How your novel begins--the first page, the first paragraph, even the first sentence--is crucial. It's like the hook at the end of your fishing line. Partner, if you don't have a good hook and bait, then ya ain't gonna catch no fish.

In a bit, we'll take a look at my modest attempt for a decent beginning in Zen and the Art of Soccer, but first lets look at two other novel beginnings.

Honestly, most books I pick up, I don't read. And most that I read, I don't finish. I can usually tell by the first page if the writing is good enough, if the characters or plot or subject matter is something I want to invest hours of my time on. Shit, my time is valuable, right? I'm not about to waste it on reading some yarn unless there's really something special in it for me. There better be pearls in 'dem caverns.

What am I talking about? Consider the first line to Harlan Coben's No Second Chance:

When the first bullet hit my chest, I thought of my daughter.

Wow. Coben's stuff always gets me. And I'm not a fan of suspense stories either; it's just how the guy writes. He creates a passion, actually more of a strong empathy, for his main character early on and I'm trapped. I can't NOT read the story because 1) his writing is clever and funny and easy to read, and 2) I feel for his characters early, and 3) I need to know what happens.

I've been reading 'Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. Here's her first paragraph:

Only three people were left under the red and white awning of the grease joint: Grady, me, and the fry cook. Grady and I sat at a battered wooden table, each facing a burger on a dented tin plate. The cook was behind the counter, scraping his griddle with the edge of a spatula. He had turned off the fryer some time ago, but the odor of the grease lingered.

As I'm writing this here Blog I turn to the back cover of this very book about circus life in the 1930s. I see typical overused blurbs like: Compelling...Vivid...Rich...Emotional...Engrossing. I have to admit, in this case the accolades do apply. Folks, Sara Gruen can flat out write. Trust me. I hate to use this word, but the vividness of her writing, not so much the need to know plot-wise what happens, is what pulls me like an ocean tide to read more and more. What this book has in common with Coben's stuff is the empathy Gruen generates with her protagonist, Jacob.

Back in the summer I started plotting out my novel, not detailed plots mind you, but some ideas for beginning scenes, middle scenes, and possible endings. In terms of beginnings, I initially thought of describing one of Cassie's travel games and showing how Pat Holloway, her overzealous stepfather and coach, constantly yelled and threw tirades from the sidelines. I then envisioned scenes of their season ending and her eventually deciding to go against Pat's wishes and try out for Marietta, the local high school team. The school team is coached by Lizzy Randolph, a key character in the story who employs this special 'Zen' style of coaching.

What I realized is that I needed to start my story later, not at travel game, but on the day when Cassie disobeys her stepfather and tries out for Coach Z. In other words, instead of establishing a setting and building up to an early conflict by, say, the 3rd chapter, just start the book out right in the whirlwind of conflict. Here is how the story begins:

I stood, with fifteen other freshman girls in a circle around Coach Z at the Marietta High School soccer field. I was the gazelle with freckles.
 
Coach Lizzy Randolph was a black woman, ebony-skinned, and she too had little freckles on her face and neck. Our frekles kind of bonded us, I thought. She made it clear that friendships mattered most. Grades second. She then said a few words about good sportsmanship. To that point, it sounded like standard coach-speak-crap.

But when she talked about the goals of the high school soccer team, the eyes around the circle fixed on her like she was unveiling a secret treasure. Now she spoke our language. She talked about impact players. Vocal players. Players who moved without the ball. Players who could see the field without looking. And then she talked about opportunity. “If you can show me with your feet that you’re going to help Marietta win soccer games, I don’t care if you are a freshman or not. You will make varsity.”

Her words resonated like an invitation to heaven.

“All right, pair up,” she yelled and the circle broke apart.

Nerves tickled my skin. Not because of the other players. They would be trees, stuck in the mud as I dribbled past. The issue was my stepfather. If Pat Holloway knew I was trying out for Marietta, the guy would have a massive heart attack. You see, I had only come here on a secret promise to a friend in school...

So that's my beginning. What do you think? Do you want to keep reading? Do you feel empathy for Cassie?

A little later in the chapter, the conflict pushes into a higher gear when Pat shows up at the tryout--obviously Cassie gets busted.

With his blue tie waggling in the breeze, Pat Holloway walked to the edge of the field. Other than his geeky notebook, he looked like a stockbroker right off Wall Street. He was tall with wide shoulders. His cinnamon hair sprouted a few random strands that fell down to his hawk-like face. A face that wore a question mark as big as a crescent moon.

