water sample, just in case.”
Huffing, old Mr. Langford tested the chemicals in the aquarium water. He frowned. “It’s perfectly balanced. Your filter and air pump working fine?”
“The tank looks great, but every morning, there’s a goldfish floating belly up in the tank.”
Death, once again, kicked off the novel, but this time, it introduced the protagonist of a pet-centric contemporary romance.
I love working on the start of novels and scenes; they’re rich with promise, just like the new year.
On January 9th, FWA will host a webinar by Larry J. Leech II: Start Strong and End with a Bang!
It’s a new year! Let’s start strong so we can end our stories and the year with a bang. In this webinar learn how to strengthen your openings and end with the power to draw the reader to your next book or blog.
Start strong by buckling the reader in with a great first sentence. Then give them a ride with endings that will heighten their anticipation of what’s around the corner on the next page.
Strong chapter openings and endings propel the reader through to a satisfying ending. Your goal is to make them read just one more chapter. Then one more. And another.
The great Mickey Spillane has said, “The first page sells your book. The last page sells your next book.”
This webinar will show you:
- Seven story openings to avoid
- What you need to write a great first sentence
- How to avoid cliché endings
For more information and to register: visit the FWA website.
See you there!
Lorie Greenspan
This is great advice. I did this with my own novel last year and it made the opener much stronger.
Warren Harry
Boom! He didn’t know if it were fireworks or the second person in the family being shot dead in the living room. He wasn’t going to find out, at least not now.
Thanks for so many reminders of my early stumbling stones. Oh God, do I remember the awful beginnings and now eight years later I may be moving to know how to set a hook once I know where the fish are. I’m too old to write at 3 AM but I wish I could because I am a night person transformed into a day time where all the demands of time challenge time to write. Thanks again.