wetranscripts | Entries tagged with beginning

Writing Excuses 21.11: The Cold Open - Action

From https://writingexcuses.com/21-11-the-cold-open-action

Key Points: Starting with an action scene. Demonstrates competence of character. Start in media res? Stakes! A reason to care. Moments of humanity. Establish voice, worldbuilding, and character stakes. Point of view. Prologue or cold open? Prologue means two starts! Go ahead and use your cool technique in the action cold open. Tension! Make the reader like the character. Information and reader emotional reaction.

[Season 21, Episode 11]

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[Mary Robinette] This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/writingexcuses.

[Season 21, Episode 11]

[Howard] This is Writing Excuses.

[DongWon] The Cold Open - Action.

[Erin] Tools, not rules. For writers, by writers.

[Howard] I'm Howard.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[Howard] And we're going to talk about starting your story with an action scene. There are lots and lots of good reasons to do this. My personal favorite is that a good action opening... A good one, for me, demonstrates the competence of the character you want me to like, and now I'm on board. And one of the best examples of this, I think, is the Pierce Brosnan GoldenEye James Bond, where they begin with him bungee jumping on a dam.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Howard] And James Bond almost doesn't qualify as a cold open, because it's not cold. We know we're watching a James Bond movie. We already know he's competent. But the reason, for me, that a cold open is so important, an action cold open can be so important is that I need you to tell me why this character has earned the ability to be awesome, and a good action scene can do that.

[DongWon] Yeah. I'm going to fulfill my role as the show's resident hater, and talk about why action scenes as cold opens are really hard to do well. Right?

[Howard] Yep.

[DongWon] I think there's this tendency to want to start in media res, is advice you always hear. Because you want to start with stakes. Right? You want to start with something exciting, you want to start with something that's going to engage people. The problem is survival is not good stakes. Right? Even deep into our story, often, like, if the character lives or not, I don't care about that as much as I care about what happens if the character dies. Right? If the character dies, then all these relationships fall apart, all these people will be incredibly sad, but, like, all of those things have so much more chewiness than my connection to the character continuing to exist on the page or not. Right? And so that is compounded by us not knowing the character yet. Right? Part of why the James Bond thing works is we have a serialized relationship with this character. We know who James Bond is, we want him to do these things, we want him to succeed in his mission. Because we like him, and we know him. Right? Or we have a relationship to him, whether we like it or not. And so I think when you are starting a book with a cold open, the biggest mistake I see... Or an action scene as a cold open, the biggest mistake I see over and over again is thinking that, oh, this is a cool gun fight, that's all I need it to be. Right? And instead, what you need to do is give me a reason to care about these characters that goes beyond just the fact of they might die in this scene.

[Erin] I recently started reading a romance novel called Love Hate Relationship, I believe. And it's...

[DongWon] I love, like, a simple descriptive title. Just, like, tell me what we're engaging with. I was thinking of K-pop Demon Hunters too, which is just like here's the thing...

[Erin] Yeah.

[DongWon] That's what it is.

[Erin] This is what it is. But it is a story sort of a... It was described to me as a Cutting Edge, if you know that old romantic comedy, which also actually begins in an action scene. In the beginning of the Cutting Edge, the movie, you begin with the two leads, one who is a figure skater, a pairs figure skater, and the other who's a hockey player, both doing their score at top levels, and it cuts back and forth between them. And part of what they play with is the contrast between the two sports, which will then come into play when they become a pair together. But in the beginning of this, it really opened with them, with one of the main characters, in the middle of playing hockey. And what was great about it is you get the small, like, things that you need to think about in a sport. So you're getting a lot of micro tension, like, will I get passed the puck? Will I get the thing? But there was a part where the main character looks up into the stands and, like, one of their parents isn't there. Even though they promised to be there.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And though it was only a moment, it gives... It really humanized the person. You're like, this is why it's so important. And they look up again, and they see the scouts that might send them to the college that they really want to go to.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And putting those moments of humanity in allowed me to then really care whether or not they actually made the shot in the end or they didn't. Because I'm already starting to care about them as a character within this action context.

[DongWon] I would argue that there's three things a cold open really needs to do. Right? One is establish voice. Second is establish worldbuilding. And the third is establish character stakes, not just character bolts. What matters about this character? Right? And so kind of what you're describing with Cutting Edge and then with this book is you get a sense of the worldbuilding. Right? This is about skating, here are the values, it's being good at this thing, all of that. There is the voice of it, which hopefully is coming through in the prose in a way that's really exciting. And then there is, why do we care about this character? Them looking up in the stands and seeing that their parent is missing. One of my favorite examples of an action cold open, pulling from film, is the Matrix. Right? The Matrix starts with this thing that is the most vibe-y, the most voice-y thing in the world. Right? Especially in 1999, we had not seen anything like this. And it was just like mind-blowingly, like, cool and interesting, it was such a strong aesthetic. It was such a strong worldbuilding component, because it starts with this idea of like searching for this thing and then you're getting this cool technology, both in terms of how they were filming it and then also the cyberpunky hackery story that's embedded within it. Right? So we're getting that worldbuilding and that voice. The thing that movies can do that books can't do is show you a picture, though. Right? So we actually don't have a lot of character stakes in that scene. And a lot of film examples will have this problem, where you won't have a lot of stakes, because you can replace that with the audience looking at the scene and enjoying the physicality of the scene and building a relationship with the character based on how they look. Right? We like Trinity because she's hot and cool. Right? Like, that is basically what they're relying on, and it works. Right? We like James Bond because he's suave and doing slick stuff. Right? Like, he's jumping out of an airplane, he's, like, shooting guys in an alleyway. Right? These kinds of things work as a cold open. Being able to see the character builds that stake in a different way. When you're doing a book cold open, you need to give us things to care about that character with. Right? Like, I think of Six of Crows as an example where you kind of start... It's not necessarily an action scene, you're kind of, like, going through this, like, weird prison, but you're following this guard, and then it devolves into action over the course of it. But because you learned so much about him and his interiority as we move through this space, by the time things are popping off at the end, and... Spoiler for the prologue... By the time he dies at the end of that, it feels sad because he's encountered things that are way out of his scope of reality, his ability to manage these challenges, and we know enough about him that it hurts, because we care about this guy and his relationship to the world.

[Erin] This explains a lot to me about... What you just said, in that I think when people are writing, sometimes when you're writing your action scene cold open, you're seeing, like, the James Bond gunfight, but your reader may not be seeing it in the exact same way. And as somebody who can't see things in my head a lot of times, those action scenes can leave me a little cold, because I cannot envision...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] Everything that's happening, so the details of how cool the gunfight are, I... Like, a lot of times, they just kind of run past me...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And any emotional moment, any character moment, I will seize on. But if there's none of that, and it's just pow, pow, pow... In a movie, it works because I can see it.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] But in a book, I find it sometimes hard to track, or to know why I should.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] Like, why should I be tracking it, actually?

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And why should I be caring about it?

[Howard] This comes back to a tool that we should all have ready access to in our toolboxes, and that is point of view.

[DongWon] Yes.

[Howard] If you are doing your action cold open in strict first person POV, then you don't have the ability to give us someone else's perspective on the awesome thing that the main character just did. We only get their opinion of what it is that they're doing.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Howard] But we get very quickly embedded in their voice. Which is awesome. By the same token, when we talk about movies, that's... And comics, that's cinematic POV or cinematic third person, where we tend to follow as if it is a third person limited POV, but we're following via a camera that is looking over their shoulder. And so we will be looking at other people. Knowing that that is what movies do can help you understand how to do it with prose.

[DongWon] Yeah. That's what I would say for the action cold open in prose. Think of it as a vehicle for voice and worldbuilding. The thing that you're doing to pull us in is be so voice-y and so interesting and introduce elements of your world in nuanced and complex ways. And then the last thing you're doing is giving us stakes. Stakes are the failure point, but the hook is the voice and the world. Right? When you're doing that. That's why, when we see an action cold open, it's most frequently in isolation from your main story. And that is either by a different perspective or a different place and time. I would love to dig into that more when we come back from our break, though.

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[DongWon] Okay. Before the break, I was talking about one of the things about a cold open that makes it a cold open, I think, is really important is actually kind of isolating it a little bit from the rest of your story. Right? Either through perspective or through time as a flash forward or a flashback. Erin, before we started recording, you raised an interesting question, which is, what's the difference between a prologue and a cold open? Do you have thoughts on that?

[Erin] No, that's why I asked.

[DongWon] The question...

[Erin] That's why I asked you.

[laughter]

[Erin] But I feel like, like, a lot of prologue... Like, some of the things that you're talking about, I often see in prologues.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] Which is that they are a worldbuilding delivery mechanism, and what they do is they... They're like, I need everyone to understand that, like, the great shebang is what got this entire thing started. And so I want to put you in the mindset of a person who was there when the great shebang happened, and then it kills them at the end, so we know we're not following them anymore.

[DongWon] Totally.

[Erin] I feel like I see a lot of that sort of setup of world through action...

[DongWon] Yeah. Yeah.

[Erin] And it's difficult... It's interesting. I wonder if you feel like it... How well it works. Because I wonder if the danger is, number one, that people might not be excited about it, they might not be interested in the action.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] But, number two, if they get really interested in the action, and then you pull them to somewhere else in the story, are they going to be like, I wish I were further back or further forward in the actual time period that the story is that I'm now having to read.

[DongWon] You really got to... The challenge of it is, you're almost doing two starts to your book. Right? And that's the challenge of a prologue, in general, is you kind of got to start the book twice. Right? And starting a book once is really hard. Now, that said, you can give us two different tonal openings, and that can be part of it. Right? So your prologue can operate as a here's the one vibe, and then your next open, that's the opening to, like, your actual plot is a different vibe. But it has to be interesting on its own terms. So I'm thinking of Fonda Lee's Jade City as an example of this. It's one of my favorite sort of action cold opens, which is, you get these two idiots who are going into a restaurant to try and rob a guy of his Jade. Right? And that scene gives us the worldbuilding and the stakes. We see what kind of world Janloon is. We see the perspective of why Jade matters so much to these people. We get to see what is capable... What people are capable of doing with Jade, because it... Surprise, the robbery doesn't go smoothly. And, we get all this voice of the world and the characters and the vibes and the stakes of these two idiots trying to accomplish this thing, even though we know they're idiots. Right? And so we start with that specific image and that specific element of we're like, oh, this world is so cool. These criminals are so fun. I want to spend more time here. We're getting this very like Guy Ritchie kind of opening in terms of, like, a crime story. And then when we jump to chapter 1, we're getting the perspective of the daughter, whose name I'm blanking on right now. We're getting her perspective as somebody returning to this city. We get this perspective of, like, oh, this prodigal child coming home. And we get a sense of a different kind of story that we're entering into. So, you can lose momentum by doing that. But because we also have a clear entry point to the story, both these two openings kind of work. One is a cheat, in a certain way, to get all the worldbuilding on the page without having to explain it through your main character's perspective, and then you can just enjoy spending time with the main character.

[Howard] It's worth pointing out that the example that I led with, GoldenEye, technically I would say that's a prologue. Because at the end of that scene, when he flies away in a plane, we end that scene, and we do the James Bond music, and then it's 10 years later.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Howard] That feels very prologue-y to me. But it establishes what kind of world we're living in, and it establishes who our final villain will be. Spoiler alert, Sean Bean.

[Chuckles]

[Erin] Well, that's that movie ruined.

[laughter... Also... We've ruined a movie... From 20 years ago... He dies...]

[Howard] I want to bounce back to the Matrix really quick.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Howard] And draw a metaphor here. The Wachowski's invented the bullet time photography rig...

[DongWon] Yes.

[Howard] Which was essentially looping a set of 100 cameras or something...

[DongWon] Something crazy like that.

[Howard] Around the action so that you could fire them all off at once and create a 3D rotation on film in the pre-digital, pre-CG days. They leveraged that technology in their opening scene. They didn't save it for something later. What is this? Well, it is an establishment of voice. This is a coolness. This is a visual, but it is a cool thing that's going to happen again. And so, when you are writing your action cold open, if there is some cool technique, whether it is using brackets to describe the way aliens yell...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Howard] Or whatever, don't be afraid to use it in that opening...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Howard] Action scene. Because you are communicating to the reader that this is a thing that can happen again later, and if you do it well enough, like the Matrix did it well enough with the Trinity fight, we're hungry for it to happen again, and you get what is, to my mind, a big win, which is I keep turning pages because I want to read something like that...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Howard] From you again.

[Erin] I will say it's interesting, because it creates... I'm always interested in... When stories are creating a different Journey for the reader than they are the characters. And so if you're telling the reader, wow, there's this really cool thing that could happen in the world. A lot of times in fantasy prologues, or cold opens, you'll see, like, the use of a really extreme version of magic or a technology, often a mistake...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] Ruins everything. And then you'll go forward and it's like people rediscovering that magic or trying to figure it out. But in the... But they don't know. They're like, oh, I'm just trying this new thing. But in the mind of the reader, they're like, I know what this could do, both positively and negatively. And so it's like you're waiting for the other shoe to drop the entire time. Which is a really fun way of creating tension in a reader, even in a low stakes time for the character when they're just playing around, because you know that, like, Hiroshima happens in 3 days, so this lovely, like, meal that everybody is happen... Is happening around their table isn't just a meal, it's one of the last meals. Or it's leading to something like [garbled]

[DongWon] Well, The Matrix, again, is a great example of this. We see Trinity do the cool bullet time Jump, and then the rest of the movie is when does Neo get to do that? How is he going to go on his hero's journey, to call back to an episode a while back, but how is he going to get to the point where he is able to do the thing that she does. So we get sort of this magic system moment early on of, like, here's how she can break the reality while inside the Matrix. And then he's going to build his way up to doing that. Right? So we get that tease of a possibility. But, also, it is so... Howard, you're absolutely right. Where the Matrix is a primarily voice forward opening. Right? And if you think about all of the Cinematic tools being put on display there, from the technology to the costume design to that horrible green palette that everything has, is this idea of like... They're using voice to pull us in. Right? And so, I'm going to disrupt the idea of this episode a little bit at the end here, which is think less about whether or not you're starting with an action scene, and think more about what tool you're deploying to pull readers in. Right? So, I think action openings are often voice openings, and I think that the Matrix opening has more in common with, for example, the start of the movie Alien, which again is establishing a voice, establishing an aesthetic, and a technology, and pulls you into this incredibly slow pan through the ship, as it shows you the soundscape, it shows you the slowness of things, it shows you the way the technology looks and feels in this movie, which is going to matter a lot more than where the story ends up in the craziness at certain points.

[Howard] I want to enumerate some things, kind of summarize a little bit. DongWon, early on, you ticked off three elements you wanted an opening to do. You wanted...

[DongWon] It was voice, worldbuilding...

[Howard] Voice, worldbuilding...

[DongWon] And stakes.

[Howard] And stakes. And, Erin, you mentioned tension as something you want the reader to feel. And I've said I want the reader to like the character.

[DongWon] Yes.

[Howard] I see these as parallel categories. There's the informational category, I'm giving you information about voice, about world, about character stakes. And there is the reader reaction emotional category of I like the character, you are making me tense, you are... And I'm going to add one just because I want to have three... You are making me interested enough to keep turning the pages. As you are crafting your openings, you need to be thinking about doing all of those jobs...

[DongWon] Yes.

[Howard] With your words. And that's the part that's so tricky.

[DongWon] Yeah. And just to explain a thing, for me, stakes is tension. They're the same thing in my mind. Character stakes is what introduces and maintains tension, and that is also tied up with how you feel about the character in terms of liking them. So I think we're all agreed and kind of saying something very similar. I just wanted to be clear about that.

[Erin] Yeah. And I just wanted to say that something that I've found is that in working with students who are really used to visual media...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] They're used to playing games or used to watching things, is that a lot of that work is happening in ways that are not explicit. So a thing that's explicit on the screen is the action. Like, this guy shot that guy in the face. That is a thing that we know happened. But the, like, I like this guy because, like, after his first three attempts to, like, shoot the guy didn't work, he found another way to do it with, like, a stapler, and, wow, that was really ingenious. Made him seem really competent, made me like him. I understand the stakes because all these different things that we're talking about. And so something that I would challenge people to do is when you're looking at action scenes, if you're patterning a written one after something that's visual, actually go through and look at an action scene and write down all the things that are happening in you. The things that you are thinking, the things that you are doing to fill in the gaps between the actions. Because those are the things that you're going to have to put on the page that the cinematographer and the actors and the music do when you're in a visual form.

[Howard] And I would just like to lean in and say, damn it, Erin, that's the homework I was going to give. Like. literally...

[DongWon] You just gave the homework.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] Word for word. Very nearly word for word. Okay. And so, fair listener, I'm sorry. I'm just going to repeat what Erin said in my own words. It's homework time. Okay?

[Howard] Take an action cold open from a movie, and sit down and write the things that are happening in it, in terms of worldbuilding, in terms of setting stakes, in terms of defining characters, in terms of how it makes you feel, with regard to tension, with regard to liking the characters. Make notes about all of those things that happened and how they were done. And then, attempt to write a version of that scene that does the same things using words.

[DongWon] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 21.08: Setting Expectations

From https://writingexcuses.com/21-08-setting-expectations

Key Points: Expectations? What is the shape of the story? What are we going to do? Genre, plot structure. What kind of ride will this be? Beginning? First couple of scenes. By the end of the first chapter. Short stories? Small proportion. Microcosm in the first half page or whole page. How do people engage with their world? Hacking the brain and checking the label. Hit the markers to identify the kind of story. MICE quotient. Understanding the character's perspective. The feel, what is going on. Build reader trust. Make a promise and fulfill it. Let readers feel clever. Let the reader figure it out just before you tell them. Raise a question and then answer it. Don't try to be mysterious. Sometimes the surprise can be how something happens. Control the tone, so the beginning matches the rest of the book. Use common human experiences.

[Season 21, Episode 08]

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[Season 21, Episode 08]

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[DongWon] Setting expectations.

[Erin] Tools, not rules.

[Mary Robinette] For writers, by writers.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[Mary Robinette] And today we're going to talk about setting expectations. So, we have been looking at the things that you need at the beginning of the story. And, after taking a little break to go dive into my short story, we are back and we are talking about one of the specific things that you need to try to accomplish in the beginning, which is to set the expectations of a reader. So when we say expectations, like, what does that cover?

[DongWon] I mean, I think that covers everything from what is the shape of the story... I think that's the thing I say the most when talking about openings, is, this didn't communicate to me what the shape of the story is to come. What kind of things are we doing? Is this... And that includes genre, but that also includes sort of just like a hint of overall plot structure. And so those expectations for me are really like what kind of ride am I about to go on? I think of it as a roller coaster, and I look ahead and I can see, oh, there's a loop de loop, there's a drop, I don't know what that's going to feel like when I get there and there's stuff I can't see, but, like, okay, that's the kind of thing that says, versus one of those ones that just goes straight up and drops you right back down.

[Erin] I also have a couple of questions about that. Let's interrogate that.

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] I love roller coasters.

[Erin] No. I'm curious when you say beginning in this case, how large of a piece are you... Like, does it take for you to get that kind of... Is this a one-page thing, is this, like, a three chapter thing? How do they set that for you?

[DongWon] I think this is more of. like. a first couple scenes thing. So not necessarily first page. Like, first page is so much about setting a vibe and tone in a lot of ways as we were talking about in the last epi... Or a couple episodes ago. But I think in terms of setting expectations, I think really by the end of the first chapter, depending on how you've structured your book, I kind of need a sense of not necessarily who the protagonist is, but also, like, a feeling of, like, the kind of protagonist we're going to have. Right? So, if our opening is a cold opening with a character who's not going to recur, I think that's totally fine. But then the action of that should give me some indication of what kind of story I'm in. So I think of Six of Crows as a great example of this, which starts with the POV character who's... Spoiler... Is dead by the end of that prologue or first chapter or whatever it is. But I got the kind of sense... It introduced me to the magic system, to the setting, to the world, but also the like, oh, this is going to be a story of a certain kind of crime story, a certain kind of about resisting oppression, a certain kind of, like, violence will be present in this story. And I'm like, okay, I know what ride I'm on now, by the end of that. And so my expectations feel really thoroughly set by the end of that. And the rest of the book continues to deliver on that.

[Mary Robinette] So I'm going to answer that from short stories. Because I think it's the same thing, but I think one of the places that people get into trouble when they're going from novels to short stories, or the other way around, is that it is about proportions.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] So, the end of the first scene of a novel is like 1% of a novel-ish.

[Erin] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And this is a really... Like, I've pulled that number out of my ass. But it's a really small proportion of that novel. And when you look at the first 1% of a short story, you're looking at the first half page, sometimes the first full page. Where you've got something that tells the reader the same thing, but you're just having to do it a lot more economically. So I think of it like if you're making a layer cake, and you decide to cut the recipe down to make some cupcakes. Right? It's the same proportions, you just aren't using as much flour for that cupcake as you do for the layer cake.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] So, for me, I'm thinking about the same things. Like... But I specifically try to get that microcosm in within the first half page, because I also know how editors read when they're reading slush. And that first half page is where they have to make the decision about whether to turn the page or move to the next manuscript.

[DongWon] I also think that's how readers read it, though. Right?

[Erin] Yeah.

[DongWon] I do think readers make their judgment. I think they're actually even meaner than industry folks are, because we... We're in it with, like, a hope of, like, that we want the story to be good, that we want to be excited about this. And so when we're reading slush, I do think there is a little bit more generosity afforded than sometimes a reader, who's like, I'm not paying for that. You know what I mean? That's my general impression from talking to readers, of like, oh, you guys are brutal.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I mean I certainly... When I've been in a brick-and-mortar store and pulling something off the shelf...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] To decide, sometimes it's like I decide within a paragraph whether or not I'm going to read it.