He’s gonna freak!

I tried to remain calm. I glanced at Bonnie and the others. “Can you guys hold on a sec?”
I jogged over to Pat, holding my index finger over my lips in a shush sign.

“I’m a little busy here,” I hissed. “Do you mind?”
“Don’t I deserve an explanation?”
“You’ll get one.”
“When?”
“After the tryout.”
“No, no, no…” He gave me his classic smirk, squinting his eyes and waving his finger at me like a windshield wiper. “You can’t do this.”

This should give you a taste of how I'm starting things off. The technical writing term for what I describing is 'The Inciting Incident'. In other words, something needs to happen early to your protagonist, something important and typically devastating that must then be solved with the rest of your book.

In our story, Pat and Cassie, after years of being a great father-daughter duo, split apart. This leads to her entire family splitting apart in the next chapter, and the characters spending the rest of the book seeing if they can work things out. Or not. The problem is that Cassie's natural father, Dead Frank, makes this more than difficult.

Do you still want to keep reading? Until next time then.

I was at a breakfast a few years back -- one of those deals where a top level manager tries to reach out to the grunt workers in the company and "chat" (I'm a software developer at Progressive Insurance).

 

Anyway, he invited ten of us to breakfast and, with bagel in mid-chew, we went around the table and introduced ourselves saying a few words about our hobbies and interests and whatnot. This one gent across from me says he's a software tester by day and a fiction writer by night. Hmmm... He even said, "Writing is what I do."

 

After he says this, well it's soon to be my turn, and I'm wondering if I should also admit that I write. I mean, think about it. Writing fiction is about concieving new worlds, pretending plots, and making up these imaginary characters that you have conversations with.

In other words, admitting you are a writer is a little like admitting you are "out there".

 

So, I swallow my danish and say a little blurb about myself and at the end I say something like "gee whizz, everyone, just like Joe here, I'm trying my hand at writing stories too". So I admited it. Swallow.

 

Afterwards, I made eye contact with this guy walking away from the table. He said nothing. So I followed him out of the cafeteria and started up a conversation about writing. I mentioned that I had written a dozen or so stories and asked if he wanted to do some back and forth crits. He seemed reluctant but agreed.

 

After looking at his only story (and by the way it was incomplete), and after waiting weeks for him to crit one of my stories, it became obvious that his heart wasn't in it. And his statement "writing is what I do" was as weighty as a bag of marshmallows.

 

My point is this. Focus your energies on writing, not talking about being a writer. This means you need to spend a few hours each day with your butt in the seat banging away on the keypad. Finally, I don't consider myself and the thousand of other "writter-wanna-bees" out there to be "writers". If you want to be a "writer" then you need to get "published" (not self-published by the way).

And to get published you need to write.

 

Okay, back to writing the novel. I've chosen my story idea. I've chosen the market, Young Adult.

 

And I also know the story will be told in first person (see the previous posts). In addition, I'm thinking that the story will told with small sections, like a journal but not really a journal per say. Maybe something similar to the book Paranoid Park, by Blake Nelson.

 

Okay, so I know a few things about where I'm headed, right?

 

But what about my story idea? Would it capture the attention of an agent? Let's pretend that I've already written this book. Would the story be appealing enough and yet unique enough, that I could write a query letter and it would make an agent stand up and yell to her secratary, "This is genious! Get off your bumm and Contact this J. Michael Keith fellow at once!"

 

In other words, the second mistake writers make is this:

They don't get feedback on their story concept.

They don't know if their story is actually worth the voyage.

They don't know that a variation on their story is the story that REALLY needs be told.

 
What exactly is the story idea or story concept? Fair question. The story idea is a sentence or two that expresses what your story is about. You also might know A) how the story begins and B) cool stuff that happens during the jouney and C) how it ends.

 

Here is an example:

 

Cassie Holloway knows she's the best soccer prospect Marietta High has had in years. She also knows that her stepfather suddenly decided to control her life, her brother is drowning in drugs, and her mother, Miss Fragile, is clueless about everything—well, everything but her rock garden. Cassie discovers that her dead father’s shady legacy has a stranglehold on the family, and until she unlocks the mysteries of this man, her family will never be re-united.  

