So yesterday I tore a part and put back together an opening paragraph from an author who asked for my help. So today it seems only fair to turn the magnifying glass on my own writing. The first paragraph for Rhune isn’t in a state to do that yet…and I don’t want to stop my forward momentum to polish it. So I’m going to look at my most recent work, Hollow World and discuss it.
Before I go into what I wrote I want to explain what I was intending so you can judge if I hit my mark. Now certainly it can be argued whether these “should” be what I try to do…but it is what it is, and it’s my book so I get to decide it’s direction 😉
Okay so here goes:
- First off I wanted a “setting” something that people could identify with and not feel lost and confused. I wanted people to know where he was but not state he was in a ….
- Second I wanted to make sure I gave some “basic” details about the main character. That he was male, married, and while it doesn’t come out in the first paragraph we’ll learn very quickly that he has a terminal disease.
- I wanted to show how he reacts to difficult situations. He doesn’t cry, rant, or go into a fugue state.
- I wanted to hint at mystery that will be explore throughout the novel and is central to the final resolution of the book.
- I wanted to provide some juxtaposition to give the scene a bit of panache.
- I wanted them to be interested to find out more.
Sounds like a tall order…what did I come up with?
Ellis Rogers expected to see visions, flashes from his life: learning to ride his first bike, kissing Peggy at the altar, the death of his son Isley. He also expected his mind to focus on all the things he’d never done, the words he said, or ones he hadn’t. Instead, he was thinking about how the two jars on the Formica counter looked like they belonged in a kitchen, except they contained tongue depressors and cotton swabs instead of sugar and flour.
Pretty short and sweet, at least I think it is sweet. I could easily have said:
Ellis Roger’s sat in the doctors office trying to wrap his head aorund the fact he was dying.
Because both say the same things. But letting the reader find out it’s a doctor’s office by describing items that we’ve all seen in doctor’s offices a million times before makes them work a bit harder, and feel rewarded for that. Also, most people will figure out that he just got the “bad news” and again will be rewarded with that shortly.
But I also said a few more things for those that read closely
- His son is dead
- He thinks fondly about the days of his youth
- He’s not close to his wife (why else did she not come into this thoughts)
- He carries around a number of regrets
Hopefully people are going to be curious about…
- Is he dying? Is there a cure?
- How did his son die?
My hope is that the first paragraph presents enough of a breadcrumb to lead them to the second, and my job is to continue these crumbs until they are firmly hooked into the story. At least that is how I see the role of the opening paragraph.