[Erin] Yeah. It's funny, I was thinking about, like, how do you set expectations, and thinking about like when I used to slush read, a lot of it was like how the characters... Like, not necessarily what they were doing, but, like, how they were moving through the story. If you think about a whole bunch of people confronted with, like, a clock... A clock table for whatever reason. Like, there are the people who would decide, like, how can I take this apart? What are its components? A technical approach for example. Where there are other people who would be like, this reminds me of time and what is the meaning of time? A more lyrical, poetic approach. And so that tells me as I'm moving through the story, okay, what can I expect in terms of the way that people engage with the world around them. It's almost like the way you think about people engaging with the way around them. If you think about the people you know, like, people carry their own stories with them, but if you have five friends and the same problem, they would all approach it a little bit differently and would probably give you a hint pretty early on as to how they would go through it.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. And that's... I think that how they would go through it is a lot of it. If you've ever had an experience where you encounter someone... And it turns out that they were just having an off day, that's not the way they carry themselves for the rest of their life. But if you're reading the story, and it's like, this is the experience that you're going to have, but then the rest of the story is not like that... It can be... It can have this real disconnect.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] It's like that's not what I signed up for. I often talk about writing as a drug made out of words. Which is something that I got from, I think, Cory Doctorow, that writing is designed to hack the human brain. Because that is how he would phrase it. But... That with novels, what you're thinking about is a slow release, long acting drug. You're dealing with immersion, like, often a cocktail. And with short fiction, it's a fast-acting thing, it's designed for a very focused experience. You may go through different emotions while you're taking that to treat whatever symptom that you're trying to treat. But that you are picking it up for a reason. And that first page is kind of like checking the label to see is this going to address the symptoms I have?

[DongWon] Yeah. In terms of hacking the human brain, I think about it in terms of pattern recognition. Right? I... I talk about this a lot. Human brains are really wired for pattern recognition, it's like how our cognition works. And so storytelling is our way of communicating patterns that we've observed to other people and to Future Generations. Like, one of the things that makes humans special quote unquote is our ability to discover and communicate information and dangers across generational divides and communities. And so storytelling is kind of how we do that. Right? And so what you're trying to do in the opening is hack that process. You're trying to get me to match the patterns that exist in my brain of... So when I say the shape of the story, I want you just to like... I don't need you to tell me what's going to happen. I need you to hit certain markers that will activate my brain that goes, oh, I'm in a Law and Order episode, or, oh, I'm in a romance, or, oh, farm boy is going to find a sword in like three pages. You know what I mean?

[Mary Robinette] This is one of the places that I often reach for the MICE quotient. Because that means that in the beginning, I can have a small version of that problem happen. So if it's a milieu story, which is... it's about crossing thresholds and navigating, then I can begin with a little bit of a navigational problem at the beginning. If it's about a character story, I can begin with a little bit of angst. It's not the big angst yet. If it's an event story, something small goes wrong. It doesn't have to be the big thing. A lot of times when you're reading horror, there's just something that is out of place and unsettling. But it's not... like the haunted object has not yet hit the page. So often just saying, like, this is going to be a story about the status quo being disrupted, this is going to be a story about... Where we're going to have to be dealing with trying to be kinder to our self. Like, this is... These often help me make decisions about the kinds of information to give the reader in the beginning to set the expectations for what I want to have happen later on in the story.

[DongWon] I think it's really important that it comes down to perspective. Understanding the character's perspective, how they approach a problem, I think... One of my favorite openings is Lee Child, I be... Is it the first Jack Reacher novel? I think it's called The Killing Floor. And it starts with him getting arrested in a diner. And the main thing that strikes me in that is it's a very staccato opening, because you just feel Reacher tactically assessing everything in the diner. Of like, oh, this is, like, vulnerabilities, these are my entrances and exits, as these cops pull up and start coming towards the diner to arrest him. And you just... Moving through his perspective tells me everything I need to know about this character, everything I need to know about the story I'm about to get, which is going to be a very smart man dealing with very violent situations. And that is precisely what the book is going to deliver for the next however many pages, and it's a great thrill ride.

[Erin] I think sometimes it's about, like, the character, and sometimes it's about the feel, like maybe the milieu, the what is going on. I was thinking about Law and Order, because you mentioned it earlier. And in the, like, original Law and Order, openings are always two New Yorkers talking about something deeply New York-y.

[laughter]

[Erin] And so they stumble over a body.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And I think that really sets, like, place is important, like, there's a New York atmosphere, especially to early season Law & Order that that captures. Like it doesn't start with the victim, it doesn't start with the body already there. It's them being like, oh, I can't believe I gotta be in this rent controlled apartment. Oh, no...

[DongWon] Fo'ged about it. Ah'm working here.

[Chuckles]

[Erin] Exactly. And I think it's like, okay, that gives you a sense of what you are getting from the story. And it's like if you liked this...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] You can get more of it. This is the expectation and we will fulfill it.

[Mary Robinette] Yes. It's the [garbled Brooklyn accents?]

[DongWon] Exactly.

[Mary Robinette] So we're going to take a quick break. And then when we come back, we're going to talk about some more tools for building reader trust.

[Mary Robinette] Welcome back. And, as part of building our reader trust, I'm going to fulfill the promise that I made before our break and we are going to talk about how to do that. Because that's one of the important things that you're doing in the beginning, especially as a debut author, especially early career, or just... The honest thing is that if someone has never heard of you, even if you're five books in, you're a debut author to them. I had the joy of introducing someone to this author they had never heard of before, a little-known author called Ursula K. Le Guin...

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] And so for them, Ursula was a debut author and had to build reader trust. So, like, wherever you are, you have to build reader trust. What are some of the tools that we can use to do that?

[DongWon] I think part of it is... You kind of mentioned this in a previous episode, but you make a promise and then you fulfill it. Right? You make some... You set some small expectation and then you pay it off. And that can be as little as like... I wanted to have a sandwich, oh, I have a sandwich. You know what I mean? And just like having... Just showing this thing in a very small way... And it's almost like animal training in a certain way, of, like, I'm going to set an expectation, I'm going to give you your treat. Proving that I'm a reliable source of treats. Now, I'm going to make a big promise, and you're going to get that treat by the end of this book.

[Erin] I think it's also, like, letting readers feel clever...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] Is always a great way... Who doesn't like to feel clever? So in a book in which you start with a sandwich, even something as simple as having a character gather the ingredients for a sandwich, so a reader will be like, oh, they're making a sandwich, I can tell, like, they've got turkey there and lettuce and tomato. And then they're like, as I enjoyed the sandwich, just for one second you get to go, like, just like I knew they were going to do. Which makes you feel like I get the story. What I expected from what you gave. All the ingredients is what it was, and I'm smart. And everyone loves that.

[DongWon] Because that's part of the relationship, Trust, too. I'm trusting you to figure out that this is a sandwich one line before I say it's a sandwich. Right? And I think that's one thing that you should think about in reveals in general is let the reader figure it out right before you tell them. You know what I mean? Don't... If you're trying to completely surprise them, it feels bad. If you let them be like, um, this is a sandwich. Hah, I knew it was a sandwich. I think that is a really satisfying interaction, and builds that trust, because if the author is saying to the reader, hey, I know you're a smart reader and you know that I know how to build a reveal. I think once you start building that rapport, that relationship between creator and audience, that's going to create a really fun experience of reading this book.

[Mary Robinette] I think... Absolutely. I think with that, one of the other variations on that is specifically raising a question in their brain and then answering it.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Which I wound up doing... It's one of the tools that I use in With Her Serpent Locks, because there was a thing that I was trying to do with that particular story. Which I... Like, the surprise that, ooh, look, we are actually dealing with Greek mythology. But, to start with, to get to the place where I could reveal that, I had to build reader trust. And I do it by saying, hey, cuz, as my starting line, and that raises the question, who's talking?

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And then within the first paragraph, I'm like, her cousin wanted to visit, the asshole favorite grandson. So I immediately answer that question. And one of the things that I've found is that if you raise a question, and it's a small question, and you immediately provide the answer, you raise it and you provide the answer, and you raise it and you provide the answer, then you can raise a question and not provide the answer...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And at that point, the reader is like, ah, I understand now. They are going to give me the information I need at the point that I need it, so I don't need it right now.

[DongWon] Yeah. Exactly.

[Mary Robinette] And that's when you can start playing. But what I see the failure mode of that is people raising up questions because they want to be mysterious. They want the reader to figure things out. But they aren't giving them the trust and... To know that they're going to get the tools to figure it out. And so it just makes the reader feel ungrounded and unsafe.

[DongWon] The thing I'm always telling... When I'm giving critiques on opening sections, I'm always like, just tell people stuff. Just tell people how your world works. You don't need to be mysterious about it. Just tell me, like, this is a mystery or this is what they're thinking about. Or let them solve problems early. And that lets you... Yeah. Have the big questions later. But I think there's such a feeling for... I see this a lot in TTRPGs, actually, too, of GM's being like, oh, I can't tell them this yet, because that has to be the big reveal. But sometimes I'm like, no, you can just be like, this is the big bad, this is the villain, he's bad. We're going to spend the rest of the time chasing this man. And that can be a really fun narrative thing. Right? Not everything has to be a surprise.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] And sometimes the surprise can be how it happens...

[DongWon] Exactly.

[Erin] Not that it happens.

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[Erin] I mean, the entire Final Destination series is basically like, you goin' die. But how?

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And where? And, like, in what horrible way?

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And I think about that with one of the... I think the very first story I ever published was a story in which I wanted there to be this, like, big surprise at the end, and it just was not working for people. And so I made it, like, much easier to figure out, like, that this kid is the son of the other character in the story that he hates. And then, as you see him want to, like, hurt this person who is his father, then, like... It's bad. Because, like, you can see it coming, he doesn't get it, but you get it, and it's this feeling of, like, I cannot stop this, like, Greek tragedy from happening between the father and son, versus, like, surprise, that's his dad. Which is fine, but, like, just didn't have the same emotional weight. Because it kind of, like... we'll get to this with endings, but it's like, when you punch somebody in the stomach, you want to, like, wait a second to, like, watch that unfold before you run away. Like, if you punch someone and run away, you don't know if the punch hurt them. If you punch someone and stand there and watch them go ulp, then you know it landed. And then you run away.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] Before they can get you. And that's kind of what you want your story to do. But sometimes the surprise...

[DongWon] This is not tactical advice.

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] When you punch someone, you should just run away. Don't wait.

[Chuckles]

[Erin] In real life, don't do that.

[DongWon] Yeah. In real life, don't do that. Just to be clear.

[Erin] Comfortable. But...

[DongWon] Unless you got to. But, yeah.

[Erin] But, like... You punch people, you want to like... You're spending all this time, like, gearing up for the punch...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] That you're not even going to watch happen. And I think that can be... It feels like... It can never hold the force that you want it to. Because, like, everything cannot come down to this one surprise.

[Mary Robinette] And a lot of times, giving someone an answer at the beginning and they are like, oh, how is that going to happen? The opening line of The Calculating Stars is do you remember where you were when the meteor hit?

[DongWon] Ooh, that's good.

[Mary Robinette] And then what is that first chapter? The meteor hitting.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] So you have a piece of information that the protagonist does not have while she's experiencing that. And so you can... You understand contextually what is happening as she is piecing it together, and it's one of the ways that I built trust...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] With the readers for the rest of the story. It's like, yeah, I'm going to give you every piece, you're going to get to be a little bit smarter than her, sometimes. And those are things you can do. The other thing that I think you can do to build reader trust is control your tone. Because this is another place that... A failure mode that I'll see that someone will have is a total opening that's like... Like, really in media res action-packed thing, and then the rest of the story is this contemplative thing. That they've been told that they have to have something that's very hook-y...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And interpreted hook-y to mean action...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And fast. Or having a very slow opening that then is for a story that's super fast paced. So I think sometimes that's a place that you can play with.

[Erin] Yeah. I was thinking about those action openings. Because I do like them, and I think... I tried to figure out what makes them work. And a lot of times, it's... I think we can also hook into things that are common human experiences. A great way to kind of figure out... Like, if you have somebody who's nervous about giving a speech in public, that is something that a lot of people can relate to. It makes the character... Oh, that's a thing I got, and then, like, as they're on the way to give the speech, the spaceship explodes. But, like, while they're running through, they're like, oh, I'm sad the spaceship exploded, but I'm glad I don't have to give that speech. I'm like, I get that. That feels very... It feels really real to me, even though I don't know the character much yet. So, I find a lot of times action pieces work really well for me when there's something in them where the character has one driver...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] That is something that I understand as a driver that doesn't require me to understand the world. It's something that is very personal instead of like it is part of the World building.

[DongWon. Yeah. Giving a really simple relatable goal can be a way to carry somebody through an outlandish experience. But as part of why these action openings almost never work... They're really, really hard to do, actually. Because I don't care about this character yet, so I don't really care if they live or die or get hurt. I need to care about some aspect of it. I'm thinking of like the Harley Quinn movie where she has her breakfast sandwich. And the thing that matters is preserving this breakfast sandwich. And so... I mean, that's like a comedy beat way to do it, but giving a really small scale achievable goal to care about let you feel... Understand the character in a deep way, because the character cares about something, and then I can see how is she responding, how does she act? I learn who she is by her working through this scene of trying to save the sandwich, and failing.

[Mary Robinette] I think these are all really great ways to get people to trust you at the beginning. And, to continue building our reader trust with you, I think it is time for us to move to a little bit of homework.

[Mary Robinette] So, what I want you to do is I want you to review the first chapter of your work in progress. Make a list of all the story promises you've made. Keep this list somewhere you can easily refer back to as you progress through the story. So that you can make sure that you're staying on track. And if there's a promise that you set up, then maybe you should think about how you're going to fulfill it. But... Start with the list.

[Mary Robinette] And now, you're out of excuses. Now go write.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 21.07: Deep Dive -- "With Her Serpent Locks"

From https://writingexcuses.com/21-07-deep-dive-with-her-serpent-locks

Key Points: Birthdays are Leveling Up days! This story has teeth. Subtly diabolical. Use mythology to ground the story. Mix in science fiction technology. Barriers to writing? Angry snakes. When you have a big emotion, lean into it. Give it to a character and then help them pivot away from it. Intentions. Delaying information. Internalizing. What the hell?

[Season 21, Episode 07]

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[DongWon] Deep dive -- "With Her Serpent Locks"

[Marshall] Tools, not rules.

[Erin] For writers, by writers.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Marshall] I'm Marshall.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[Mary Robinette] And we are very happy that Marshall has joined us. He's usually on the other side of the microphone, being our engineer. But... Today is my birthday.

[Chuckles. Happy birthday. Yay.]

[Mary Robinette] So I often think about this as leveling up day. I'm now at 5th... Level 57 human.

[I love that]

[Mary Robinette] It makes me feel powerful...

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] In a way that I'm 57 years old does not. Because then I can think about the new gear that I get and the tools that I get. And for my birthday, one of the things that I often do is I do what I call a party favor. Which is that I host one of my stories, but then I also talk about some aspect of it. Sometimes I show you a first draft. And in this case, we're going to talk about the story through the things we've been talking about with beginnings, some of the things we're going to be talking about with beginnings, and I'm also going to talk about some ways in which this story shows me leveling up. So, this is on Uncanny. It's called With Her Serpent Locks. My friends have read this story. And before I tell you where it came from, I would love to just see what your first initial thoughts of it were.

[DongWon] I really loved it. It's really fun, even though it comes from a place of like... There's definitely, like, teeth to this story. Right? Like, these things have a bite. And I really enjoyed seeing that unfold. But it's... I like the way in which the emotions of it is kind of sublimated, like, there's irritation, but it's all filtered through this very, like, I'm going about my day, I'm keeping my cool, I'm just like doing the things that comfort me, and it sort of has all these sensory grounding things so you can feel the simmering rage underneath it that's going to end up where it ends up. So, yeah, I really liked that emotional tenor and it made it a very, like, pleasant story to read. Even though it is coming from a place of like... Fuck this.

[Chuckles]

[Marshall] I agree. When I got... Especially when I get to the end, it just felt like subtly diabolical. Like, by the... Like, she's just going about, like DongWon said, going about the day, but, like... There was some planning going on and there was some anger. And then the execution at the end was just... It was very satisfying by the time we got to the end.

[Erin] Yeah. I really was thinking about it in the context of, like, some of what we've been talking about recently of, like, beginnings and openings, so I really... The end is great. But, like, I was thinking about, like, how it works. And one thing I found interesting is, it's based in mythology. Mythology that I'm aware of. Which is something we didn't talk about, which is something you can ground a story in a broader context and, like, even the context that like... Which is not 100% required, but this is a fairly well-known myth, like, the Medusa turning people into stone. And so it was really cool to kind of uncover what was happening on both the personal level for the character who I was not familiar with, but, like where it fits into my broader understanding of the myth, which is a fun way to ground, and also makes me feel clever, which we talked about in previous episodes. Which is the... I'm like, oh, this is that, and it's a little more explicit right after that. So I'm like, I figured it out...

[Chuckles]

[Erin] Before it was told to me, which is something really fun that I enjoyed.

[DongWon] Yeah. And even in the way where I was like, oh, wait, I don't really remember this part of the myth. Like, I remember Medusa was, like, one of the Gorgons, but I don't remember who the rest of them were, or what the setup was, or even exactly how she died. I remember the Harry Hausen...

[Mary Robinette] Right. Yeah.

[DongWon] Version of it. But it didn't feel necessary. Right? I got the pieces I needed to get. I remember the vibe of the thing more. And so I think that's the thing where, like, you don't have to worry too much about referentiality, so long as you're not, like, expecting me to remember every subtle detail of a thing. But like, okay, I know what the Medusa is, I know what a Gorgon is.

[Marshall] Yeah. The title, and then getting to that first break, the stone back of a man held on the ground, it's like, oh. I see...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Marshall] What's happening here.

[Chuckles]

[Marshall] I was like, okay, that's sick. I like that. But we were talking about grounding the reader a bit, but what I thought was kind of a clue is grounding these gods with this kind of technology, too. Like, how does a god get from... How does a god trying to escape from her family, and then how are they communicating across time and space, and do they have to take a ship over... Like, I just thought that was a really cool touch, like, the wormhole, the relay station. I just thought that was a cool, like, way to kind of like ground gods into... Inside the story.

[DongWon] Yeah. And then, why make it science fiction? Like, what was behind that choice?

[Mary Robinette] Okay. So [garbled] yes. Now we talk [garbled] about evolution of the story. So, I run this thing called a short story cohort, and one of the things we do at the beginning of the cohort is I check in with people on, like, barriers to writing, victories. And one of the people, as a barrier to writing, said she had a lot of stuff going on with her family, and she just felt like her brain was full of angry snakes. And one of the things that I always say is when you're having a big emotion, try to lean into it. Whether it's giving the character that emotion and then helping them pivot away from it, or lean even farther into it. And so that day, for the writing project, I said our writing prompt is angry snakes. And so what I wrote down... I saved this. What I wrote down was angry snakes. And then the next thing I told them to do was to set some intentions. That they should set a couple of things that if they accomplished those, they would feel satisfied by the end of the day. And the lowest bar is possible. So the things I set were start a new story, decide where, who, and what the problem was. That was it. And so I was like decide where? I'm like, backyard on a planet with rings. That was like the sum total of what I wrote down. Who? Medusa's sister. Problem? Zeus wants to visit. Like, that was what I wrote. And then... This is one of those stories where I got lucky. I talk about this, sometimes, when you get lucky and you kind of cough a story out. I got most of this story during that 2-hour block of writing. Not all of it. There were pieces that I was like, oh, have to fix that. But the opening line of the story was not originally the message from Zeus. It was originally the message hung in the air. It was the second line, was where I started.

[Marshall] Okay.

[Mary Robinette] And my very first take was it was actually going to be Medusa. And then I went over and I was like, can we just check on Medusa? Like, what are some things? I remember, again, she has some...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Sisters. She's dead. So who else is around? And that was when I learned that the Gorgons, some of them were immortal and some were not. And also, I was like, there's gotta be a star named after... Like, all of the other things. And indeed, there is... Like, I didn't make up the name of that... I made up the idea that there's a planet that's habitable there. But I'm like, okay, so you've got immortal gods. That means if we go into science fiction, they should still be around. Theoretically. Unless someone has killed them. And that was kind of where I started. But I didn't know the ending when I started. I knew that I wanted a confrontation between the two of them. I knew that she was dealing with grief. I knew that she hated this asshole. Because, I mean, really, Zeus is, like, rotten. And the other thing that I knew as I was going was that I wanted to play with form. Because I tend to do this fairly immersive kind of... I don't tend to be flashy. And so the idea of doing this thing where Euryale is just doing the why, the where, the question words as my transitions was really appealing to me. And trying to do these very condensed scenes that were doing a lot of lift. But actually, not a lot happens in. Also, very appealing to me that it's this correspondence between the two of them. But at the end... By the time I got to the end, that final scene, I knew what was going to happen to Zeus. I knew that she had taken steps. But I had to go back and plant the... I don't know, basil [garbled layer] whatever it is, at the... I had to go back and plant some of that stuff so that it was there. I think she was originally cutting a lemon instead of a pomegranate. I'm like, it's a Greek myth, what are you doing?

[laughter]

[DongWon] Well, and cutting a pomegranate is such a good sensory detail.

[yeah]

[DongWon] It's such an involved task, it takes these different steps, and there's all this technique involved. I don't know. And it's just this beautiful red luscious image.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. One of the other things that I was trying to do to level up is something that I will talk to you about after the break. Because it's about delaying information.

[laughter]

[Mary Robinette] So, before the break, I said that one of the leveling up things that I played with was delaying information. And one of the pieces of information that I was very deliberately delaying was the word Zeus. And also that, yes, this really is a Gorgon and all of the commentary about her hair is not metaphor, it's like I'm... I've got Greek myth mashed with... But that's actually a pretty hard thing to do. It's not something that I would have been able to do when I was a beginning writer. And it's one of the things that I felt like I had more control over. So I wanted... So I am curious about how that played for you, and what you see as the tricks I was using to be able to do that? Or anything else you want to talk about.