Can we improve the above? I think so. Can you express your story in a nutshell? You need to. And, back to the point, being able to express your story is key because it allows you to get feedback early on.

For example, if you’re embarking on a science fiction project, you might bounce your story idea off as many people as possible. I would suggest getting feedback from:

-- A local writing group

-- An online writing group

-- The friend that likes science fiction

-- The friend that hates science fiction

-- The friendly neighborhood replicant
-- That talking parrot

 

Seriously, to your friends, tell them you're reading a book with this interesting story that has A, B, and C going on (that story being your story, of course) and would they like to borrow the book when you're done? If your friend says, "actually that sounds like complete rubbish" then you need to ask why (by the way, if your friend talks that way, then ask him which Harry Potter movie he jumped out of). And you need to find out whether its A or B or C that is turning them off. You get the idea.

The key to tweak the story concept early on. Evolve the idea until you have something that excites people. Do not make the mistake of writing the entire story and then trying to change it. Changing it later is much, much, much, much HARDER. Trust me on this.

 

With my first book I made this mistake. I ducked in the shadows in fear, avoiding potential negitive feedback on my precious story infant. With my second book, our book about Cassie, I did a little better. I bounced the story concept off a few people (one of them being Matt Ulmer -- again, see his blog on mindsay). Honestly, I whish I'd taken even more time with this step.

For the local writing group I belong to, we submit pieces every three months. My turn came in August, about a month after I had started working on this project. I thought about submitting a query letter, along with a first chapter. Instead, I submitted the first three chapters, also a good way to see if your story is captivating. 

 

They are not an easy group, but they loved the beginning chapters, which pumped me up big time. And they also had some nits and suggestions that I used to adjust things. Keep in mind that if you do get past the query letter with an agent or editor, they will typically ask you to send the first few chapters. So the fact that I got an energetic reaction to the story's beginning...seems promising, no?

 

So there you have it. Get as much early feedback on your story concept as you can. Find out if the water is poisoned or salty or too cold or hot...before you go swimming for 6 months writing your first draft...

 

I need to take a quick break from the writing discussion and talk about this movie.

 

I'm angry and confused and...well, shaking my head as I type. After reading His Dark Materials Trilogy two years ago (of which the Golden Compass is the first book), I have been like this little kid waiting for Christmas. I kept telling family and friends that "this is such a massive story...the movie could be incredible!"

 

Every week I did Google searches fervently tracking the movie's progress. I read how the first director, Chris Weitz, quit. He had only directed one movie after all and said he didn't have the experience to bring this work to its potential. So they found a second director and boom, he also quits. What the bleep? So the New Line Productions went back to Weitz. I read articles detailing how the book's content is overly anti-religious, which I think is a pile of crap. Consider the fact that the evil-church force in the story is in an alternate universe—a universe where a 15th century type church remained in total power. So the story is not saying that a the Catholic Church on our universe is stomping on people's free will (granted the story is saying that we should care about our free will and free thought and fight to preserve it).

 

Anyway, I saw the movie last night and about 20 minutes in, I'm overjoyed. It's working. Lyra is splendid. Niccole Kidman is powerful and sexy and gloriously evil. The scenery and effects are dazzling me. But then the music…yes the music...it starts to irritate me. Not only was the soundtrack not adding to the flow and the power of the film (think Lord of the Rings where the music is like a sensous river that carries you along) but it's down right detracting--it sounds like a B movie made in the early sixties.

 

The Gyptians, were not given enough depth. Nor the witches, and by the way, the effects for the witches did not work. In the last hour, scene after scene rushed past and at the same time, came of as boring. How could that be? Again the music. The fricken music. But the directing seemed off as well.

 

Finally, by the end, I only wished for a remote so I could turn the damn thing off. Walking out I had a better thought—take the movie out of every theater, take it back to its hole in the ground and rework it with a new director and composer. How about Peter Jackson? Alright, I'm probably being overly harsh. The movie is not bad overal. A lot of things were done right (the casting, the deamons, the bears). But overal, it's only an okay movie and I desparately wanted it to be a GREAT movie. No, it deserved to be a great movie.

 

Overall the question is why? Why did New Line invest 180 million dollars on a director and screenwriter with absolutely no experience?

 

What might be the lessons learned in terms of writing? How about providing a tone and nararrator for your story that carries through -- just like that river -- scene after scene? How about scoping your story down into something that you can effectively show and tell on paper, with your tool set? How about a real ending.