Opening Novels, Gestures, Writing as Therapy, Character, The Sensory

 This one is a collection of different articles on writing that I hope may be as interesting and useful to you as I found them.

The Novel Opening: Getting Your Story Right From the Start was one thing I decided on my own. It appears to still be one that I have not attained, according to the steady stream of rejections and my own thoughts during revisions. What I did was to study openings, and try figuring out which ones worked and why they worked.

While a sharp query goes a long way to inviting in the agent and editor, even that won’t pique their curiosity if they skip ahead to the novel start and the pages don’t deliver. How can you produce an infallible story opening? Action, voice, an immediate interest in the characters, and a hook that pulls in the reader and which is designed around your particular genre. While what works will optimize certain invariable elements, the presentation and emphasis will be completely unique to the work you’re writing.

From Nathan Bransford's blog (which I strongly urge any potential writers to visit), Be judicious with gestures (page critique) wherein he critiques the first page of a work.

Empty gestures. It’s so important to be judicious with gestures. We start off with a particularly generic one right off the bat (insides clenching), and already have a dramatic exhale and shock settling. First, gut check whether you really need a gesture or whether the narrative voice can carry the feeling. And if you do need one, try to make it more unique.

I worry about this. I have a strong inclination that gestures say as much as words. Maybe it is being around people who were far from talkative. It also had to do with being around people whose words did not always match their behavior. I worry about repetitive gestures born of my haste to get material typed. So, I do think this is a serious thing.

Now, if I had the nerve to submit an opening page….

Using Writing as Therapy is something I have done with my own writing. Sometimes it is working out problems in my mind. Sometimes it is the sheer forcing my mind into lucidity through the act of putting words on paper. The article explains how the author found solace from writing.

So, when the FBI called me in late October 2021 to tell me my old boss had taken his life, I knew the story had come to a close. It had an ending. The lead FBI agent even encouraged me to write the book. So, after a dozen attempts with nothing to show for it, I wrote Pirate Cove for real. I could take my anger out on the page.

Writing has always been therapy for me. A way to organize the constant hurricane in my head. It helps me define my fears, which, once defined, no longer seem to pose a threat. In other words, once I know what I am afraid of and have thought out the consequences, I am no longer afraid.

 Creating Authentic Character Relationships by Melissa Donovan makes several good points — I have picked out what I think is the central one — that had me taking inventory of my “Road Tripping” characters.

The relationships in a story will resonate best if they reflect reality — if they are full of the depth and complexities, the ups and downs, that we experience in our own real-life relationships.

My lode star on character relationships remains Raintree County where they also serve as philosophical foils for the protagonist, as he plays a foil for the other two.

 Well, good luck.

sch 11/18 

I add this today, it was from an email newsletter that I kept pushing forward. Today may have been the day to read a mini craft essay by Aatif Rashid. Letting my mind roam during work, I am wondering if I have put emotional heft into my “Theresa Pressley”. I think I have found a pointer towards the kind of work that needs to be done in that story, and my others.

]This brings me to what I feel is the primary argument for writing with a strong attention to description and sensory detail: emotional identification is not possible without it. If we accept that one of the primary goals of good fiction writing is empathy—to get a reader to connect to the emotional experience of your character—then our next question should be how we create that empathy as readers. Well, one way is through description and sensory detail. Readers connect with characters not simply when they understand what those characters are feeling but when they feel those feelings too—when they feel immersed and embodied in that character’s experience. The word “embodied” here is key: we have to make our readers feel as though they are experiencing what the characters are experiencing. Sensory detail is the way to accomplish this. Donna Tartt does this in that passage above from The Secret History—she gives us Richard’s sensory experience through vivid descriptions of his new college home and, as a result makes us feel the thrill and wonder of being in such a beautiful place.

sch 11/20