[laughter]

[Marshall] Well, you mentioned the hair not being a metaphor. Or not being... You know what I mean? It was something that was actually happening. And I think I started to kind of figure that out when she sat down and one of them was like...

[Mary Robinette] Bit the chair behind her?

[Marshall] Yeah. That was it. Bit the chair behind her, and she just was kind of doing something with it. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. These are actually, like, responding as she's feeling things. And I was like, okay, that's really cool. And then that, when... I was trying to remember the other spot. Oh. She just didn't want any more statues haunting her house. That line. I love that line. Because now I'm imagining all of these people coming there and her just being like, okay, now you're stone.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Marshall] Sorry, bro. And I just thought that was cool. So that connection of the hair and that image, and then Zeus shows up... I just thought that was really well done.

[DongWon] I love the pattern also you set up of the who what when where why. You know what I mean? Just the single word questions which you, like, hang a lantern on, because she's like I'm being deliberately annoying by just saying one word. But then it leads to the who. Right? And so I think it's just like fun to set up a pattern that is going to resolve, in that way. And resolve in the other thing of, like... I was like it's probably Zeus. You know what I mean? I, like, had a sense of, like... But there's plenty of gods in the Greek pantheon that are complete assholes. But there was something about it that I was like, I wonder if it's going to be Zeus? And then it was, which was very satisfying.

[Erin] I think one thing I found very interesting was at the end of the first paragraph after the spoken line, or the hanging in the air message, was about the asshole favorite grandson who got away with rape and murder and incest. Which is interesting, because her reaction to that is very blase, which to me speaks like something is going on beyond what you're expecting. Because like... It's not like she's like, and I will alert the authorities to this, or like... It's just sort of like, oh, this is like a known thing. It's happened. This again. Which is something that is very... I was like, well, what's going on with that guy? Like, that seems messed up. Like...

[Marshall] Why isn't anyone doing anything about this?

[Erin] Yeah. Like, why is nobody doing [garbled] feels like somebody should be handling this...

[Marshall] Tell somebody.

[DongWon] It's... I mean, weirdly, it's very outsized. Right? Because like... I don't think any of us know someone who's that terrible.

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[DongWon] But I do think a lot of us have someone in our family that's a little bit like, ugh, like that person [garbled] like... You don't... It's also like... I'm not clear on how bad of a person they are, but maybe they're not, like, perfect.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] You know what I mean? Or just, like, maybe it's just like a little bit. But that exasperation and discomfort with somebody you're connected to in your circle that you can't quite get away from is, I think, a really, really relatable feeling. Right? And so I think setting that up as, like, the grounding emotion is really helpful there.

[Mary Robinette] Awesome. I'm going to point back to a thing that you said when you were talking about setting up the pattern, the who, where, what. That I had to switch... I remember having to switch something, one of the wheres of one of them in order to get the beats to hit right. But the... At the very, very end, I also deliberately, the where, where would you like to be, I also deliberately gave her more words when she was talking to her sister's head.

[Chuckles] [yes]

[Mary Robinette] I also, in terms of... And this is what we... We'll be talking about endings much later in the season. But the last line was originally, considered the best spot for a hero. And then I was like, that's not her relationship with her.

[DongWon] Yeah. Beloved sister feels so much more the core emotion of the story. Right?

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] Such a tenderness to her, too. And I think you do a good job of showing that early, both in terms of we think of that as somebody doing these nurturing tasks, preparing food, gardening, but also just like her relationship with her like awful little cilia covered...

[Marshall] Yeah.

[DongWon] Pet. It's like so adorable, but also, when I think about it...

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] I'm like I don't want a million leg making biscuits on me. It felt so bad to think about. But also you made it very sweet and very cute and very tender. Right? Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I love Butterscotch.

[Marshall] Yeah. I agree. That was a... That was an insanely good character moment, too. And, like, although it was a little off-putting, like... She loves this awful little creature...

[Chuckles]

[Marshall] And I love that last line of that section. They liked frolicking in the moss. And I'm like thinking of this thing with all these legs, like, doing something...

[laughter]

[Marshall] Okay, he likes that. That sounds awful, but... Okay...

[DongWon] Listeners, I'm sorry you missed the pantomime.

[laughter]

[Mary Robinette] I'm like, is that a thousand little legs, or is that a marionette moment?

[laughter]

[Mary Robinette] I'm not sure what's happening over there. Cool.

[Erin] I have a question for you.

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[Erin] I know we don't have endless amounts of time, but you talked about feeling like you were leveling up, and I'm curious, like, what that felt like to you, and, like, how did you feel that? Like, what specifically did you feel that you were able to do that you weren't before?

[Mary Robinette] So I know that... Like, I've had control over delay of information for a while, but this kind of slow reveal in such a compressed space? That felt like something that... Like, I know I couldn't... I know I couldn't have done that when I started writing. And so I'm not even sure that I would have been... Like, 5 years ago, doing that. I'm not certain. But I felt like this... The feeling that I had really was, oh, I know how to do this. And one of the things that I... It wasn't actually that I know how to do this. Oh, I've internalized this. That was the thing. When I've done this before, it has been a very, very conscious thing. Like, I've had to think about it and I've had to tweak and adjust it. And this time it was, I've internalized how to handle it. And that's, I think, part of why I described this story as like I just coughed and the story happened. That I was chasing the feelings and the emotions that I had in that moment. It's very short. For people who have not read it, it's only 1,700 words. So it was something that I could write... Mostly write in one sitting. Which meant that I was kind of in the same headspace for the entire time. So it really did feel like that thing I always talk about with puppetry, where, like, I've internalized it, the figure's just moving. And often, when I was performing, I would remember the show from the point of view of the character. Even though that's not... Like, my body is not in that memory, even though I know that I was there. But I had internalized what I was supposed to be doing so much that I was just acting within the moment. And that was very much that feeling with this. It's like I've internalized this, I'm just acting, I'm just feeling the moment. Which was a really good feeling.

[DongWon] There's a real ease to this story that comes through. Right?

[Erin] Yeah.

[DongWon] It doesn't feel effortful or forced in any way. Not that your fiction normally does, but, like, there's a breeziness to it that I think makes it so appealing and easy to read.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. It was... Like, I think that that can happen with my other stuff, but often it's something that I had to really work for. And, like, polish off the rough edges.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And this time it was like, no, I know exactly what I'm doing with this one. Which was a nice feeling.

[Erin] Awesome.

[Marshall] And I know we're not talking about revision right now, but, like, that's something good, I think, for, like, in my writing community, where a lot of new writers or aspiring writers or whatever you want to call it are trying to figure out, is this ready? You know what I mean? And so I guess I like hearing the fact that you were able to do this, but this isn't something that happens all the time. But it's also something that will happen, the more you do it.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Marshall. I don't know if there's a question there, but like... Do you see what I'm saying?

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. No, I think it absolutely is a thing to know. And that... Because you're right. It is so frustrating when you are working for it, and I see that also with a lot of people who've taken a writing Workshop. That they come out of it, and everything is so conscious that writing feels incredibly hard, because you're trying to do everything, trying to use all of these new tools.

[DongWon] Right.

[Mary Robinette] And so knowing that, oh, yeah, once you do that work, there is this payoff on the other end.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] It just may take... May take years before you get there.

[DongWon] It's all practice.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Like I started... I sold my first book, I think, in 2005. I think that's right.

[DongWon] [garbled] a couple years ago.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Yeah. So I'm about 20 years into doing this as a career... Up to... Whoof.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] I have not actually said that out loud before.

[laughter]

[Mary Robinette] One of the other things that I was going to say is that when I was writing this, we also took a couple of breaks. So, even though it's a 2-hour span that I wrote this in, I know that I took a couple of breaks during that, in which I walked around. And the break's only 2 minutes long. Which is long enough to go get a cup of water, long enough for things to kind of kick over in my head, and then come back. So, like, one of the things that I've got in here is, in the original, is a prompt that I used when we came back, which is, after, she took a face mask out of another drawer and hooked it around her ears. And I've got... I preserved the prompt which was, what the hell? And originally, like in my... And again, like, this is a 2-hour span, I know that I was planning on... Like, I was thinking about how many iterations, how much back and forth... And then I was like, what the hell? Have him just show up.

[Chuckles]

[Marshall] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Like, he just shows up.

[Erin] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And it's just like, what the hell.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Like, forget all of this. And that was also one of those things that, again, the internalization ... Internalizing of, oh, sometimes you can actually just make a decision to stop a try-fail cycle and just move to the next beat.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Like, you don't have to, like, build... Sometimes you can just be like what the hell...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] This is happening there? And just move.

[DongWon] Yeah. I love that.

[Mary Robinette] Okay. Any other questions before I give them their homework?

[Mary Robinette] Well, first of all, thank you all so much for coming to celebrate my birthday.

[Erin] Happy birthday again. Thank you for sharing it with us. Yeah. I love getting presents on somebody else's birthday.

[Mary Robinette] So, for your homework. This story started with a description of emotion. Angry snakes. I want you to take a strong emotion that you've experienced recently, and describe it as a metaphor. Then, I want you to use that metaphor as your writing prompt.

[Marshall] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 21.06: Begin and the Beginning

From https://writingexcuses.com/21-06-begin-and-the-beginning

Key Points: Begin at the beginning. Ground the reader. Set expectations for the ride. Pace, tone. Action-driven openings or voice-driven openings. How will you pull the reader through the story (aka hook or frame). Interesting, unique details. DIY slushpiles. Going into a house for a party. Start at the interesting. Where are we, who should we care about, and what's happening? Taste and an offering. A microcosm of the greater story. Make a promise and keep it, or ask a question and answer it. Welcome snacks! You don't need to get it right at first! Party planning with time travel.

[Season 21, Episode 06]

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[DongWon] Begin at the beginning.

[Erin] Tools, not rules.

[Mary Robinette] For writers, by writers.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Erin] I'mErin.

[DongWon] And, this week we're going to talk about beginnings. This is one of my very favorite topics... I think I've said that like three episodes in a row.

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] But I do love talking about beginnings. I overindex on them. I think in part it's because of my job as an agent, when I'm looking at queries and I'm looking at samples, I'm always looking at beginnings of stories and trying to make a judgment call on them. So, I have read thousands upon thousands of beginnings of books and had to make judgment calls about is this working or not. Right? And I think they're really, really important. I think readers are also reading beginnings of stories and making a decision of do I buy this book, do I keep reading this book? Right? And so many times that's where you lose somebody. Right? Because... Now sometimes for good reasons, which is, oh, this book isn't for me, I'm not the reader for this, I thought it was going to be something else and it's not. The cover... I made an assumption from the cover that isn't true. Right? But a lot of times, it's people who would enjoy the rest of your book, but bounced off of it because it didn't quite do what it... The beginning needs to be doing. It's a very difficult section because your reader's coming in cold, they know nothing about what's happening, they don't know your characters, your stakes, your world, and you need to communicate an enormous amount of information to them very quickly without losing them because of a lack of action or too complex prose or whatever it is.

[Mary Robinette] So this episode is kind of going to give you an overview. And then we're going to have some follow-up episodes where we're going to kind of dive into a lot of these things. But generally, when I'm thinking about beginnings, I think about grounding the reader. I think about setting their expectations for the kind of ride they're going to be on. I think about the pace and the tone of the overall thing. So, sometimes, I'm going to do something that's called an action driven opening, and sometimes I'm going to do something that's called a voice driven opening. And I think about sort of what questions I want to set up that are going to... Like, how am I going to pull the reader through the story? Sometimes we call this a hook, sometimes we call this a frame. There's a bunch of different words for it. But, like, what is it that makes the reader say, do I care about this?

[Erin] I recently did an event in which we read the beginnings of people's works. And so what happened is there was a panel and we read the first few pages. I was one of the readers. We actually couldn't see the panel. And when three of them raised their hands, saying I would stop reading here, we stopped. And so it was really an interesting way... Like, and we read them completely, like, no prep at all.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And it was an interesting way to see what was catching people's attention. And to me, it was, like, something that felt unique, something that people hadn't necessarily heard of before, with interesting details. I found that pieces that had really interesting details, especially if it was like one key detail that felt unique and felt like something that you could really understand, grabbed people's interest and kept them going through the whole beginning. Whereas other ones did not have that same sort of grab.

[Mary Robinette] I've been the reader for this kind of event. And I've also learned that there's a way you can set up this experience at home with friends, which is you can create kind of a slush pile experience. We do something with my short story cohort where we do... The... We get... We take the first 13 lines, which is the first page in standard manuscript format, and we chunk all of the first 13 lines that we have written in a period of time into a single document. And then we go through and read it as if we're reading through a slush pile. And mark which ones kept us and why. We don't mark which ones we hate... We don't do any of that. It's just a I love this, I love that. And one of the things that will happen for the writer is that often everyone will gravitate towards one, and the writer is like that's really fascinating because I know that this other one that no one has picked is way more interesting deeper into the story.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And so then they can look at it and compare, like, what am I doing in this one that everyone is gravitating towards? And so that's the thing that you can do with your writing friends. You can create your own slush pile. You can even create a slush pile by just grabbing the first 13 lines out of existing material that's not even yours to create this experience of what is it that consistently catches me? And it's... You'll find that it is different with each of them, but that a lot of it is that there is something in it that makes you... And this is so amorphous... But there is something in it that makes you lean in.

[DongWon] Yeah. I think that thing is control. The thing I think about the most when I'm looking at the opening pages of a book is: is the author in control of this story? Are they in control of their prose? And I think about this in terms of... We've turned to the metaphor a few times this season, but Amal el Mohtar's idea of a book as an act of hospitality. Right? And I think in terms of when you walk into someone's house, you can feel if this was a space designed with intention. If it's clean and orderly and set up for a good experience for you. Right? When you walk into someone's house and it's chaotic, there's stuff all over the place, there's no clear place for you to sit, there's no... If you don't know how to get water or you don't know how to be comfortable here, it puts you in a more... It puts you on your back foot. Right? And so when you walk into a story, you want to feel that this is a roller coaster ride, and that roller coaster is well built and I'm not going to fall off of it. Right? And so I think finding ways to communicate that in the opening pages of you're in good hands, I got you, is incredibly important. And I think a lot of people think it's important to start with action, you have to start in media res, it has to be thrilling and exciting. But sometimes, for me, the strongest openings are ones that are very, very quiet. The ones that are just describing something for a long time, but they're doing it in a way that is demonstrating in micro you're going to like my prose, I have control over the pacing, I'm going to build tension, and you're going to be interested in it even though nothing is happening yet.

[Erin] Yeah. It is kind of like going into a house, like, for a party...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] Like, you can come in the middle of a party and it... Definitely things will be going on, it'll be interesting, but if you don't know anyone there, you can sometimes feel like very like, I don't understand, I just want to stand in the corner of the wall, I don't know why this person is dancing with that person, or what's happening. But if you come to a house before the party has begun, you get a chance to, like, take in, like, oh, this is the place, here's the person, here's the host, now I have, like, a little bit of a sense...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] Of it. And I think that's why details, to me, like, stuck out as one of the things that worked really well in the openings that I was reading. Because, like in a house, if you have too many knick knacks, like, it's just like... It's hard to focus. Same way, if you have, like, too many details... If you're trying to describe a scene, and it's like this amazing detail, that amazing detail... It's like, wow, I can't focus. But if you're controlled and you're like, let me take your eye to this one really important thing that, like, resonates with the story and is really going to catch your attention, like having that one really great art wall in your house, that is something that says I understand how to move you through this space, move you through this story, and give you something that's going to be worth seeing. worth reading.

[DongWon] Because, even if you show up in the middle of a party, if there's a clear idea, oh, snacks are here, drink station is here, music is there, and that's clearly legible. Or the host comes over and says, hey, let me take you around, then you can have a great time in the middle of the party. You can show up in media res if you're being well taken care of.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. By the same token, if you arrive too early, there's that incredibly awkward thing...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Where you just stand around while the host is getting things ready. That's when... Those are the books that you read where the... They've just started it too soon.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] It's like they are still doing the [grope] which often you need to do while you are writing, and there is nothing wrong with doing that in draft. Like, do not think that your first draft has to have the perfect opening, like, the first time around. Very few of mine do, I have to tell you that.

[laughter]

[DongWon] It's funny, I almost suggested changing the title of the episode, but my proposal would have made no sense, which is the beginning is a terrible place to start.

[laughter]

[DongWon] Because sometimes... I run this... This is a very, very common mistake is that the writer is starting the story for where the character's story starts. Which is, like, waking up, going to school, before the inciting incident happened. So a lot of times, what I'll say is, hey, jump forward, start where something interesting is happening... Don't start at the beginning, start at the interesting. But the challenge of that is exactly what we're talking about, of you don't have any context and it's all pretty chaotic. And I think there's like a lot of techniques to help ease the reader in. Like we've talked about high level, of like how you want the reader to feel, and when we come back from the break, I want to start talking about some of the techniques that we use to make sure that that feels good to them.

[DongWon] Okay. DongWon here. I wanted to remind you that in September, our last annual cruise will set sail for Alaska. And on February 15th, ticket prices will increase. The hosts are teaching classes on the business of publishing, world building, conversational storytelling, and game writing. You can sign up and learn more at writingexcuses.com/retreats. Hope to see you there.

[DongWon] Okay. Welcome back. In the first half of this, we've been talking about how do you make the reader feel comfortable in the story, How do you communicate authority and control as they're reading the opening lines of your work. Let's start talking about the techniques that are useful here. How do you play with getting enough information into those opening pages that they accomplish all the goals that you set out, Mary Robinette, and the reader feels well grounded in the story and has a sense of the shape of what's to come?

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. And we will get into this, like, a lot more when we get to the grounding...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] The reader episode. But... High level, I think about... That the reader wants to know kind of where they are, and where can include a when. They want to know what they're supposed to care about, whether that's a person or an idea. And they want to know sort of what is happening. Which can sometimes, in an action-driven story, be like literally what is the character doing? But in a voice driven opening, that can... Like Hitchhiker's Guide is an example of this. They want to know, like, what is the deal with the watches? And the digital watches and why they're a pretty neat idea? Going back to the... I jotted something down while Erin was talking before the break about arriving at a party and how you know that someone is in control. Because I'm like, yeah, I want a sense of control, that the author is in control, but, like, what is that? And I think the things that we're looking at are intention, the order, that it isn't just a chaotic thing. Sometimes, if you have everything everywhere all at once, but that doesn't start chaotically. Chaos comes in that. Taste, a sense of the author's taste. And then a good host comes with an offering.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And so I think if you kind of think about those things... It's like, what is your intention with this opening? What order are you going to present the information in so that they build a picture in their head? What is the tone, the taste that you're trying to demonstrate? And what is the thing that you're offering that entices them to come further in?

[DongWon] The thing I think about a lot is a really useful thing to do is to create a microcosm of the greater story. Right?

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[DongWon] You build a tiny little micro taster of... The Douglas Adams thing that you're talking about, in terms of that opening, the reason it works is it's him being like, hey, you like this? Get ready for a lot more of it. Right? And sometimes just giving a little taste sample of what's going to come is the most useful thing you can do. My favorite opening of all time is The Haunting of Hill House. And it starts with this, like, abstract idea, goes into a long description of a house, just very normal description of a house, and then ends on an incredibly creepy line. Right? And so what that is, is an absolute outline of the book we're about to read. Of kind of abstract, gets into talking about a house for a long time, and then gets really weird. Right? And so I think sometimes setting the reader up and putting them through the paces of your story in a filtered way, in a microcosm way, is a great way to be like do you like this? You're going to like this book.

[Erin] I also think like... I agree with that. I also think that making a promise and then keeping it...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] Really quickly is a great way to show that you understand what's going on, or asking a question and then answering it.

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] Because, like, early on, the reader's like, I don't know if I can trust you to keep your promises or answer the questions. And as the story goes on, you can actually space out a promise from it being fulfilled or a question from it being answered because you've already established that you're doing that. It's like you're showing that, like, I said this was what was going to be, and this is what it's going to be.

[DongWon] I have a friend who calls that welcome snacks. Like when somebody comes to a party, they're immediately like, here's a little thing, here's just a bite you can have. Here's, like a little, like... I don't know, like a sweet popcorn dish or like a chip and a dip. You know what I mean? Just like immediately you walk in, you just get a little mouthful of something. You're like, mmm, that was nice. Okay, let's go.

[Erin] And part of what that does in a party setting... We're also party planners here...

[Chuckles]

[Erin] Is that it says, I thought of you.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] When someone has a snack for you when you enter, they say, like, I actually before you arrived thought of something that would make you more comfortable and happy in this moment. I made a promise, I'm going to be your host, and I have immediately fulfilled it by doing something that I wouldn't do if this wasn't a party.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And so that is the quick thing that you can put in the story.

[Mary Robinette] Which reminds me of a thing I was talking with a friend who had just gone over to someone's home and it was the first time this person had hosted anyone. And the friend arrived and she's there for an awkward amount of time, and then the person is like, oh, I probably should have had snacks. I should have had snacks. Do we have snacks? I might have snacks. And that is often my first... My experience of reading early career manuscripts.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Where you arrive and there's like nothing really happening, and then at some point, the author is like, oh, something's supposed to happen. And then there's like an explosion out of nowhere, and you don't understand...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Why it's happening or anything. Like, What. Is. Going. On? And you feel a little unsafe and uncomfortable.

[DongWon] One thing I want to point out is I think you can be forgiving of your friend, when it's your friend.

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[DongWon] When that happens. When you go over to your buddy's house, he's like, oh, man, Chuck is always like this. You know what I mean?

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] He doesn't know how to plan a party. But when you are asking someone to pay $20 and give up time away from their family, away from TV and video games and going to the gym or whatever it is, then that is saying come to my professional [garbled]

[Mary Robinette] You don't want the Fire Festival of books.

[DongWon] Exactly. Exactly.

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] You don't want to be serving someone white bread with a slice of ham on it, and being like, welcome to my luxury festival. Right? You need to be giving them...

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Sorry.

[laughter]

[DongWon] Sorry. We are just losing it. [garbled] But y'all wanted to be part festival, y'all want to be at the White Lotus. Right? You want to be, like, here's the beautiful experience, also someone's getting murdered.

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] But I think thinking about... I mean, we really went all around this hospitality metaphor, but I think it's really, really, really useful in thinking about opening of how do you take care of readers as they're coming into your story?

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. And there's this thing that I want to say about this is that from a writing perspective, from a craft perspective, you 100% don't need to get this right on the first try. And...

[DongWon] Yes.

[Mary Robinette] You almost certainly won't. Every now and then you'll get lucky. Like, I've had times where I'm lucky and the opening is, like, lasts through the whole thing. More often than not, I will get into the middle of the book, and then reach the end of the book and realize, oh, this is what that book is actually about, and have to go back and write a new first chapter. Or with a short story, have to reframe the first couple of... Sometimes, the first couple of pages, sometimes it's just a paragraph. Sometimes I have to pull a whole scene at the beginning of it. But it is... It changes. In fact, coming up in... Later, in two episodes, two episodes from now, we're going to be looking at one of my stories, With Her Serpent Locks, and that opening line is not the opening line that I started with. It's an opening line that did not happen until my editor read it, and said, we need this here. And I was like... And I resisted it really... It was like very... Very annoyed. But...

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Very correct.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] So a lot of... So when you're writing from a craft perspective, think about this as party planning with time travel.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] You get to plan the party, and then you get to have the party, and then you get to time travel back and say, okay, these are the snacks we actually need, these are the things that we... This is who's coming, it turns out this allergy exists and we need to take that snack away and make sure that the AC is running because someone is coming with a fire thing that they're going to do outside...

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] And then everyone's going to come back inside and be really hot. So, like, you can do all of that, and then throw the party again.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And everyone is comfortable... Same people coming, but they just have a different experience because of the way you framed it at the beginning.

[Erin] And I think you can also learn that you wrote a beginning to the story that you're not actually trying to write.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] So, you could be like, oh, I'm going to... In The party planning analogy... I'm going to throw a rager. A rager to end all ragers. with a string quartet, and wine, and cheese. And it's like, is that a rager? Like, if what you want in your party is, like, I actually want people to have really quiet, intimate conversations with each other the entire party. Like, even though in your head, you may want to think, I'm the kind of person who throws epic frat rager... No. You're actually interested in this, like, gentle, like, cocktail party. And that's okay.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] Because I think sometimes we get ideas in our head of what we want to be as writers and we start writing a beginning using that. And then in the middle, we realize this is not the story that I really want to tell. And it's okay to abandon that and leave that beginning for some other time or some other version of you.

[Mary Robinette] And with that idea, it's also important to note that sometimes we got ideas from seeing other people's parties.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] But those parties don't necessarily fit into our house, into our taste or into our budget. Like, when I see people go from novels to short stories, they're trying to write an opening with a novel budget which is a lot more words and they just don't have that big of a budget, and their apartment is also a studio apartment,...

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] It's not a mansion.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] So you have to make different choices.

[DongWon] And I think another reason to not write your beginning first, or not worry about your beginning being exactly right when you start, is that openings of novels are heightened. Right? They're written in a slightly different way than the rest of the book, because your language is going to be a little bit more dense, you're going to be doing more than you can ease out of this, like, really high octane, High information density. And like often in your opening lines, you're going to be a little more showy then you will be later in the book in terms of prose style. Because you're trying to like really hit people with, like, here's a bang opening line. Here's like... I can write. You know what I mean? Is one thing you're trying to communicate in that early section. And so trying to sustain that over the course of the novel is... Would be a huge mistake, because it would be exhausting for your reader and for you. So I think finding a way to, like, have... To come back and be like, okay, how do I craft something that feels heightened and that's like a special entry to the story, but doesn't have to be sustained throughout? And that kind of gives you the space to do that little microcosm thing that we were talking about.

[Mary Robinette] And I think that's going to bring us to our homework.

[Mary Robinette] And for the homework, what I'd like to ask you to do is to make an artificial slush pile. This is a great exercise that you can do. We're going to be talking about tools, and we're going to give you an opportunity for the rest of this beginning to play with those tools in the homework. But for right now, just take a look, just analyze existing tools and see what works for you and what makes you lean in, what makes you feel welcome at the party.

[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 19.51: And That Was That

From https://writingexcuses.com/19-51-and-that-was-that

Key points: Endings! Climax, plus wrap up (aka denouement). Compare end to the beginning. Not just a return to home, but something that reminds us of the beginning, but shows the change. Who, where, what, why do I care? Surprising, yet inevitable, with a lean towards inevitable. Don't just stop, let us see the characters settling into their new status quo. Give the reader a little dessert, some candy! Beware the new question or problem ending! Sometimes cliffhangers are okay. Just make sure the ending is satisfying to the reader. Watch out for shoving the unanswered stuff in the closet! Cliffhangers... how do you give a sense of conclusion while the plot is still open, and there are still big questions hanging? Different kinds of questions: character/relationship questions versus plot/world questions. Use the M.I.C.E. quotient! Lingering effect. Resolving shots. Where will the reader's head canon take them? Think about things you have read that you liked the way they made you feel. Emotional beats, body beats. Playlists!

[Season 19, Episode 51]

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[DongWon] And That Was That.

[Erin] 15 minutes long.

[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're not that smart.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Howard] And I'm Howard.

[Erin] So, we're going to talk a little bit about endings and how you have your big moment of climactic excitement and then how you wrap it all up for your reader. When I started thinking about this, I was really thinking about fantasy fiction. Because I feel like in fantasy, the world , like, often changes in these very big, dramatic, like, big ways, and then has... You have to make sense of all that and still bring it back to something that hits home for the reader.So I'm worndering how you all do that?

[Dan] Well, earlier this month we talked about Toy Story, and Toy Story does this wonderfully. That birthday scene at the beginning where they're all freaking out, oh, no, we're going to get a new toy, how is it going to disrupt our status quo? We get that exact scene at the very end, but we get it instead of we need to see if Buzz Lightyear is the new toy, and instead it is Buzz Lightyear is my best friend and we're working together to see what the next toy is going to be. What this is doing, and what I try to do in my writing, is compare the end to the beginning. It doesn't have to be a let's go back to the Shire and see how we've changed. That mythological return to home kind of idea. It can just be something that reminds us of the beginning but shows that it has changed. Recontextualizes it, sees it from a different perspective, so that we can go, oh, okay. Things have changed. A doesn't exactly equal A anymore, because we've added B to it.

[Mary Robinette] I found that I… I do a very similar thing, that I try to look for those resonance moments. I often think about it as doing like the beginning and inverse. And at the beginning of a story, a novel you're attempting to do, to ground the reader with who, where, what, why do I care. At the end, I find that I actually also need to hit those beats again. That I need to let people know who we are with, like, how my character change… Has changed, who they are now. Where we are. Sometimes it's a literal different place, but also, like, what the environment is. And then, the reason to care. It's like why is this important to my character and in giving some aspect of interiority to the character, really helps, for me, like to bring that sense of oh, we're home. This is the return. Even in stories where it's not, oh, and happily ever after. But this is moment.

[Howard] I'm a big fan of the surprising yet inevitable. And if I have to choose between surprising and inevitable, I will choose inevitable. Because that lets the reader feel smart. If I choose surprising, but non sequitur, then I often just make the reader angry. And so… Am I always clever enough to surprise the reader? No. Frankly, I'm not. So I look at surprising, yet inevitable, as the high bar, and reach for inevitability first.

[DongWon] When I think about authors who are famously bad at endings, or at least people complain about their endings a lot…

[Laughter]

[DongWon] So… The safest one to mention is Steven King, for example. Right? People hate Steven King's endings. Especially in his earlier novels. The thing that I notice about these is that they end abruptly. They don't give space for the dénouement, to use the fancy term for it. Right? That beat past the declining action where we get to see the characters entering their new status quo. The reason… I think that that is so unsatisfying. Right? And I think you guys are talking about really excellent points in terms of closing these parentheses, referring back to the initial moments, but also, as the reader, I want my candy now. Right? Like, I've eaten the full meal, but I do want dessert at this point. I want that last bite to leave with that gives me a sense of this was all worth it. Right? And sometimes that bite is a reward of, like, seeing the happy ending for them. Right? To go to Lord of the Rings, Samwise Gamgee getting married, having a good time. That is a candy for Sam. For me, also, the candy is Frodo having to leave the Shire, because he's too traumatized. Right? Because that's something that tells me this journey meant something. It was so weighty and so difficult that poor sweet Frodo is shattered at the end of it. Right? To me, that makes so much of the arc of the whole story feel so heavy and rich and bountiful to me. Because I had that emotional moment at the end. People complain all the time that Lord of the Rings has four endings. I think it's important that it has each of those endings. It tells us that this… I spent the last however many months of my life reading these massive books or however many hours watching these movies that I did something worthwhile. Because the writers took me seriously enough to make sure that I felt good at the end of it.

[Mary Robinette] This is something that I had a hard time with when I transitioned from writing short stories to novels, is that I would hit the landing and I'd get out, and I wouldn't give the audience time to breathe and to have that candy. I love that metaphor of the way to describe it. One of the things that I see people do who are historically bad at endings, in addition to the and now we just stop, is that they will introduce a new question, a new problem. And this is very tempting to do all the time, especially, I think, with fantasy. It's like, and what about the other dragon?

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] And it's like, uhuh. Because that's… You're gearing up for a sequel. Not every book has to have a sequel. Often, if you do that, it doesn't feel like the book's ended. So try not to introduce a new story question at the end, trying not to like wrap… Ramp the tension up as you're heading towards the end. So the trick that I've found for myself is that I write that last chapter, my dénouement, my epilogue, I kind of write it as a standalone short story with the same characters and on the same theme.

[Howard] For… [Sigh] Okay. There are a bazillion different structures that we could be working within. And, primarily, when I talk about satisfying readers, I'm talking about satisfying myself and my own familiarity with structures that are primarily Western. And so within those structures, I try to make sure that for the first two thirds… After I hit two thirds of the book, I'm not allowed to introduce new characters, new technologies, new settings, new anything, because I don't want to do that exact thing, Mary Robinette. I don't want to drop a big fat question at the end, and I don't want to drop something that feels like a deus ex machina. The last third of the book, I have to use the toys that I put on the table in the first two thirds. And for me, for the structures and genres that I work within, that's pretty effective for forcing me to narrow my options for an ending.

[Dan] Well, I think it's important to remember that there is a difference between an open-ended ending and a cliffhanger ending. Look at the first Star Wars movie. We know when the Death Star goes down that the Empire's much bigger than this. We know that Darth Vader is still alive. But because of the order in which they present that information to us, we end on an incredibly final satisfying note. It doesn't feel like a stretch to keep telling this story in more movies. But also, we're not left with lingering questions. There's no last minute stinger scene of Darth Vader tumbling in his tie fighter and we go, dumdum-dum, he's still alive. We already know that because that was given to us during the climax. So you can have these kinds of things. You just need to end us on that moment that helps us feel resolved and satisfied.

[Erin] That's sort of reminds me of something we said all the way back when we were talking about beginnings, which is about building reader trust by asking questions and then answering them. I think there's a little bit of that at the end, too. Like, you want to make sure you've answered enough questions in this book that if you raise, like, one additional… Not raise, but if there is an additional piece of information out there, there's more to the world, it feels as if the reader's still got the questions that they had for this book answered, and that they trust that you will answer those questions, like, in the future. I will say that, like, as a… I am… People who are horrible at endings, it me.

[Laughter]

[Erin] So I… Like, one of the things that I do that's a, like, an in between mistake, is the shove everything in a closet. So, this is, like, you're cleaning your room, and you get to the point where you've taken a lot of things out because you were organizing everything, but it looks really bad at that moment. You're like, oh, gosh, everything is everywhere. You could put things in the new places you've picked for them, or you could shove it all in a closet and then, like, close the door. So, sometimes, when things feel like they've ended… When I've written endings and I'm like, this feels unsatisfying… It's because there are things I just didn't want to deal with. Like, I was like, I just didn't really want to answer how they got to this place. So I just decided to ignore it.

[Laughter]

[Howard] In act one, you hang a snow shovel and a trash compactor on the mantle, and everything will fit in the closet in act three.

[Erin] Exactly.

[DongWon] Well, speaking of unsatisfying endings, I think we need to go to break for a couple minutes, and then we'll be right back.

[Mary Robinette] Hey, friends. The 2025 retreat registration is open. We have two amazing writing retreats coming up and we cordially invite you to enroll in them. For those of you who sign up before January 12, 2025… How is that even a real date? We're off… [Background noise] As you can probably hear, my cat says we've got a special treat for our friends. We are offering a little something special to sweeten the pot. You'll be able to join several of my fellow Writing Excuses hosts and me on a Zoom earlybird meet and greet call to chit chat, meet fellow writers, ask questions, get even more excited about Writing Excuses retreats. To qualify to join the earlybird meet and greet, all you need to do is register to join a Writing Excuses retreat. Either our Regenerate Retreat in June or our annual cruise in September 2025. Just register by January 12. Learn more at writingexcuses.com/retreats.

[Erin] Chants of Sennaar is one of my favorite games that I've played in the last year. I'm not the only one. It was nominated for the Nebula award for game writing. So it is a great experience for anyone. Here's what happens. You basically show up in a tower, and people are speaking to you, and it's like, "Mum, mum, mummum." You're just seeing symbols and you have to figure out from context what their words mean. That's what the gameplay is. You're figuring out, oh, okay. Mammut means plant, and blah blah blah blah means upstairs. And you're figuring it out and you're putting it together. And then, you move to another level where people are saying cheek check bawk bawk… Whatever. They're using a completely different language, and whatever it is, you have to figure out that one. Then you have to figure out how to understand what each of these different level people are doing, what their language is, and figure out that, like, tick-tock in one language means rawr rawr in another, and bring people together through puzzle solving and language. It's amazing. The art is great, the music is great. And if you've ever thought hey, writing can drive people wild, this is a game that I know that you'll love. So, check out Chants of Sennaar.

[DongWon] Okay. So we were talking about this a little bit before the break. But I was wondering if we could talk about cliffhangers more specifically. Right? Because I think there's a specific art to ending on big open questions leading into book 2, leading into book 3, whatever it is, but still giving readers a sense of completion. Right? I was thinking… I re-watched the second Spiderverse movie the other day, which ends on an incredible cliffhanger. But also I… When I watch that movie, it's such a satisfying sense of completion, because questions were answered about the characters. Things were closed off about when Stacy started here, she ends here. Miles starts here, Miles ends here. So how do you get people… Characters to a sense of conclusion while the overall plot clearly is still hanging open and there's huge questions about what's going to happen to these people?

[Erin] I think… I love the Spiderverse as well as an example, for one thing, because it's just a great movie.

[DongWon] It's incredible.

[Erin] Also, it reminded me that there are different types of questions. I think sometimes we forget that. That there are character questions and relationship questions that we're answering that are different than plot questions or world questions. So I think figuring out what the core is of the story, going back and looking at the beginning. What was the promise you were making? I feel like Spiderverse, for example, is a movie that promises an emotional… That there's going to be an emotional and character development. And since it delivers that and answers some of those questions, I don't care as much about the theory dangling plot questions that are going to be…

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] Answered in the next movie.

[Dan] Yeah. For me, a lot of this comes down to making sure that you really know what your story is about. I… For example, and this is a very thin example. I'm sure I could think of better ones if I tried. But, Fellowship of the Rings… The movie, in particular, ends on this, well, and now we are out of time. Please come back next year. But that's the plot. Emotionally, what most of this story has been about is Frodo trying to decide is he in control of his own destiny, and is he willing to put other people in danger? And that emotional plot conflict gets resolved very solidly at the end when he's like, yes, I am in control. No, I won't put anyone else in danger. I'm going to go do this myself. So, from that perspective, it does feel done and satisfying. Because we have tied off a major thread. Even though there's clearly many others. So… Fellowship, I think, is an example where they could have tied that off better if that had been a priority for them. But making sure that you know what the story is actually about. I just watched a really wonderful movie called Polite Society which is a Pakistani British action comedy thing about sisters. These two sisters start off best friends, and then this huge rift shows up and it ends up with this giant like martial arts punch out. They defeat the villain, and a lesser movie would end there. This movie remembered, nope, this is a story about sisters. So we get that breathing room denouement at the end where they are back together, best friends, doing the things they used to do, and that lets us know that the real story is over.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I will surprise no one. So, the M.I.C.E. quotient…

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] But, the M.I.C.E. quotient is a very useful tool for thinking about these and categorizing them. So. Sometimes what I will do at the end is I will sit down and look, okay, I started with an event story and then I've got a character story. Most of my middle is actually spent in a milieu, and then I wrap that up. But then I still have my event and character that I have to wrap up at the end. And I will often make a plan to go back and revise the beginning so I'm opening things in different orders. But at the end, going back to something Dan said earlier about the order in which you present the information to the reader, that's what I think about most when I'm doing these endings is what emotion do I want the reader to walk away with. If you think of it like a drug, what is the lingering effect? Like, you put up with a bunch of side effects, but there's this one long term effect that you want. What is that one long term effect? So, for cliffhangers, the long term effect that I want is what happens next? So that's the beat that I'm going to land on at the very very end. And if I don't want that cliffhanger, the what happens next, then I'm either going to not raise that question at all or I am going to put it earlier so that the beat of oh, I feel good about these characters and they seem healthy right now.

[Dan] We have talked so much this year about establishing shots. But we haven't really talked about this kind of resolving shot. The satisfying shot at the end. How do you want… What promises do you want to make at the beginning, but then what emotions do you want to leave them with at the end? I think that's a really smart thing to think about, and I'm going to call it a resolving shot.

[Mary Robinette] That's great. I'm going to claim that and copyright it right now.

[Laughter]

[Howard] One of the questions I ask myself when I'm writing and ending… And I ask myself this question because I'm the sort of person who consumes a thing and then immediately does what I'm going to get to in a moment, and that is where will the reader's head canon take them after they read the last line? What's the story they are automatically going to try to tell themselves next? I don't control that. I… They're going to take what I wrote and then they're going to… If I don't write an ending, they're going to write their own ending. If I write an ending they don't like, they're going to email me.

[Laughter]

[Howard] If I… But what is the head canon that I want to leave them with. And often, that… Using that as a framing for the resolving shot, that's… The cowboys riding off into the sunset. Well, you know, there's another Silverado down the road that will need their help, and that's the head canon that we get for that kind of thing.

[Erin] I'm wondering in setting up these sort of resolving shots, how do we know? I think that we've been assuming that you know exactly the feeling that you want to end with. But what if you're not sure? Is there anything you can look to, sort of in your writing so far, in order to figure out what is the best way to end things? Where… What is the thing that will satisfy the reader and yourself as the writer?

[Howard] For young writers, and when I say young, I mean writers who are new to writing, what are the things that you read that you liked the way it made you feel? Model your writing on the feeling map of those things, and… That's a great place to start. For writers who are more advanced, you already have a million techniques that are better than anything I can tell you.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] Just write.

[DongWon] Yeah, I mean, really it is digging down to what is the emotional thing that you want to leave. Right? Like, what's the thing that will make your reader feel the book in their body, when you leave them with it. Because that's the thing they're going to be the most excited about. So, if you're me, how do you make them as sad as possible in the last scene?

[Laughter]

[DongWon] Right? Or, in the case of Spiderverse, ending on a beat that is so exciting everyone's jumping out of their chairs and yelling. Right? Like, it really depends on what you're trying to accomplish. But I think leaning into the genres of the body is the way to go for these last beats. Making them laugh, making them cheer, making them cry. Those are the kinds of things. Or making… Feeling a saccharine sweetness. Right? I think that's… When you want to leave that lingering taste, think about how do you do it with this kind of intensity.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I want to say that that feeling in the body is really the key because sometimes I will see writers say I want them to think, ah, that was a really clever twist. It's like, that's not… That's a… That's not a…

[Dan] That's not an emotion.

[Mary Robinette] That's a beat and a moment, and it's not something that lingers with you. It is not something that you necessarily feel in your body. Sometimes… But, ah, that writer was clever. It's like that's not… That's not a useful goal.

[Howard] Yes. Surprising yet inevitable is not satisfying if it doesn't also have the body shot…

[DongWon] Right.

[Howard] Accompanying it.

[DongWon] Horror movies end on that last jump scare because they want you feeling bad and nervous as you walk to your car as you leave the theater. They want you to be afraid as you leave because that is going to be the thing you remember about that movie. If you feel that way, then you're going to get home and be like, yo, you gotta go watch that movie. I was so scared the whole time. Even if you were only scared in the last 10 minutes of it. Right?

[Mary Robinette] One of the things that you can do if you're… We've talked about looking at other media that you consume, but the other thing that's really simple is you can make yourself a playlist.

[Yeah]

[Mary Robinette] That encapsulates the moods that you want. If you listen to a song and you're like, that! That's what I want my book to feel like. A lot of times it is because you're feeling that song in your body, and you can start to reach for what are the tools that I can use. Some of the tools that we talked about earlier when we were talking about character, some of the tools that are coming… That were coming out of language. These are all tools that you can use to manipulate that last moment and, yes, manipulate your reader so that they have that body feeling.

[DongWon] Think about mood [garbled], think about playlists, those kinds of things.

[Erin] What I love about all this is we talked earlier about looking at the beginning, and then look at the beginning and the ending. I love that, because I'm thinking on my playlist, maybe I want to relisten to that first song…

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] That got me excited at the very end. Because that reminds me of the feeling that got me into the story, and that's maybe the feeling that I want my reader to have going out of it.

[Erin] And, with that, I have your homework for the week. Which is going to be to think of how your story, how your novel, how what you've been writing this month is going to end. Think of the first ending you can think of, and then think what might be the next scene, then write that. And then, the very last thing that we want you to do, is to celebrate yourself. Because no matter where you started, no matter where you end up, you have tried something really difficult this month, and we're really excited for you, proud of you, and really want to see whatever story that you have. I can't wait to read it.

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

[Howard] Have you ever wanted to ask one of the Writing Excuses hosts for very specific, very you-focused help. There's an offering on the Writing Excuses Patreon that will let you do exactly that. The Private Instruction tier includes everything from the lower tiers plus a quarterly, one-on-one Zoom meeting with a host of your choice. You might choose, for example, to work with me on your humorous prose, engage DongWon's expertise on your worldbuilding, or study with Erin to level up your game writing. Visit patreon.com/writingexcuses for more details.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 19.48: Beginning With A Thrill

From https://writingexcuses.com/19-48-beginning-with-a-thrill

Key Points: Beginning with a thrill. A bang! A big, flashy question. Cold open, somebody is murdered, so who did it, why did they do it, how did they do it? Howcatchem. Start with small question, answer, to build reader trust and curiosity. Thrill or long slow burn? Little things going wrong. Let the character notice that something is wrong. Language and choice of details. Not always a burst of action or violence. Something unexpected or shocking. Mysterious stranger in the shire. Disrupt the normal. Meet cute or meat cube? Don't introduce tension through worldbuilding. Foreground action, not back story. What would startle your characters, and how would they deal with that? Give your characters stakes early on.

[Season 19, Episode 48]

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[DongWon] Beginning With A Thrill.

[Erin] 15 minutes long.

[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're not that smart.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Howard] I'm Howard.

[Dan] Today, we are going to talk about beginning with a thrill. But first, we want to tell you a little bit about what we're going to be doing all month. And this is Erin.

[Erin] Yes. This is Erin.

[Chuckles]

[Erin] 15 minutes… No, I'm…

[Chuckles]

[Erin] [garbled] inspired by an earlier episode that we recorded with Marshall where we were talking about how different genres can help you understand writing in different ways, we're going to be focusing on a genre that does something really cool that you can take into your own work for the rest of the month.

[Howard] I am excited to be a part of these discussions…

[Laughter]

[Howard] Because I literally have no idea what's coming.

[Chuckles]

[Dan] Well, that is also what all the people who die at the beginning of a thriller say.

[Chuckles]

[Dan] Do you like that segue? So, the reason we're starting with thrillers is because thrillers in mysteries, as a genre, tend to start with a bang. You need to ask a big enough, flashy enough, question that will pull the reader through the rest of the story, and you need to do it right off the bat. Kind of establish, this is the kind of story you're in. Where we see this most bluntly is in, like, a detective show on TV, where the cold open is some random person we've never seen being murdered, and then the rest of the show is trying to figure out who did it, or why they did it, or how they did it, or whatever it is.

[Howard] Sandra and I will play a game when we're watching those shows. The game is the moment we see someone on TV, we decide whether they discover a body or become a body.

[Laughter]

[Howard] One of those two things.

[Mary Robinette] Is about to happen. Well, this is one of the things that I love, is that that discovery of the body or becoming the body doesn't actually have to be the very first thing that happens in the novel. But usually when you're watching those cold open scenes, there's something small that goes wrong first. So, what I like looking for is something that goes wrong that kind of sets the tone that is going to lead directly to the big problem, but is not necessarily the big problem. I've… Have a… I've learned that dropping the body in the first chapter is not always the best thing to do. As tempting as it is.

[Dan] Yeah. There's… One of my favorite mystery genres is called the howcatchem, which is related to whodunit, where the main question is who killed this person. A howcatchem story is we know who did it, but we are watching the detective to see if they're going to be able to figure out who did it and stop them. The way this often starts is we will see the killer first. They're not going to discover or become a body, they're going to produce a body.

[Squeak]

[Dan] And often the way this goes is we get to watch all the things that are wrong in their life, the person who bugs them, or the aspect of their life that needles at them and we can tell that sooner or later this person's going to explode. That is the kind of tension you can draw out for a while, because it's just ominous enough and it's tense enough that it does ask that big flashy question, what is this person going to do to get out of this situation they hate?

[DongWon] This is usually, at least in terms of bookstore genre, one of the distinctions between thriller and mystery. When you know who the killer is upfront, and then the tension is more about will the hero figure that out, and then as you have that sort of cat and mouse kind of perspective, that's how you ratchet up the tension, rather than the mystery being what pulls you forward into who actually did this thing. Right? So it's kind of two distinct hooks that define these two genres.

[Howard] There's a secondary principal at work here, which is that when you present that big question, you want the reader to already trust you that you are eventually going to provide an answer. The way to build that trust is that somewhere in the first page, somewhere in the first 10 pages, or the first chapter, you want to be asking smaller questions and providing answers. Small questions, provide answers. Small question, delay the gratification for the answer, get another question, and then, oh, here's the answer. You set this pattern up for the reader, where they realize, oh, yes, I am curious, and then, I am sated. Then, I am curious, and I am sated. Then I am desperately curious… And that's the page turn for the next chapter.

[Erin] So, I have a question. So, I'm thinking about a book where I'm reading about someone going through their life, and things are bad, and I'm wondering, I know that I bought a thriller. Like, I bought it from the thriller section of the bookstore, so I'm probably anticipating that, like, this bad thing will end in a body one way or the other. But how much of that… Let's assume that I didn't know that it was a thriller, I bought it with, like, no knowledge of the book at all. What is it that you're doing in order to make this feel like it's tense, like something's about to go wrong in this person's life in a murder-type way and not just like a day in the life of a guy whose life sucks?

[Laughter]

[Dan] Yeah. That is a very good question to ask. That's where I was going to try to go next. Because this is called starting with a thrill, not starting with a long slow burn. Although those often can be the same if you're very good at it. We talked earlier in the year about the establishing shot, and when you are writing a book or a short story, the very first thing that you show us is kind of telling us what kind of story this will be. If you start your mystery novel off with a fight scene, then you're telling us this is going to be an action movie or maybe a thriller. If that's not actually what it is, the death has to be more abrupt or less of a back-and-forth. There needs to be less interaction in the way this person dies. But, if you were doing, for example, an episode of TV or a movie, you could get away with a lot of that tension you're talking about with musical cues and stuff. Weird shots, weird POV shots that make us feel like this person is being watched or followed, spooky music, to let us say, oh, no, this person's going to die. The way you can create that… I should say, one of the ways you can re-create that in a novel, where you don't have music and things like that, is to just draw things out. Focus on details that don't seem as if they should be important. Because that makes readers nervous. Why is it taking two paragraphs to find her keys before she can get into her house? Things like that. Which is… The purpose here is not to bore the reader. This has to be tense and interesting. You're giving us little micro tensions of, oh, no, something is wrong. Oh, okay, they got out of it. Oh, no, this other thing is going wrong. Oh, they got out of it. Why is he describing so much about this type of whatever? It's to put readers on edge. Take them out of comfortable territory.

[Mary Robinette] Another tool that you can use along those lines is having the character notice that something is wrong. So, the character who is approaching their house and is like, "That's weird. I don't remember leaving a light on." And having the character… Using POV to signal to the reader, hum, things are about to be not okay.

[Dan] Yeah. Speaking of character, you can absolutely in prose do the freaky POV shot that you would get in a TV show. If the whole first scene is a couple just came home from a date, and they're flirting with each other as they walk through their house, and they talk about their bank accounts while taking their clothes off, but we're seeing the entire thing from some third perspective. Someone is listening to them. Even if that listener is never identified, and you drop hints about how they can't see what they're wearing yet or whatever it is, but it's obvious that this very private intimate conversation is being eavesdropped on, even without any direct mention of danger or threat, that's invasive and puts us on edge.

[Mary Robinette] That really is invasive and does put me on edge.

[Laughter]

[Howard] Let's come back to what it feels like to be on edge after this break.

[DongWon] One thing I've really loved recently is Yorgos Lanthimos's The Favourite, which was released in 2018. It's a brilliant historical satire about a rivalry between two of Queen Anne's ladies, played by Emma Stone and Kate Winslet [Rachel Weisz?]. The Queen herself is played by Olivia Colman, in a brilliant, hilarious, and tragic performance. It's sort of like All about Eve, but with an even more biting edge and a lot to say about class, privilege, and power, all wrapped up in a strange, almost surrealist aesthetic. It's a really wonderful movie, and I highly recommend it.

[Mary Robinette] One of my other favorite tools to use to make things tense is language. So, the word choice that I pick… If I'm describing a rose, and I want it to be a romance, then I'm going to talk about all of the beautiful, perfect things about the rose. But if I'm setting up for a thriller or a mystery or horror, then I'm going to be talking about, like, the diseased leaf on the rose. And even the words that I'm going to use are going to be much more visceral, I'm going to reach for the ones that are darker. Those are some fun things that you can do to set tone in the same way that a film would be able to set tone.

[Howard] When you put things in a scene and shine lights on them, you can make us comfortable, you can make us uncomfortable. The easiest example I can think of is someone striking a match or lighting up a lighter, and we see a cigarette, and we see the end of a fuse. Those are two very, very different things. Knowing what your stand-in will be for the fuse or for the cigarette or for the stove that requires a lighter… I don't know. Knowing what your stand in is, that's your job, not mine.

[Chuckles]

[Erin] Okay. I have another question.

[Dan] Okay.

[Erin] This one is, let's say I woke up and I decided not to choose violence.

[Laughter]

[Erin] I was like no murders here, but I still want to use these techniques in my story to draw the reader in. What should I be doing?

[Dan] You're getting to all my points right before I get to them. That's… We're on the same wavelength here. Because I would wager that a vast majority of our listeners right now are not writing thrillers. They're probably writing fantasy or science fiction, which can include thriller or mystery elements. But we focus so much on tension, whereas what we really are talking about is starting with a thrill, starting with a bang. That doesn't have to mean a burst of action or violence. What it really means for me is something that is unexpected and/or shocking that hooks us into the book. Maybe that is the person we thought the main character dies, and, okay, now I'm in for the rest of the book. I want to see who did this. Maybe that is something like you present to us an idyllic shire full of wonderful hobbits, and then a mysterious stranger shows up that nobody trusts. Then, even if you haven't introduced our main conflict, you've introduced a conflict. We know that there's the potential for danger, that things could go wrong. What about the rest of you? What answers do you have?

[DongWon] One thing I like to think about when thinking about writing in these different genres is that a genre's really made up of a whole bunch of tropes. Right? It's a whole bunch of individual patterns that we recognize of, like, oh, this has spaceships. Oh, this farmboy found a sword. Oh, this, that, or the other. That tell us we're in science fiction, that tell us we're in fantasy. But there's a thing that I think of as like micro-tropes or micro-patterns, where you can pick and choose from other genres and pull them into the main genre that you're working on. So, this is exactly what Dan was talking about, in terms of having a beat early on that's in maybe a thriller beat and have that moment or somebody's trying to find their keys or key card or whatever it is. That can increase that… Just to have that little hint of the thriller tension in there. Then you don't have to have bodies hitting the floor at that point. You can go into a different scene. You can go into a board room. You can go into the bridge of a starship. Whatever it happens to be. But you can use those little micro-tropes, those little micro-beats to really goose it in the way that you want. Right? So don't be afraid to steal from other genres and to do a little bit of mix and match, while still hitting the big beats that you want to say this is science fiction, this is fantasy.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I find that one of those small beats is just a disruption of the normal.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Like, what is… What breaks their normal. And you don't have to have normal established very long before it breaks, and I think that one of the things for me with the thriller pacing is that that break in normal comes very early. It's not three chapters in, it's something that happens usually on the first or second page.

[Howard] If you throw a meet cute into the first couple of pages, you can absolutely start with a thrill and just take us at a run into a romance.

[Mary Robinette] So, just in case people have never heard this phrase before, that is meet as in meet each other, not meat as in meat cube, which is what I first heard you say.

[Howard?] Did you all think meat cube…

[Laughter]

[Howard] Because every last one of you looked at me…

[Garbled bodies. Really thought that's where we were going.]

[Dan] You guys don't put meat cubes into the first chapters of your books? That's super weird.

[DongWon] I love to start a romance with a meat cube…

[Howard] Yeah. When the two meat cubes meet, it's… I'm so sorry.

[Mary Robinette] I did read a book once that said that… That had come here, you big hunk of love [garbled]

[cool]

[Dan] Oh, man. That is not what I would name my meat cube.

[Laughter]

[Dan] I say. As if I don't already have one. So, one way that I see this done wrong very frequently by aspiring writers is that they are trying to present their world, establish who the characters are, and where the story takes place, and the way that they try to introduce tension in those early chapters is through worldbuilding. By saying, yes, we're in an idyllic shire, but we never leave here because there's monsters in the woods. Or because there is evil travelers on this road sometimes, or because there's a dark Lord that every seven years will come and eat one of us. I mean, yes, you're adding some darkness to the world, but you're not adding darkness to the story. This needs to be some kind of action. Those mysterious strangers on the road need to show up. Or something has to, as was said, disrupt normal in some way. There has to be an immediate danger, not just the back story of danger.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Because for people who… Dark Lord shows up every seven years, terrible people on the road… That is their normal, and so they continue to go about their day-to-day life. What is it that breaks their day-to-day life that is the foretelling of… The foreshadowing of the bigger thing that's coming?

[Erin] Yeah. I also think that there's a… There's something that can happen where you… Like, one of the things that… Sorry. One of the things that I love about thrillers and mysteries is that the thing that goes wrong is something that we instinctively know is bad. Like people dying, we're not a fan. Like, in general. So, when you're trying to create that for another genre, it's what is the thing that is, like, wrong in your world? What is the thing that, like, would throw things off? If the dragon shows up on year six instead of year seven, that's going to feel very, very wrong in a way that is very unique to the world that you've created. So, a lot of times, just think about what are the things that would startle the people that are in your world, and then what would… How would they deal with that?

[DongWon] Well, this is why giving your character stakes early on are so important. Right? This is why you have to start page 1 really with something your character cares about. Ideally another person, but it could be some goal that they have. Right? That's their normal. Their normal is trying to get to school to give the girl the note that you've been thinking about giving her all week. And then something happens on the way to school. Right? You need to have the thing to be disrupted, not just to be a normal everyday day, but something that somebody cares about their day. Right? Somebody is… Has to give a big presentation, then when they can't get their key card, and they can't get into the room, now you have a cascade series of events where things are going wrong. But… To make those scary things that are coming into the world feel threatening, you have to give the characters something they care about, so that I care about the character and what they care about.

[Dan] Yeah. One of the… One of my favorite examples of this, believe it or not, is the first Toy Story movie. Which we don't think of as a thriller. But that movie starts with a kid playing with his toys, and then we get the little premise of, oop, the toys are awake when he goes out of the room. Then we don't get the actual, like, inciting incident main plot conflict for a while. But what we do get right off the bat is the birthday party, and the toys lose their minds over that. Because this, to them, disrupts their normal. They know that it has the potential to change everything. So we haven't gotten to Buzz, we haven't gotten to the whole Woody's not the favorite anymore, none of that has arrived yet, but we do have a conflict that, through their eyes, we can understand is very meaningful to them, and there's a lot of action, there's emotion, there's a lot of thrilled to it. Then, four or five scenes later, we get the full, actual, oh, this… The real plot has arrived now. We have basically run out of time now. We want to give you plenty of time to write. So we are going to end with homework.

[Mary Robinette] That homework is what breaks normal for your character right now? The next thing you write, how does normal break for them?

[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 18.44: NaNoWriMo Week 1 - Getting Started

From https://writingexcuses.com/18-44-nanowrimo-week-1-getting-started

Key Points: NaNoWriMo, writing 50,000 words. How do you get started? Writing your opening? Meet the characters and set promises for the readers. Confidence and authority, voice! And information! Promises to me, to motivate me! Voice, character, or setting. Voice driven or action driven? Hook the reader! Write a little, then ask what excites me about that. Do some freewriting, meet the character or setting or voice, before starting. [If you don't start, you can't finish.] Give readers reasons to care, to connect. Think about who, what, when, where, why, and how. Breadcrumbs, not infodumps! Character stakes, what is at risk. Where are we, who are we with, and what genre is this? Within 13 lines, what is the character's goal? Remember, Nano is a time to play, to try out things. Dive in!

[Season 18, Episode 44]

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[DongWon] NaNoWriMo Week 1 - Getting Started.

[Erin] 15 minutes long.

[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're not that smart.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Howard] And I'm Howard.

[Mary Robinette] We're going to be talking about National Novel Writing Month. All month, in fact. For those of you who haven't participated in this, National Novel Writing Month is a month-long challenge in the month of November, where you attempt to write a novel or 50,000 words, depending on how you want to define that. So what we're going to be talking about is what you need to do in order to try to have something that's vaguely coherent at the end of the month. These are tools that you can use the rest of the time when you're working on novels or short stories, but we're going to talk this week about getting started.

[Pause]

[Erin] So, how do we do that?

[Laughter]

[Erin] I mean, it's like…

[Mary Robinette] Surely, someone else will start talking now?

[Erin] That's often the problem…

[Dan] Getting started is hard.

[Mary Robinette] Getting started is hard. So, in getting started, what we're talking about on day one is that you're going to be writing your opening. This is where you meet your characters and you set promises for your readers. So we're going to be talking about both stuff that you need to establish, but the order in which you establish things is very much up to you. So, what do you all find are some, like, consistent things that make an opening, like, that first page?

[DongWon] I personally really love openings. They are my favorite part of the book. As a literary agent, I'm mostly looking at openings as I'm going through queries and new projects and things like that. So, for me, the thing I'm looking for in that first page, in those opening sections, is a sense that the author knows what they're doing, and they're going to take me on a journey that I'm excited to go on with them. Right? So, projecting a certain amount of confidence and a certain amount of authority in those opening pages are really important. Some of the best tools to do this is with your actual voice. The words that you're using and the sentence structure that you have is a great way to bring readers in and project that kind of confidence that you are going to be telling us a story that we're going to be excited to read. That can be everything from word choice to sentence structure to a kind of musicality and rhythm that you have in those opening sentences. But that really needs to be balanced with all of the information that you need to give to your readers. Right? It can't all just be voice-y beautiful prose, you also need to be communicating a ton of information in those opening pages.

[Howard] I'm a sucker for a good first line. It can take a long time to write a first line that you're happy with. Often, the first week of NaNoWriMo is not a great time to grind on that.

[DongWon] Absolutely.

[Howard] Caveat. If the first line is good enough to excite me, the first line might be good enough to continue to excite you. So, I always try and fill my first page with things that are not just promises to the readers, but are promises to me, to get me motivated, to remind me how much fun this story's going to be.

[DongWon] Right. This is Nano. You're not here to make perfect prose, you're not here to make sure everything's super refined and edited to perfection, you're here to get words on the page. Right? So, I'm telling you this as ways to think about what your goals are for the opening, but don't stress about anything that I'm saying right now.

[Dan] Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned voice. Voice is one of the 3 things that I try to do in an opening. You don't need to do all of these 3. Really, your goal is to hook the reader and get them interested. The way I think about it, you can do that with a really great interesting voice, or with a compelling character, or with a fascinating world or setting. One of those 3 is going to grab that reader in the want to learn more about it and come on in. If you can do all 3, that's even better, but…

[DongWon] Yeah, you can only do…

[Dan] Do one of the 3.

[DongWon] Some combo of those. Right? It's not going to be pure voice. If it was pure voice, then they're like, "What is this story about? I'm out." If it… But you want to have character in their. It's sort of like you're readjusting the levels to sort of fit the story you're trying to tell.

[Mary Robinette] So, I find that what you're talking about, I see as kind of 2 different paths into a story. That you can have something that's kind of voice driven, where the voices doing all of the lifting and carrying, or you can have something that's action driven, where the character is in the middle of doing something. That… There's overlap between those 2 things. Like, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, nobody is doing anything. It's all voice driven. Whereas, if you look at the beginning of Ghost Talkers, using my own novel, that begins with a character saying, "The Germans were flanking us at Delville Wood when I died." Ginger Stuyvesant was sitting with the spirit circle… I don't remember the rest of my actual lines…

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] But she's in the middle of doing something. But it is that hook, that both of these have different ways of hooking the reader and pulling them in.

[Erin] I would say that you may not know which of these you're doing because it is Nano and you're just trying to figure it out. So one thing that I find really fun during Nano is to write a little bit of a beginning and then go like, "What could this be? What excites me about it? Like, what about the voice that I've just written is really interesting? What about the action that's happening is really intriguing?" It's a great way later in the month if you get stuck to go back and look at what are 2 or 3 things that I was really excited about, like Howard said, right at the start, that can continue to motivate me when I'm not sure, like, where I went or how the story has taken a twist or a turn.

[Dan] Well. One thing that I do, and I've talked about this on the show before, but I still do it, and I still think it's valuable, is I will do free writing before I start a book. I will write some dialogue, let a character talk for a couple of pages. Or I will describe the world. I will describe my favorite aspects of the world, the part of the setting that gets me excited. I will try to write something and nail down a tone of voice, or find a weird turn of phrase. Never intending to actually use any of this in the novel, but just to kind of get me into the right headspace so I can hit the ground running when the actual writing starts.

[Mary Robinette] I do something similar, that I will often do a couple of exploratory attempts. Sometimes I am planning for it to be the first chapter, but it's just me saying, "What is this? What is going on here?" Much like Erin does, also. It's just like is there something here that excites me? For those of you who are doing NaNoWriMo seriously, all of these exploratory attempts count towards your total word count.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Save them. No writing is wasted.

[DongWon] Absolutely.

[Mary Robinette] One of the things about Nano is that it really teaches you that no writing is wasted. When we come back from our break, what were going to be talking about are some of the pieces of information that you're going to need to pass to your reader. But, right now, let's take a brief break.

[Mary Robinette] NaNoWriMo is just around the corner, and it's time to start planning. If you're aiming for 1600 words a day, it's easy to de-prioritize eating. But you need to keep the brain fueled. During Nano, I turn to meal kits. Hello Fresh makes whipping up a home-cooked meal a nice break from writing with quick and easy options, including their 15 minute meals. With everything pre-proportioned and delivered right to your door every week, it takes way less time than it takes to get a delivery. I find that stepping away from the keyboard to cook gives my brain time to rest. I love that with Hello Fresh, I can plan my meals for the month before NaNoWriMo begins, and then, I can save all of my decision-making for the story. With so many in season ingredients, you'll taste all the freshness of fall in every bite of Hello Fresh chef crafted recipes. Produce travels from the farm to your door for peak freshness you can taste. Go to hellofresh.com/50WX and use the code 50WX for 50% off plus free shipping! Yeah, that's right. 50WX, 50 for 50% off and WX for Writing eXcuses. We are terrible with puns. Just visit hellofresh.com/50WX and try America's number one meal kit.

[Howard] It's the first week of NaNoWriMo. It is time to get started. I'm going to throw a couple of aphorisms at you. You must be present to win. You miss 100% of the pitches you don't swing at. [Sigh] If you don't start, you'll never get to finish. I speak as someone who has never actually won at NaNoWriMo. I've started it several times. I think one time, I actually got 30,000 words in on a project. But I've never actually completed something that I would consider to be a first draft of a novel during NaNoWriMo. Do I feel bad about it? No. Do I feel in the least bit conflicted about encouraging you to start NaNoWriMo? Absolutely not. I am giving you permission to start and maybe fail. Because that happens to the best of us. I don't want to suggest that I'm the best of us. There are way better than me who have failed at NaNoWriMo. But you miss 100% of the pitches you don't swing at. Sit down at the keyboard and write something. Let the words flow, or let the words don't flow. Because until you try it, you won't know whether or not you can do it. [Sigh] I've heard it said that the limitations that affect most people are what they believe their limitations to be, rather than what their limitations actually are. So, whether or not you think you can finish NaNoWriMo, I think you should start.

[Mary Robinette] Right. So. Now that we're back, what I'd like us to talk about is some of the information that you want to try to get to the reader early, early in your novel or short story. One of the reasons you want to do that is that part of the promises in all of those things is that you're giving the reader reasons to care and to connect. Readers are desperately trying to ground themselves at the beginning, and they will grab hold of any piece of information that you give them and begin to build a world. So you want to make sure that you are giving them information in order to build that world in their head.

[DongWon] One of the biggest mistakes I see in openings is not giving enough information. Right? A lack of information density can make for an opening that feels incredibly slow. It's just not pulling me into the world. It's not giving me information about the character and not giving me a sense of what the shape of the story is going to be. So, the way I always talk about opening pages is I want them to be like a layer cake. Right? Where there's so much stuff put into those opening pages that are giving me a sense of world and character and all these things. So one way to do that is to kind of play with your voice a little bit and play with time and interiority and perspective to be able to give us lots of different pieces of information from lots of different angles as quickly as possible.

[Erin] Sometimes I actually like to think about this is literally the who, what, when, where, why, and how. Like, these are the things that your reader's going to want to know in the beginning. You don't have to give them all in one sentence. Though, if you can, that's exciting. But, really, I like to think about when am I answering like, who. Who is this happening to? What. Like, what is actually going on at this moment? When and where is our setting. Like, when and where are we? Then, for why and how, how is a lot of tone. Like, how is this story going to be told? Is this humor, is this a light touch, is this like dark and foreboding? Like, how is the story being told? Why is a little bit of sort of the if there's any theme that I want to put in there, that I want to seed early on. Sometimes, I'll actually go through the pages of a story and be like when our each of these elements clear? If one is clear very, very far down, then, am I doing that for a reason? If I'm not, can I bring it up, and at least suggest what's going on so that it doesn't feel missing?

[Howard] On that point, or to that point, I love the idea of descriptions as being either additive or corrective. I see corrective as inherently problematic. If I've given you some description, you're going to start building independently of me continuing to write things. If I lead you in one direction and you keep running in that direction, but that's not what is actually happening, the next piece of description I give you is corrective instead of additive. Every time you do that, you are breaking a trust with the reader. Now, in a humor novel, you can absolutely get away with it. In fact, it's a fantastic technique. But, I started thinking about it in this way, where, yes, I want to order things, the who, what, when, where, why, but I also want to make sure that if I start people down a path, I don't let them run far enough that I have to correct my description later.

[Dan] I think it's important to point out… We don't want to freak you out with this thought that you have to explain everything in your first couple of pages. That's not what we're talking about. Think of it as providing evidence of what's going on, rather than providing us answers for what's going on. You don't need to explain your entire magic system, for example. But you do need to give us the information that pertains to the scene itself. If your first scene is a fight between wizards, then, yeah, we need to understand some of the magic system. If it's not, you can just drop hints here and there, give us some breadcrumbs, and explain the rest of it later.

[DongWon] One thing I always say is that I need character stakes in the opening scene, I need some sense of, like, what's at risk here. The other thing I always say is these can be lies.

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] This goes a little counter to what Howard was saying, but this doesn't have to be your main character's biggest problem. This can be a minor set of stakes that they need to get through for this scene, that will then lead them into bigger inciting incidents. Right? So, I need a sense of the shape of the story. Don't feel pressured to communicate your whole novel to me in this moment. I just need a story, a subplot, a little something for me to chew on that's going to pull me into the rest of the book.

[Howard] Coming back to additive versus corrective real quick. If you tell me someone is desperately trying to get a hold of someone else, but can't, and you don't tell me why, I… Well, if you tell me because my cell phone has no charge, then you grounded me in the 21st-century. If you tell me that I can't get to a pay phone, whatever, then you grounded me maybe a couple decades earlier. Or smoke signals or whatever. I need to know if we're in Civil War era or 21st century fairly early on with the descriptions end up being very, very corrective when you deliver them.

[DongWon] This brings me to one another point is to be a little careful of metaphor in these opening pages. Because everything… I don't know anything about your world, so sometimes somebody… I'll run [inaudible into fantasy?] where somebody puts a metaphor in and I'll think, "Oh, literally, people are fish in this world." Not they were like a fish in this moment.

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] You know what I mean? You can take stuff that is completely wild because I am… It's all open skies for me. I don't know what it is I'm engaging with yet. So, those metaphors can be taken incredibly literally in those opening pages. So, something to be a little careful about.

[Mary Robinette] I… I… I'm going to give like some metrics for a really mechanical way to do this. For people who like rules and are feeling freaked out. I want to be really clear that this is exercise stuff, this is not books must be written this way. But if you're like, "I don't know, this is too much." Using Erin's idea of who, what, where, why, I do something very similar. That is, I try to make sure that my character's… My readers know where we are, who we're with, and something about the genre or mood. I count when as part of the where. I try to do that within the first 3 sentences. So that I'm just like giving… And it's not that… When I say who, it's not that you have to know my character's entire back story. It's just giving a little bit of an idea of whose eyes we're going to be looking through, who we're going to be connecting to. Then, within the first 13 lines, I try to make sure that we know something about my character's goal. The reason I say the first 13 lines is an entirely mechanical and mercenary thing, which is that it's about the first half page of a manuscript, and that's about how long you have to hook an agent or an editor when they are in the slush pile. So if you can give them something that your reader… Your character wants. To DongWon's point, it doesn't have to be the big thing, but something that's, like, somehow thematically linked. Like, if we're going to be on a big quest later, they're just looking for the remote control right now. But something that they want.

[Erin] Let's say 2 things about that. One is that I think those small things, like looking for the remote control, build the trust that Howard was talking about earlier. You show that, like, I'm going to show you something and I'm going to deliver on it. Then you don't have to deliver on it as quickly the next time, because you've built that trust. But also, to be like a chaos gremlin…

[Chuckles]

[Erin] Like, in opposition of what you're saying, I also feel like one of the things that's nice about Nano, it's, like, a time to play around and find out what…

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[DongWon] Surely.

[Erin] And find out what happens if you break all these rules. Do you want to write 50,000 words where no one knows where they are the entire time, including the reader? Hey, go for it. You may find out that you've discovered a new way of writing fiction, or you may find out that it's confusing and you need to go back and add that in. But this is a great time too, like, play around with what you're doing and how you're doing it.

[Mary Robinette] I actually completely agree with that. So we're in great shape. And, I think, that we've set you up to begin your first nano day. Hopefully. So, dive in. All of the words you count write.… All of the words you write count! Now, we're going to give you a little bit of homework.

[Mary Robinette] So, your homework assignment is that I want you to write 2 different openings. The first one is going to be more action driven, where your character is doing a thing. The 2nd one is going to be voice driven, where you are ruminating on something and kind of just exploring voice. You may wind up using neither of these, both of them count. You can do them in any order you want. But explore 2 different ways of opening that novel.

[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

[Mary Robinette] Do you have a book or a short story that you need help with? We're now offering an introductory tier on Patreon called Office Hours. Once a month, you can join a group of your peers and the hosts of Writing Excuses to ask questions.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 18.35: Organizing Your Writing, or Managing the Mega-Arc

From https://writingexcuses.com/18-35-organizing-your-writing-or-managing-the-mega-arc

Key points: Tools to keep big projects in line. Use string to align things! Simple tools can manage big things. Airtable, a database. Track character names, places, what you've done, what you mean to do. Find things that you are missing! E.g., over using one gender, or personality traits or alignments. Tracking helps you recognize patterns, and be intentional about them. Obsidian, a digital whiteboard for visual layouts, and automatic linking, a kind of mind map of connections. Wikidpad, use tools that work for you, that seem intuitive. Use find to see if you have already written something, so it is canon, and a collection of useful links. Measure twice, cut once, or relative measurement. Think about monetizing your references or research results. Worldbuilding, prep work, pre-writing is not wasted work if it works for you and your project. Spreadsheets and other pre-writing can tell you what you care about, what's important to you. The beginning needs to introduce the important characters, and the end needs to resolve or answer questions asked at the beginning of the book. What is the big story? Who are the specific characters in this book?

[Season 18, Episode 35]

[1:30 minutes advertising, almost inaudible]

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses, Managing the Mega-Arc.

[DongWon] 15 minutes long.

[Erin] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're not that smart.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[Howard] And I'm Howard.

[Howard] This week, we're going to talk about big projects and the tools we use in order to keep them in line. I'm reminded of the… I can't remember who it was who was making such a big deal about how the stones and the pyramids were laid out in perfect straight lines, and someone else pointed out that, "Dude, they had string." You pull the string straight and, boy, you got a straight edge right there. You can just line these things up. There are some very simple tools that we can use to manage really big things. So I'm going to pitch this to the rest of the cast. What is your string?

[DongWon] Hey, Erin, do you want to talk about airtable?

[Erin] [chuckles] I do want to talk about airtable. So, I will say first that while airtable is actually free to use, I am not being a shill for airtable. Any sort of database or way of tracking things can work. It's just the one that I really love, because it has a really great fun way of looking on the screen that works for me. But what I like to do is a lot for my game writing projects is to track things like character names, places, what I've done, what I mean to do. One of the reasons that I really like tracking is actually maybe for a different reason than other people do. I use tracking a lot of the time, and I use airtable, which is, like, I set up this database and I'll list like every character I've ever mentioned. Every place that's ever shown up in this particular game, is to find places… To find the things that I'm missing about myself. So, for example, if I track all of my characters and their genders, I may find that I overly skew one way or the other in terms of gendering characters. If I then add in a little bit about their personality traits or alignments in like a D&D or TP RPG world, I may find, for example, that I love chaotic good women, which I do, because I am one. So I… And that I make all men evil, because they… No, just kidding.

[Laughter]

[Erin] Those types of things we often miss in our own work, the patterns that we're creating. I think that a lot of times when you create patterns, and you're not intentional about them, that's when you can replicate bad things in the world that we don't necessarily want to put on the page. So, for me, tracking is a way to keep things straight, to learn that I love names that start with the letter K, and that I can't make everybody's name a two syllable K name…

[Laughter]

[Erin] Because eventually it will be very difficult to keep them apart.

[DongWon] I don't know. World of Karen seems pretty terrifying.

[Laughter]

[Erin] Wow. That's actually a bad theme park. The World of Karens.

[Howard] That feels very much like the string metaphor I led with. You stretch that string out, and if one of the bricks is sticking just a little to one side, oh, you can see, oh, that is so clearly a thing I've done wrong. Let's fix it.

[DongWon] Exactly.

[Mary Robinette] I also do a spreadsheet for similar reasons about my internal biases. But then I also… The thing that I started doing, and this gets to the… Over the course of a long series. I originally was putting in the characters ages. But, in the Lady Astronaut books, I just finished writing book four, which takes place 17 years after the first book. So when a character, a new character enters the world, I'm like, "Okay. So I just wrote down their age, but their age in what year?" So now I write down what year they were born in instead, which makes it much easier to track. I still have to do math. But it makes it much easier to figure out, like, where they are in relationship to the other characters in the book and how old they are as the story progresses.

[DongWon] Going back to tools specifically, Erin mentioned the airtable is a database, which is technically true, but also makes it sound very scary. Functionally, when you're interacting with it, it is a series of linked spreadsheets is kind of what it looks like, that you can make it show your information in various ways. It is an incredibly powerful tool. It's a very cool tool, and one that I highly recommend playing around with and exploring a little bit. If you want something that's slightly less hierarchical for… I use this a lot for my games. I use a tool called Notions… Or, sorry, not Notions. I use Obsidian which is sort of like a series of linked text documents. But the reason I really like it is it has two features. One, it has a digital whiteboard version, so you can sort of lay stuff out visually. The other is it automatically links different documents together. If you mention something in one document, it'll give you a sort of a mind map, so you can sort of see how things are connected and clustered and it gives you a really useful way to be like, "Okay, this location, these characters, these plot points are all linked in this way." So you can find connections, or see where you didn't draw a line that you need to. So a lot of these tools are just different ways to visualize all the information that's in your head in a really structured way that can give you more insight into what it is you're trying to accomplish.

[Howard] Often we resist tools that have a learning curve at the front of them. You look at a tool, you're like, "Oh, I'd… I don't want to have to learn how to program a database. I don't want to have to learn how to format a spreadsheet." The very first planning tool that I really used for Schlock Mercenary was a standalone wiki software called Wikidpad. Wiki D Pad. I always pronounced it Wikidpad because it never occurred to me that the developer was making a fun pun and calling it wicked pad. I loved it because while I was typing, by doing just a couple of keystrokes at the beginning and end of a name, it automatically turned that name into a link for a new page. So I could just right and by doing whatever those little blips were, I don't know if it was double pipes or whatever, by doing those at the beginning of the thing, I was making a note to myself that says I'm going to expand on this later. Then I go back on it and click it, and boom! Up comes a blank page and I could start writing again. The desktop version, the only me version of the Schlock Mercenary wiki, was born. We talked about it in an early episode of Writing Excuses. I'm not here to pitch Wikidpad to you. I'm saying the tool that's going to work for you might be the tool that is the most intuitive. Maybe that's sticky notes on the wall, maybe that's a clipboard.

[Mary Robinette] So the two… Like, you'll hear people talking about needing to build their worldbuilding bible and things like that. Yes, I use a spreadsheet to track my characters ages, I use things like eon timeline to track the big over… Making sure that I've actually allotted them enough time to get from point A to point B. But most of my worldbuilding, I don… My two organizational methods are the find function…

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] So that I can look for it in something that I have already written. Because if it's not in the document, it is not canon, and I can change it. Then, my Scrivener, I have a section that's called useful links and I just dropped the links in randomly. Like when… After I've researched something, I will drop a link into what I've researched. The reason that I'm bringing this up is that I know a lot of people who feel like they have to create this very detailed document before they can start writing. I am here to tell you that if you are chaotic neutral about your organization, or chaotic evil as my case may be, you don't actually have to… What Howard said earlier about using the tool that works for you to solve the problem that you need to be solved. All I need to solve with my links is if someone says, "Where did you get that?" that I have someplace where I have it saved.

[Howard] I think my alignment is lawful lazy…

[Laughter]

[DongWon] In woodworking, which is another one of my hobbies, permitting me to pull extended metaphors from my hobbies, there's two ways… There's the old saying that if you're a carpenter, you measure twice and cut once. There's a whole different school of thought to that. Right? So in this case, measure twice, cut once, is very much like I'm cutting this to this exact dimension, it is going to be this size, and I've planned it all out, and you've built a cut list of like 15 different things that are exact measurements and you have to follow that to a T. If you screw up, your whole project is going to be off. Right? That is how I think of very much this, like, worldbuilding document where you're pre-building all these things in a very detailed way. There's another mode of thinking that I find more useful. It's a very traditional method called relative measurement. Right? You have a board. You are now going to mark that board in ratio to the next thing you want to make. Right? So if you have a drawer back, then that is the size of your drawer, you're going to cut your drawer front in a way that matches the size of that. It doesn't matter how big it is. You don't need to know that it's 9 inches and three quarters. You just need to know it's this size, I'm marking it to be the same as that size. So you can do that with all your joinery and all of your pieces, and you have a thing at the end that is very beautiful and very proportional that fits the design that you wanted, but you're doing it all relative to each other rather than trying to impose this top-down hierarchy on it. So if you approached your organization that way, I think for a lot of people, I think it can be much more intuitive and fluid, and sort of takes some of the stress off, of having to figure all these things out before hand.

[Howard] My own woodworking mantra is I've cut this three times and it's still too short.

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] Then you just cut the other board to be short enough that it fits.

[Howard] Exactly. When we returned from our break, I'm going to talk about turning my planning tools into money.

[Mary Robinette] I want to talk to you about Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler. This book… Like, I started recommending this book before I finished it, which is unusual for me. He imagines a future where the sea levels have risen, as they're going to. That's not really imagining the future, but one of the things he's looking at is whether or not octopi… podes can be sapient. He's got that layered on with the way AI might manage fishing vessels. Like, there's all of these different layers, and it's heavily, heavily researched. All of the characters are also scientists at the top of their game. So the amount of research that he had to do was huge. But it feels pretty effortless on the page. So if you want to look at, like, what the end result of some of these tools that were talking about are, and you want just a really good read, it's very thought-provoking. I highly recommend Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler.

[Howard] Probably the single most profitable thing Sandra and I put together for Schlock Mercenary was the Planet Mercenary role-playing game. I have a PDF of the Planet Mercenary role-playing game on my desktop that I refer to all the time so that I can get my worldbuilding details right. It's totally fair to write a 300,000 page role-playing book and expect to make money off of it and then to refer to it yourself. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. As I joked in a previous episode, between the words schlock and mercenary, which word suggests I wouldn't do something like that?

[Mary Robinette] So I've done a similar thing, which is not the role-playing game, but one of the things that I've done to monetize my research is that I have a bookshop.org, so I have on that bookshop.org, I have a list of… The bibliography that I have for the books that I used to research my stuff. It's there for two reasons. One, it makes an easy reference for me. Two, people are always asking me, like, where can I go to get information like this. Then, because it's through bookshop.org, I actually get an affiliate kickback from that. It's not that you have to do this thing, but one of the things that you will be doing as a writer is looking for multiple income streams.

[DongWon] Just one thing in general I want to remind you is that there's no such thing as throwaway work in writing. Right? It may be frustrating to feel like you've written however many words in worldbuilding and prep work and pre-writing, 50,000 words, whatever. That all goes into building up your internal understanding of this world in the way that you may need it, so that that work is going to go into the book that you're writing. Right? Words that you write and throw away just because they're not ending up on the final printed page doesn't mean that they were worthless. It just was what the project required. Right? Not every book will require that. Maybe that's something you do for your first book. Maybe it's something you find you need to do for your seventh book. Right? But I love framing, like, being able to take the pre-work you're doing and make it work for you in other ways. I think that's an absolutely brilliant way. I think writers yeah… Look for ways to monetize that work you're doing. Look for other income streams. But also don't feel like you're wasting time by doing these things. Yes, sometimes for some people it's a mode of procrastination, but I just encourage people really, like, if that's your process, that's your process. Lean into it. Find ways to make that work for you, and don't beat yourself up just because that doesn't end up on the printed page.

[Howard] One of my favorite outgrowths of the research was I had a spreadsheet for when people were born. I realized that two of my main characters were from the same area, had the same life… About the same life span, and may have been sitting on different sides of the same war. I had never explored that. An entire story and the whole bunch of character data came out of one moment where I looked at a spreadsheet and went, "Huh."

[Erin] Yeah. I think something else that spreadsheets can do, and, granted, I love them more than I should, is it teaches you what you care about. So a lot of the process of making a spreadsheet is trial and error. So you decide, I'm going to make a spreadsheet today. You're like, "Oh, put all the character names down," or something very easy. You're like, "I'm going to track their age." Then you're like, "Oh, no, that's wrong, because my thing goes through time. Actually, I need to track their date of birth." That tells you something about the way you view the story, the timescale that you're working on. If you keep going back to your spreadsheet and being like, "Oh, this spreadsheet is not working because it doesn't tell me X." That means X is important. Number one, figure out if there's a way to add it to your spreadsheet. Number two, like, that should be, then, something… If that's important to you, then it's something important to the story, and you should see is that actually coming through. That thing that you keep thinking about. So, I think that a lot of times what tools do is they force you to take the wide creative universe that you're working in and put it into some sort of structural mode. Even if it's just like I've made power points of stories before, being like random things I mentioned that I should get back to. They don't have a lot of form to them, but it's a way of putting it somewhere on paper, put it in some sort of box, even if it's just a box that I'm going to rifle through later to see if there's something really interesting that I can use to inspire myself going forward.

[DongWon] Aabria Iyengar has this brilliant worldbuilding question that she uses that is, "What is the lie that the people of your world believe in?" Right? The questions you're asking and putting into your spreadsheet can be so thematic and so creative and so generative that… Yes, you want the biographical details, when was this character born, who knows who, what are the connections. But also, going to Howard's example of here are two people on opposite sides of the war, what lies were each of those characters told? Right? What things do those characters believe and how is that going to drive story down the line? The way that... These tools are storytelling tools. They sound cold and mechanical when you say, "It's a spreadsheet. It's a database." But I think from that you can find such rich narrative hooks and chase your own interests, as Erin was just saying. You list the things that you are interested in. Sometimes you will be like, "This is boring. I'm not interested in this part of this world, or the set of characters, or this question," because when you're making a spreadsheet you are asking a question, and I think that is a really useful way to think about these things as you approach it.

[Howard] In structuring Schlock Mercenary, I realized on around I think book 5 or six, I realized that every book needed to stand alone. Because it needed to be a salable product without someone having to buy the earlier books. That may sound crassly commercial, and that's because it is. It would have been a terrible business decision to tell people, "Oh, you have to start with my very first thing that I ever did before you can read this thing that I'm super proud of." The solution… I mean, it should be obvious, I need to make sure that the beginning of every book introduces the characters who are going to be important, and that the end of the book resolves questions, answers questions that were asked by those characters at the beginning of the book. That started going into my planning spreadsheets very early on. I would have some cells for this is the plot, this is the big story. Then I would have columns and cells for the specific characters that this book was tracking. I had people come to me later and say, "You know, I always thought that Schlock was the main character, but he's almost never the main character in the stories." Yes. Yes, I'm so glad you noticed that. That's how we're supposed to say that, right, Mary Robinette?

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Howard] Yeah, I'm so glad you noticed that. He's very rarely the protagonist. Because he very rarely gets an arc that tracks things. I realized on about book 17, book 18, I realized that I needed to return to Schlock for the finale. So the ending that I had originally envisioned, the big solution, the big resolution to the plot that I had originally envisioned and that I had in my spreadsheets needed to have more Schlock in it. I went back to, and this is going to sound funny, I went back to an old forum post from like 2003 where someone said, "Yeah, the answer to a lot of these stories is just Schlock eats it." I looked at that and thought, "You know, I bet that'll work."

[DongWon] Character is destiny, you know.

[Howard] I bet that'll work. It felt so… It was one of those moments… Again, it grows right out of staring out the spreadsheet and realizing there's this pattern and there's this missing piece of this pattern, and I have to fill it with this character. I took my proposal for the changed ending to my brother and said, "This is what I'd like to try." His response was, "Oh, my gosh, that's genius. How long have you been planning this?" I'm like, "30 minutes."

[Laughter]

[Howard] I'm so glad you noticed. Speaking of 30 minutes, we don't want to run for a full 30 minutes. So, let's wrap this up with some homework. Erin?

[Erin] So we have talked about a few different tools today. Sometimes I think about tools as hammers in search of a nail. So the homework is for you to actually find what are the nails within whatever story that you're working on? What are the things that you can or could track within your story? What I would challenge you to do is find three different things that your story could be tracking, whether those are informational, thematic, character driven, emotional. Write down what those are. Maybe a few examples of what those could be. If it's birthdays, right down five characters birthdays. If it's theme, write down what five characters are thinking about thematically. Then start looking at what are some tools that could actually help you take those nails and build something really cool out of them.

[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

[Howard] We are now offering an interactive tier on our Patreon found at patreon.com/writingexcuses called Office Hours. Once a month, you can join a group of your peers and the hosts of Writing Excuses to ask questions.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 16.34: Novels Are Layer Cakes

From https://writingexcuses.com/2021/08/22/16-34-novels-are-layer-cakes/

Key Points: A novel is like a layer cake? Well, layers of information. Revision helps! Also pre-work can help. Spontaneity is not creativity. Structure also helps. Make sure you are starting the story in the right place, but also make sure we have context. Use tiny flashbacks. Manipulate the POV. Use free indirect speech. Mostly, think about how you want to layer the information, what's important, what order to present it in, and how to slide it in there.

[Season 16, Episode 34]

[Dongwon] This is Writing Excuses, Novels Are Layer Cakes.

[Mary Robinette] 15 minutes long.

[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're not that smart.

[Dongwon] I'm Dongwon.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Howard] And I'm Howard.

[Dongwon] Okay. So, we're talking about novels as layer cakes. Which may initially sound a little confusing. But, this is one of the central metaphors I think about when I think about what makes a novel a novel that's distinct from a short story or a novella or a novelette. The thing about a novel is it requires more complexity, because you're sustaining a narrative over so long, there need to be so many more different aspects going. So you want layers to be present at almost every point. Especially in an opening scene. I'm not just talking about like two layers of a birthday cake. Ideally, you want like a Mille-Feuille, one of those crêpe cakes that's like layer after layer after layer…

[Chuckles]

[Dongwon] That gives you that kind of information density in that kind of character and world building and all those elements. We've talked about individual pieces of how to do that so far. But this is really how do you weave all of that into one coherent whole, while still maintaining the distinction of that lamination. We're turning into the great British Bake-Off here. I'm sorry.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] I've gotta tell y'a, when I think of layer cakes, I… Sandra makes cakes from time to time. You take the cake pan and you make a bunch of different layers. You saw the tops off of them to make them stack flat. Then I think of the episode of British baking show where they were trying to make dobos tortes with bazillions of little layers. I look at that and think, "No, I'm sorry. That has to be done by a machine and a computer. That is not possible for a human being to make that cake." I know there are many people who look at the way novels are constructed and to step back and see all of that layering and all of that construction and have that same reaction. "I'm sorry. That had to be done by a computer and a machine. No human being can hold all that in their head."

[Dongwon] Yeah. With… We were talking about tell don't show, we kind of touched on this a little bit, but I think this is a case where thinking about movies and TV and visual media is really useful to think about how to layer all this different kinds of information. You're absorbing worldbuilding, you're absorbing character, you're absorbing some of the thematic elements, right? If it… If a scene is lit in a menacing way, it's like, okay, we're in a thriller. If they're wearing Regency dresses, we know the time period and we know the class of the person we are looking at. If the background behind them is an office, then we know what kind of story we're in. So there's automatically many, many more layers in a single shot of film than there is in a book by… As a default. So what you need to think about is how do I start working all that other information that I would get if this were a movie into the text. You have a laser like control over the focus of the reader, so you can show us bit by bit. The downside is you have to do that deliberately. You can't just rely on us passively absorbing that information.

[Mary Robinette] A lot of this will come down to word choice, specificity, I mean, all of the different things that we've been talking about for the past several weeks. You're trying to manipulate all of those at the same time. It's what is the character noticing, what order do you feed that information to the reader, which pieces are you telling versus which pieces are you showing. Is this sentence a long sentence or a short sentence? What is my word choice here? Am I going to say, "Pulled out of a chair," or "jerked out of a chair"? Because those are two different things. This is… This is complicated. I will disagree slightly with Dongwon because this is also something that you do with short stories, and in many cases, it is more vital because you have less space. But I understand… But the layers of plot that you have to deal with in a short story are not as many as you have to deal with in a novel. This is, for me, one of the biggest differences and the thing to think about regardless in some ways if you are writing a short story or novel. That first page is framing the thing that you're getting into. In a short story, you're framing a small thing, and it's like, this is the emotional punch that you're going to get. But in a novel, you're framing something that has multiple different emotional punches that you're going to get. You're going to have multiple plot threads. How do you tell the reader, kind of, which of these is the thing that… Like, which one do you introduce as, "Here. This is the thing I'm drawing a line under. This is the story that you're going to be in on." Because you have to make that choice. Is this a coming-of-age? Yes. Is this also an epic adventure? Yes. Where do you start?

[Dongwon] Yeah. I'm going to say, actually, I'm in complete agreement with Mary Robinette. When I say that a short story has fewer layers, I purely mean in terms of character arcs and plot lines. When that information density, I don't care what you're writing, you're going to need to make sure each word, each sentence, is doing as much work as it can, while maintaining crystal clarity for the reader.

[Dan] Yeah. I want to emphasize the importance of revision.

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[Dan] For this. Because, like Howard was talking about, if you're making a layer cake, most of the time you're making several different cakes in several different batches and then you're combining them together later on. I'm… I don't think that you have to do that with writing. I'm not going to say that you can't, because I'm sure that there are people who do. But what I do do is I will write out… The first draft is often just focused entirely on plot or on character. Then I have to go back through multiple revisions and say now I'm going to add in the other parts.

[Chuckles]

[Dan] Now I'm going to emphasize more of the description… Now I'm going to do another revision pass to really drill into internal monologue and emotion. It does take… You're going to have to get a lot of cake pans dirty by the end of this revision process.

[Dongwon] Your first draft is going to look more like Nailed It! than British Bake-Off, and that's okay.

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] Well, so… Continuing our cake metaphor. So, first of all, I do the same thing that Dan does. I do multiple passes. The second thing is, right now I am reading… And this is not our book of the week. I'm reading Every Tool's a Hammer by Adam Savage, which is about making. In the entire time I'm reading it, I'm like, "Oh, dear Lord, this is about writing a novel… Or this is about writing." In the midst of it, he talks about making a cake, and that one of the things that, in general, you want to do while making is to set yourself up for success with your pre-work, and that chefs go in and they lay out all of… Here's the bowls that I'm going to need. Here are the ingredients that I'm going to need. They measure things. It feels like it's so much more work, but it in many ways will go faster. It can often feel like, "Oh! But my creativity!"

[Whem]

[Mary Robinette] But what we're talking about here is, with this idea of a layer cake, and especially when you're learning the tools, it's okay to learn, like, one tool at a time. When you… When we're talking about pre-work, that doesn't necessarily have to mean, oh, you're going to outline everything. Oh, you're going to do all your world building ahead of time. What we're talking about is the number of iterations it takes you to get to a product that you're happy with. So sometimes you have fewer drafts, because you've done a lot of pre-work. Sometimes you have multiple drafts, because that is the process that you particularly enjoy going through in order to get to that layer cake. You may only have one bowl in your kitchen. So you have to mix that bowl and then clean it, and then mix the next bowl and then clean it. You may have a ton of bowls, so you can lay it all out. Everybody's kitchen is different, everybody's brain is different. Every cake that you bake, every book that you write, every short story… All of these are different. But the point of it is to remember that there are layers, that there are multiple ingredients that you have to be managing.

[Howard] If there's one thing that has stuck with me after 20 years of Schlock Mercenary, from beginning to finally ending the whole thing, it's that I cannot afford to conflate spontaneity with creativity. Those are not the same thing. Spontaneity is fine, and it has its place. But creativity is never being throttled by me imposing a structure. It's being funneled, it's being channeled, it's being directed. It's… I love having a structure, and so the layering of things in a novel is incredibly helpful. The current work in progress… I had about a 4000 word scene which I couldn't make work all at once because the voice had to be consistent, but the voice is kind of tiring. It's that noir detective sort of lots of humorous metaphors, lots of weird extensions. Can't be maintained well by the reader. I realized that, "Oh, wait. This is… I wanted to use this to frame some of the other characters. What happens if I carve it into chunks?" What happens if I make separate cake pans and saw the tops off of it and then use… I call it a common tone modulation, where the theme of one scene kind of introduces the theme of the next one, even though something has changed. As I began assembling that, yeah, there's no spontaneity anymore, but the creative fire is raging, because now I can see how it needs to be built.

[Mary Robinette] Let's pause for our book of the week. When we come back, what I'd love for us to do is… We've talked now about the importance, and I'd love for us when we come back to talk about some of the hows, of how to do that. So, Dan, I think you have the book of the week this time.

[Dan] Yes. So, our book of the week is Legend by Marie Lu. Marie Lu is an absolutely incredible science fiction writer. This book is a kind of a YA dystopia. It's about 10-ish years old from back when YA dystopias were all the rage. This one has stood the time better than most, I think. It's called Legend, like I said. I wish I had the time to read you like the entire first page. But I'm just going to read you the first two sentences.

My mother thinks I'm dead. Obviously, I'm not dead, but it's safer for her to think so.

[Wow]

[Dan] That says… Tells you so much. It is asking you compelling questions. It's introducing elements of the character. It goes on in the next paragraph, if I had time to read that, just lays out incredible detail about the world that this takes place in. There is so much density of information, while also being incredibly compelling and readable. It's a wonderful book. It's called Legend by Marie Lu.

[Dongwon] So, as Mary Robinette mentioned, I do want to talk about some of the mechanics, about how you make this work. I think when I'm in writing workshops the thing that I see most commonly, like the feedback I'm giving like 60 or 70% of the time is I think you're starting the story in the wrong place. This kind of goes back to what we were saying about the earlier mistakes is often… Or the common mistakes is I often see that the story's starting too early. It's starting before interesting things are happening. Now the problem is if you jump into when interesting things are happening, we don't have context. Which leads to the common mistake of the gunfight problem where then you're like, "What's going on? Why do I care about all this?" The solution, for me, is that layer cake. Right? So you can start when things are kicking off, you can start in the heart of the inciting incident, and then you manipulate the timeline. You don't have to go straight A, B, C, D. You can start at C, and then tell us about A, right? You can layer in those tiny flashbacks. They don't have to be big scenes. They can be a sentence. It's like, "Oh. Yeah. When I woke up today, I wasn't expecting this." Right? You can layer those things in to give us the context of where this character comes from, what do they care about, and then introduce stakes that may not be immediate to this scene. Like, the stakes of the scene is I need to get out of this gunfight because my sister needs to go to school today. Right? I don't know what book I've just written here…

[Chuckles]

[Dongwon] But it's something, right?

[Mary Robinette] I mean, that sounds like Jade City, actually.

[Dongwon] Kind of. Actually. Right? Like, if the character cares about something, then suddenly I, the reader, care about this gunfight. I think when you think about how do I change the timeline, I think you can get a lot more of that density in and start layering those elements in from sentence to sentence, from clause to clause, and really get all of that information into my brain much faster than if you did it sequentially.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. The other piece of that when you're dealing with that kind of thing, one of your best tools for stacking that information is the manipulation of POV. So, we have talked a lot about all of the things that make… In previous episodes, about all of the things that make a point of view. If you go back to the very first episode that I appear on, which is episode… What was it?

[Howard] Three, 14.

[Mary Robinette] Three, 14. Right. Because it's pi. In which I talk about puppetry and focus and breath and internal motivation and all of those things. All of those pieces are the things that make up POV. But the other piece of POV that you have to manipulate is the showing versus telling, the describing versus demonstrating. It's basically are you… You can pull back and go a little omniscient for a moment. You can go deep in. Those moments, those choices that you make, allow you to layer information in. Within that, one of my favorite tools is free indirect speech. Where you can have the narrator basically just say something to the reader, even if it's in third person. So, this example is from Wikipedia, which actually has a great explanation of what free indirect speech is. So, quoted or direct speech would be:

He laid down his bundle and thought of his misfortune. "And what pleasure have I found since I came into this world," he asked.

Whereas free indirect speech is something more like:

"He laid down his bundle and thought of his misfortune. And just what pleasure had he found since he came into this world?

So, that thought just goes straight into the text. You can do so much with that to layer in information. She picked up the knife. Her grandfather had given it to her. That's just like, "Ah, I picked up the knife. Ah, my grandfather gave this to me." That slows us down. It's popping in and out. So, these are the kinds of things that you can be thinking about and manipulating when you're playing with that opening.

[Dongwon] I'm going to give another very highfalutin literary example here, but if you ever have the chance, go take a look at Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. There's a very famous scene of Clarissa walking down a street. There's like somebody's doing sky writing and she uses that to slide from POV to POV to POV in this scene as you move through the crowd. You really jump… Like, someone will make eye contact, and then suddenly you'll be in that character's head. It's a master class in how you can use POV to build out a complete scene, and the balance between telling and showing. Of telling us a piece of information about another person, dropping into their mind to see how they see the world, and then sliding back out into someone else's POV. If you want to think about how powerful shifting that perspective can be in building out a narrative, both in terms of using free indirect speech in terms of subjective experience and seeing things from different angles in that Rashomon style, even that one scene, if you don't read the whole book, I think is an enormously instructive thing to take a look at.

[Mary Robinette] So, we are now at the point where we are at our final homework. Dongwon has this for us. But I'm actually going to tag on at the end of it with a trick. So this is going to be a tagteam homework, and he has no idea that I'm doing this. This is information that I probably should have layered in earlier.

[Dongwon] Well, I'm also calling an audible and I'm going to shift what the homework is. So we're going to see if our two plans line up right here.

[Mary Robinette] Okay, then.

[Dan] [Oooo]

[Dongwon] So, I think the thing I want you to do is actually to delete your entire first scene from your draft. I mean, save it somewhere else. Put it under a different name, don't throw out your draft. But I want you to start from word one for that first scene and rewrite it using all of the tools that we've talked about here. I want you to think about the exercises you've done up to this point rewriting that scene using all those different tools, characters' interiority, that sort of narrative description, describing the world building and setting. Then redo it and try and think about how am I go to layer all these techniques into a single whole? How do you make that cake feel more complete using these tools?

[Mary Robinette] Fantastic. I am going to tag onto that, that once you've done that, but I want you to do is I want you to revise it. I want you to tighten it. The way I want you to do that is I want you to go through and highlight which things you really need the reader to know and make sure that they are in the right order. Then I'm going to see if you can fit them into a single paragraph. So what you're going to do is… This is an editing technique that I call one phrase per concept or one sentence per concept. So each concept, you're like, "Okay. They absolutely have to know that there are dragons and the dragons can talk. They absolutely have to know that this is 1950s. They absolutely have to know that I'm at a girls' boarding school." Okay, so that gives me four sentences. Then you get one more sentence for tone. Because tone is incredibly important. That is also a piece of information that the reader has. This is just an editing exercise. Then your final thing is probably going to be somewhere in between those two. But that is a way to start really, really thinking about which layer is important to you as you start your novel.

[Dongwon] I think these two homeworks dovetail beautifully. I think, by the time you're done with it, you'll have a killer first page that's going to work great for you.

[Mary Robinette] So, now you are really and truly out of excuses. Now go write.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 16.33: Tell, Don't Show

From https://writingexcuses.com/2021/08/15/16-33-tell-dont-show/

Key points: Show, don't tell originated in silent films, where the choice was between showing you a visual image or letting you read a title card. However, storytelling inherently has a certain amount of telling. It's a balance between telling and showing. Especially in the opening pages of a book, the writer needs to tell the reader a lot of information for context. Consider it as describing and demonstrating. Or consider it as controlling pacing and emotional distance. You can interweave telling and showing. Show us the good parts, and tell us the other parts. Some of this is the order of information being presented.

[Season 16, Episode 33]

[Dongwon] This is Writing Excuses, Tell, Don't Show.

[Mary Robinette] 15 minutes long.

[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're going to tell you stuff.

[Dongwon] I'm Dongwon.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Howard] And I'm not going to show you that I'm Howard.

[Mary Robinette] Well, fine then. As we start off this…

[Dan] Thank goodness.

[Mary Robinette] I want to actually talk about where the advice tell… Or show, don't tell comes from. This actually comes from silent films.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] So, this is important to understand…

[Dan] A slightly outmoded art form.

[Mary Robinette] As a writer. What this advice originated from is what the reader wants to see is characters doing stuff and action happening. What they don't want is to have to read a bunch of title cards. So, if you can give us information embedded in the scene, that is significantly better than having a title card or having a whole bunch of things at the beginning that your character has… Your reader has to wade through before they get to the meat of the thing. So that's where show, don't tell comes from. But in fact, we are storytellers, so… A certain amount of telling is kind of baked into our process.

[Dan] Yeah.

[Dongwon] Yeah, the thing I always think about is that a novel is mostly the writer just telling you stuff. Because there's too much thing… Stuff, there's too many things that happen in a novel or you to show every single component of it. Right? So I think show, don't tell is really useful advice, but for a 101 level writer. For an introductory writer. When you're just getting started, you need to learn how to make sure that things are seen on the page that reinforce the stuff that you're telling us. But the reality is, it's a balance. There's a lot of telling and a lot of showing. I think when you're in the opening pages of a book, there's so much information that I as a reader need to understand anything. This kind of goes back to our start it with dialogue thing, that if you tell me some stuff first, then I have the context to engage with the dialogue that you're putting up on the page. So I think there are ways in which you can tell us a lot of information. Think about Hill House. That whole first paragraph is just Shirley Jackson telling us about this house. I think that informs everything that's going to come after that.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. This is… This has been true for all of the things that we're doing. But frequently what they're doing is that everything is doing double duty. It is both just flat out telling you. I was arrested. That's just flat out telling you. I was arrested. He then proceeds to show the arrest. Yes. But he's not playing coy with the information. It's like this is the important thing, this is the thing that I want you to understand. A lot of times, I think that we internalize this show don't tell so thoroughly that a writer feels like if they just come out and tell the reader something, that they have in some way diminished the surprise, the anticipation of whatever it is.

[Dan] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Using my own novel as an example, the opening of Calculating Stars is, "Do you remember where you were when the meteor hit?" I'm like flat out telling you a meteor is going to hit. A meteorite is going to hit. Before we get into the rest of what's going on. So it's totally okay to just tell people things. He said, she said. That's just telling people stuff.

[Dan] Yeah.

[Howard] The best example I've found for… In support of show don't tell in novel form was a draft I read in which a conversation, a big, detailed conversation between two characters, we are told the summary of the conversation. It is bookended by very specific dialogue, meaningless dialogue, from the pilot about bringing the spaceship into dock. I remember reading that and thinking, "You showed me the completely uninteresting bits, and you told me what happened in the part that I wanted to see." So that felt upside down. But yeah, for the most part, we are tellers, and we tell a lot.

[Dan] I like to use different words for these. Telling and showing, because we are primarily a nonvisual medium, don't have as much meaning as they would in, for example, silent film. So, I like to talk about instead describing and demonstrating. Like Dongwon said, there's a big balance between them. That you need to do both of them. Some things need to be described, and some things need to be demonstrated on the page so that we can see them in action and understand why we should care about them. But using… How to use those two tools is really valuable.

[Mary Robinette] I also use different words when I'm talking about it. Because for me, the decision about showing or telling is about controlling two specific things, the pacing and my emotional distance from the character. So the more I unpack something and take time with it and dwell on it, the kind of closer I am to the character's head. That doesn't mean that my sentences have to get long. Like in the Tom Reacher, that's… We are very deeply in the character's head, but everything's short and punchy. So for me, it's about immediacy versus distance from the character, or unpacking or compressing something. If time passes, frequently, I'm just going to tell you, a lot of time passed. I'm not going to make you, like, live through that.

[Dongwon] I think also one block that people have is they think right here, this paragraph, I'm telling somebody something. This next scene, I'm showing. Then I'm going to tell, then I'm going to show. I think that is… I think the Dan thing really helps disrupt that, because what you're really doing is sliding from showing and telling sentence to sentence, even, like, clause to clause in a sentence. When you have dialogue, Howard kind of hinted at this a little bit, but you can have one person say something and then tell us, "And they said that their day was great." You know what I mean? Or tell, "And then she told me about her day and her morning, and some interesting stuff happened, but mostly it was boring." Right? Like, you can skip over the boring parts of it, but then show us the interactions that matter. Right? So, think of these as tools to be used in a very interwoven, very integrated way. Not one block of that and then one big block of that.

[Howard] It's also useful to think about this kind of the way the MPAA handles content ratings. If you show the splash of blood and gibbets and gore, you've got an R rating. If you show the moment leading up to that, and then the camera pulls away and someone talks about what happened, you have a different rating and the viewer has a different experience. So you, as the writer, by controlling the position of the camera can do some things with content that might otherwise be extremely triggery, extremely graphic, whatever, and handle it in a different way, because it's your book. You show us what you want to show us, and tell us the parts that you don't want us to stare at.

[Mary Robinette] So, with that, may we tell you about our book of the week?

[Dan] That is my opportunity this week to talk about Jade City by Fonda Lee. This is the first in a series, a fantasy series, that I didn't quite know what to expect going into it. It is kind of an epic fantasy about two crime families, basically, in an Asian inspired fantasy world. But in… It's a modern version of that. It is… It's set in like a modern-day style city. The very first paragraph has ceiling fans that took me completely by surprise because I was expecting something more traditional fantasy. The language in the book is incredible. The characters are enormously compelling. The setting is really well drawn and fascinating. It's absolutely wonderful. There's a whole series attached to it, so please go read Jade City by Fonda Lee.

[Mary Robinette] I'm going to second that, because I blurbed it. I think I described it as the Godfather meets Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] Because it's all of those things, plus all of the stuff that you love from martial arts wireworks as a magic system. It's so good.

[Dongwon] Fonda herself talks about that book as the Godfather with kung fu, right? That's absolutely the premise. I will also point out that Jade Legacy, book 3 in the series, is out this November and I cannot wait.

[Dan] Well, let me use this as an example of what we're talking about with tell, don't show. Because it is entirely about kind of two warring crime families. There's No Peak and there's Mountain, and they're fighting for control over the city. In order to understand that battle, we need to understand how the city functions and how the magic works and all of that. So it begins with what I suppose is technically a prologue, but feels just like chapter 1 of two thieves who are trying to steal a bunch of Jade from a kind of low level criminal. Because they are outside of the system, we're not getting all of the high level ramifications of what's going on. We're getting the very low level jade is important, this is why, this is what it can do, this is why we want it. So it's just really kind of telling us… It's describing to us what is important and why. Then it is demonstrating to us what the magic can do and what it is like to live in the city, all at the same time. It's a brilliant opening.

[Dongwon] Yeah. I mean, she tells us that Jade is important, that the clans are important, how the jade magic works, and how the culture in the city works. She's telling us all those things. Then, immediately reinforces it by showing us the moment of these two petty criminals walking to this restaurant to try and rip off this like mid-level boss, and just everything is a disaster, as you can expect, in a totally delightful, like, very Breaking Bad style way of, like, all these dominoes falling. But it's such an opportunity to set up the thing by telling you, reinforce it by showing you, and then telling you the next thing, when you see the consequences of the first thing happening, right? This is a try fail cycle used to demonstrate worldbuilding. It's a master class in my opinion. The other thing I wanted… I'm sorry, go on.

[Mary Robinette] I was going to say, we should probably talk about other things besides the book, even though I will… I was… Because I was just about to say, "And also…"

[Laughter]

[Howard] Oh, and then in this part…

[Dongwon] We could go on forever about this book. The other thing I want to talk about though, is… I think it's so interesting that Mary Robinette pointed out that the origins of show, don't tell are rooted in silent film. Because I think the way in which… The amount of visual media that we all consume today I think has made show, don't tell really run off the rails in terms of writing fiction, which is a nonvisual medium. Right, as Dan said. The problem with show and tell is we think of it as here's a scene of two characters talking and then here's a voiceover, and that's the telling. We think of telling as the artificial voiceover. In film, that's often a cheap trick. In film, that is a shortcut to giving us information for a variety of reasons. So what we instead need to remember is that when we are looking at a visual image, we are absorbing enormous amounts of information that aren't on the page. We can see the characters' faces, we can see their expressions, we can see what they're wearing, we can see the furniture behind them. Right? You don't need to describe that ceiling fan. If I just saw the opening shot of a movie version of Jade City, I would know, yeah, this is the 1970s. Yeah, there's technology. Yeah, there's cars. Right? I don't need to be told those things. So the thing to remember is that when you're writing a book, the reader will only see what you put a laser focus on. The mechanic by which you often put that laser focus on the stage setting is through telling us stuff.

[Mary Robinette] The example that I use when I am attempting to explain this, to tell people about this, is that a lot of what we're talking about here is the order of information. That the order of information that you're presenting to people on that first page is incredibly important because you're setting up context. So what I use is the example of imagine that you're in a dark theater. That's laser focus, and that you have a single spotlight. The single spotlight rests… Opens up on a pool of red liquid on a linoleum floor. You think, "Oh. Someone's been stabbed. There's blood on the floor." Then it pans over and you see a can of Kool-Aid. You're like, "Oh. Okay. No no no no. I was wrong. I misunderstood what was going on. This is a kitchen drama and someone's just dropped a can of Kool-Aid and that's what the red liquid is." You pan a little bit farther. Now you see a hand and a bloody knife. You're like, "Oh. No, I was right the first time. Someone was stabbed." But, if you do it the other way around, if you provide context for your reader, if you start with the hand on the floor with the knife, and then you go to the can of Kool-Aid, and then you go to the red liquid, the reader can build this very clear picture in their head. So when you're deciding at the beginning kind of what to tell, you're not just deciding what to tell, but you're also deciding when to tell it. You're trying to make sure that you're presenting this information in a way that the reader is building that… The picture that you want them to build in their head. Because storytelling is linear, whereas film, even though we are experiencing time passing, you don't have control. You have some control over where an audience looks on a screen, but, like, if I am watching something and there is a typewriter in a scene, that is always the first thing I will look at. The filmmaker has absolutely no control over that. But on a page, you do have that control. Howard, it looked like you had a thing?

[Howard] I did. A short paragraph of character description from a work in progress, which… I talked about metaphor and simile and whatnot in an earlier episode. How Lee Childs didn't use it in the Jack Reacher thing. Metaphors and comparisons are a form of telling, a form of description, that give us a shortcut. This is short.

Darren laughs. It's a big, friendly, old man sort of belly laugh. Not quite ho ho ho, but if Darren ever decided to grow a beard to go with his massive handlebar mustache, he'd have steady holiday work as a shopping mall Santa.

How much of that is actual description, how much of that is comparison to a picture you already have in your head and I'm telling you to make a connection between these two things, that is something that absolutely… The… A movie can't do that with one of the characters saying, "Your laugh sounds like Santa Claus. Have you looked at…" Which would derail the film.

[Dan] Well, to keep this… My own little terminology going. That paragraph you read us is telling us how to think about this person. It's describing the person. But at the same time, it is demonstrating the characterization of the speaker. We're learning so much about the person who is giving us that information because of the way they choose to give it.

[Mary Robinette] So, with that in mind, I think, let's talk about your homework for this week.

[Dongwon] So, your homework for this week is, again, maybe taking that scene or taking another opening scene, and what I want you to do is to rewrite the whole first scene purely as narration. Right? Take out any dialogue, take out any of that scene setting, and just give it to us as a narrator describing what's happening. Now, I'm not recommending this be the final version of your opening. I think this is a really instructive exercise though to show you what does and doesn't work about this approach. Hopefully, from this you can take sentences, you can take paragraphs, and then work that into your draft. But I want you to really step back and force yourself to get rid of all the tools of showing and only do a telling version of it. See where that gets you.

[Mary Robinette] All right. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go write.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 16.32: First Page Fundamentals – THE KILLING FLOOR, by Lee Childs

From https://writingexcuses.com/2021/08/08/16-32-first-page-fundamentals-the-killing-floor-by-lee-childs/

Key points: A thriller introducing an iconic character. Incomplete sentences, pop, pop. Foreshadowing. A very brief cold open, and flashback. Layers of questions about what's going on and what's going to happen. Short, blunt, simple sentences, with rich visual imagery.

[Season 16, Episode 32]

[Dongwon] This is Writing Excuses, First Page Fundamentals – THE KILLING FLOOR, by Lee Childs.

[Mary Robinette] 15 minutes long.

[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're not that smart.

[Dongwon] I'm Dongwon.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Howard] And I'm Howard.

[Dongwon] Okay. So, this week we're doing the last of our three deep dives. We're going to do a close reading of the opening page of one of my favorite thrillers that introduces the character of Jack Reacher, who will be the protagonist of this series for however many books there are, 10, 11 books. I think he's an incredibly iconic character in the field of thrillers. Yeah, so we're going to have a quick reading of the first couple paragraphs of most of the first page here.

[Mary Robinette]

I was arrested in Eno’s diner. At twelve o’clock. I was eating eggs and drinking coffee. A late breakfast, not lunch. I was wet and tired after a long walk in heavy rain. All the way from the highway to the edge of town.

The diner was small, but bright and clean. Brand-new, built to resemble a converted railroad car. Narrow, with a long lunch counter on one side and a kitchen bumped out back. Booths lining the opposite wall. A doorway where the center booth would be.

I was in a booth, at a window, reading somebody’s abandoned newspaper about the campaign for a president I didn’t vote for last time and wasn’t going to vote for this time. Outside, the rain had stopped but the glass was still pebbled with bright drops. I saw the police cruisers pull into the gravel lot. They were moving fast and crunched to a stop. Light bars flashing and popping. Red and blue light in the raindrops on my window. Doors burst open, policemen jumped out. Two from each car, weapons ready. Two revolvers, two shotguns. This was heavy stuff. One revolver and one shotgun ran to the back. One of each rushed the door.

[Dongwon] So, the two examples we've done so far have been very high-minded, very beautiful language, very high prose. I mean, we're talking two master stylists of the American canon here. In fact, a lot of times, when I'm on Twitter, I will see somebody start to make fun of Lee Childs' writing. They'll flag it as quote unquote bad writing. I could not disagree with them more. I think this is some of the most effective writing for the genre that we are talking about, the character that we're talking about. I think there is a rhythm and a beauty and a poetry to it all on its own. It is not trying to paint an incredibly moving, chilling Gothic picture, it is not painting the rich interiority of a depressed person, it is instead engaging with how a particular person sees the world and how that makes them good at two things, investigating and extreme violence.

[Howard] Calling back to the discussion of asking questions and then answering them. "I was arrested in Eno's diner." Well, I have a lot of questions already. "At 12 o'clock." You know, the time at which you were arrested was not one of the questions I had.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] But thank you for the additional information. "I was eating eggs and drinking coffee." Okay, that's also not one of the answers I needed, but thank you for completing the picture. Then, "A late breakfast, not lunch." Oh, wait. Eggs, coffee, 12 o'clock. Maybe I should have been asking that question. But, no, again, that's not the question I had, but thank you for completing the picture. I love the way it works, because with each reveal quote unquote, we're being given information that isn't what we asked for, but which completes a picture, and the tone of it says, "Hey, that first question you had about me getting arrested? Pfft. That doesn't actually matter. We'll get to what matters later. Let me tell you about my eggs."

[Dongwon] Well, the thing that's implicit in that is his superiority as an investigator, right? It's not in the Sherlock Holmes, I'm like I'm going to prove I'm so much smarter than you. But there is an element to this, it's like, "Hey, dummy. You didn't ask important questions, which is what was happening. Why was I here?" All of those things that led up to this moment. You start to get a sense of how does Reacher's brain work. How does he see the world? How does he, like, put all of these things together? I love the inferences that they can pull from this. A thing that we will later learn about Reacher is that he is fundamentally homeless, he doesn't have a home. He's itinerant. So he doesn't have a car either. So that whole wet and tired after a long walk in the heavy rain from the highway to the edge of town… Why was he doing that? Why was he walking through the rain to get to this diner to have this late breakfast? Also, just so many bad things have happened to him already by the end of this paragraph, like, that's not a fun way to be, he's getting arrested, and yet, we don't get rage, we don't get anger, we don't get depression. We just get, "Eh. It's a Tuesday."

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. The other thing that I notice about this is the way… Again, I always tend to look at punctuation, because of the audiobook narrator background. There's so many incomplete sentences in this. When he's describing things, it's these quick pops of things. Brand-new, built to resemble a converted railroad car. Like, that's not… That is… That's the entirety of it. There is no verb there. Well, built, I guess. But it's just… These incomplete sentences that just give you these pops of his notice. It's like… For me, what it mimics is kind of the way his eyes are darting around and looking at things. It's like, "I noticed this, I noticed that, I noticed this." I don't linger on anything, because I can't afford to linger on things. I have to keep moving forward.

[Dongwon] My guy doesn't have time for verbs, what are you talking about?

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Dongwon] Who needs subjects to sentences? Objects? Forget about it.

[Mary Robinette] These are ridiculous things. Grammar? I don't have time for grammar. I'm wet and tired. I gave you a subject verb right there. I was wet and tired. What more do you want from me?

[Dan] Yeah. I…

[Howard] Had this been written by Melville or MacLaine, there would be semicolons.

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] Right!

[Dongwon] Exactly.

[Howard] There would be a truck fun of semicolons.

[Chuckles]

[Dongwon] [garbled]

[Howard] In order to capture that voice.

[Dongwon] But you said MacLaine when you meant Jackson. I think you meant Shirley MacLaine instead of Shirley Jackson.

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] Very different people.

[Howard] You're right. I did mean Shirley Jackson.

[Dan] I would read either a horror novel or a thriller novel written by Shirley MacLaine.

[Dongwon] Absolutely.

[Dan] That sounds wonderful. So, I find it really delightful that people kind of mock this language. In large part, because, that is, I think, fundamentally, a bit of genre bias. That this can't be good writing because it is airport bestseller thriller. But who this language reminds me most strongly of is Cormac McCarthy who is considered to be one of our best living writers. It's because this is not considered literary fiction that the exact same writing style that leaves out verbs and has short, punchy, very descriptive painterly sentences suddenly doesn't count anymore because of the genre that it's in. But if you look at this, the first sentence of that third paragraph is enormous. It is 2 to 3 times longer than any other sentence in here. That always jumps out at me. Like, why does this merit so much extra time and attention? The sentence is, "I was in a booth at a window, reading someone's abandoned newspaper about the campaign for a president I didn't vote for last time and wasn't going to vote for this time." There's so much in their. There's… It's such a… Not just long, but a complicated sentence. Which forces your brain to kind of look at that and say, "Well, why does this deserve more than the others?" Not having read the book… I'm three for three now, on not having read Dongwon's big examples. I don't know why that one gets more attention than the others. But it's…

[Dongwon] But it's…

[Dan] Go ahead.

[Dongwon] I think it's a little bit of the person slipping through the detective. Right? You just get this digression where he can't contain his irritation with the world. He can't contain the reasons why he's chosen to exit society and live this itinerant life. Right? He's an outsider, an outsider by choice, because he can't even be bothered to care about who's President, because to him, it doesn't matter and it won't matter because whoever it is, it sucks. Right?

[Mary Robinette] Well, structurally, what he's doing, like, every time he's got a longer sentence, it is actually a sentence about him. "At 12 o'clock, I was eating eggs and drinking coffee," is longer. "I was wet and tired after a long walk and heavy rains." "I was in a booth at a window, reading somebody's abandoned newspaper." It's… When we get even a hint of interiority that we linger on things. But the other thing I think is that part of the reason that he stretches that out is because the character's a little bit bored. This is… It's not en… It's not so much that we get bored, too. It's just enough for us to say, "Oh, he was there for a little while reading this. Then stuff started going down."

[Dongwon] Which he's still not interested in.

[Mary Robinette] He's still not interested. Exactly. Exactly.

[Mary Robinette] I do bef… I do need to pause us for the book of the week, and then we'll come back and talk about some more things. The book of the week this time is one that I want to talk about that Dan wrote.

[Dan] Yay.

[Mary Robinette] So, Ghost Station by Dan Wells is also a… It's a Cold War spy thriller. I listened to the audiobook, which is fantastic. It's beautifully narrated. It is not science fiction or fantasy, so those of you who know Dan that way, this is straight up historical fiction. It's right… Right like a week or so after the [inaudible]

[Howard] Berlin airlift.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. It's right after the Berlin wall goes up. It is twisty, it is tightly paced, you're deeply in the main character's head, who's a cryptographer. What he notices and doesn't notice is so important to the entirety of the book. This is… It's a great book. One of the things were going to be talking about when we come af… Come back from me raving about how much I love this book, and I loved it a lot, is we're going to be talking about foreshadowing. Listening to this book and listening to it twice, it is, in and of itself, a master class and how to handle foreshadowing.

[Dan] Well, thank you.

[Dongwon] One other thing I want to point out, which is a very small note here. But we've been talking a lot about how saying your book should be for somebody, not for everybody. But he does something that is so canny in this newspaper line where he talks about a campaign for a President that I didn't vote for last time and wasn't going to vote for this time. I don't care where you are on the political spectrum, you feel that, right? You could be left, you could be right, you could be a libertarian, you could be a communist. Anybody is going to read that line and be like, "Yeah. That President. I know which one you're talking about." They're all… Everyone has a different person in mind. It's so smart that he doesn't alienate anybody, but still talks about politics, because that's how we all feel about politics, right? So it's just this tiny little moment where sometimes withholding specificity can open the door to identification. Even though most of the time the more specific you are, the more you're going to find that connection.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. The reason he can get away with it here is because he does not care about it.

[Dongwon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] So he's being nonspecific about a thing he doesn't care about.

[Dongwon] Exactly.

[Mary Robinette] But I want to talk about the foreshadowing which is that he… He opens with, "I was arrested at…" And then he… Essentially, what he does is everything that follows that is a flashback. Until the arrest happens. So he's saying, "Bear with me. Bear with me, I'm going to get to the good stuff." So that's… We can call that foreshadowing, although it's… Or we can call it a very brief cold open, and then flashback. But he also does some other interesting foreshadowing in here that I'm going to have Dongwon talk about.

[Dongwon] Yeah. So I think the other foreshadowing that's going on here is… The thing that makes all of this remarkable is his complete disinterest in his complete lack of fear about getting arrested. That tells us so much about who he is as a person. One thing is that he's white, he's a man, he has all these elements that don't make him afraid. But also, he's police. He was formerly a military police, which is a thing that will learn later. So he has a connection to these people. He's not afraid of them, he knows how they operate. Then the thing that comes immediately after where we stopped the reading is that this operation was for me. He knows they're coming for him, not the cooks, not the waitress. He's the target here because he knows he's a dangerous person, or capable of great danger. What this is all setting up is that the police are interested in him, that they're not interested in him because he committed a crime. They're interested in him for some other reason. That's adding this layer of foreshadowing, adding these layers of questions as to what is going on, what's going to happen. Now, what's going to happen is he's going to be forced into working for the police to help them find the killer, right? There's such an expectation across the structure of so many of these thrillers, but again, he's blasé about men with shotguns and handguns charging at him is indicative of both his control of the situation and that foreshadowing, that foreshadowing that he knows that he can be useful to them and that that's why they want him at the end of the day, not because he is a criminal.

[Dan] Yeah. Now, one of the kind of key principles of a character introduction is that we need to know not only who this person is but why do we like them. This extreme competence and lack of fear that you're talking about is a big part of why we start to like this guy. But I'm reading ahead a little bit, and in the next paragraph, he has this huge thing where he talks about reason after reason that he knows they're coming for him and for nobody else. So what does he do? He finishes his eggs, and then he puts a five dollar bill under his plate. Because he knows he's about to get arrested, he knows he's not going to have time to pay, but he wants to make sure that this diner doesn't get shafted out of the money he owes them. That says an incredible amount about the character.

[Dongwon] One last thing I want to bring up is this language isn't beautiful. It's short sentences, it's blunt sentences, it's very simple. But actually, the imagery is quite beautiful. He pauses in the middle of this scene to say, "Outside the rain had stopped, but the glass was still pebbled with bright drops." Then he like kind of jumps forward to "light bars flashing and popping, red and blue light on the raindrops on my window." He's pausing for these rich visual images. I know exactly what this diner looks like. I can see it in my mind. I can feel the vinyl of those booths. I can smell it. You know what I mean? He's so evocative with his imagery. We get caught up in the staccato pacing of it, his observations, that sort of like military mind looking for the threats and dangers. But the writer behind that is showing us a rich and textured world. So, just because you're being blunt, doesn't mean you can't have beauty in what you're doing. That you can't have aesthetics really coming forward in a powerful way. One of the things that makes this work so well for me is it's operating on like all these different layers at once. It's just firing on every cylinder, character, plot, setting, writing, all those things are really coming into play here in a way that I find incredibly exciting and absolutely makes me want to turn to the next page and find out, okay, what happens when the cops get in the door? Okay, what happens when he gets to the station? Okay, what happens at the next step of the investigation? Everything is just pulling me forward like a freight train. For me, I find it irresistible.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I would also argue, having… Since we just did the master classes with Amal about poetry, that this is actually beautiful language, and that if you took this and did a paragraph break where most of these periods are, that… And presented a chunk of this as free verse poetry to someone, that they would believe you and would talk about the capture of individual elements.

[Dan] Yeah. Well, this has a lot of that density of kind of meaning that we talked about with Amal. Sentences like here "I saw the police cruisers pull into the gravel lot." That's a visual detail, but that's also an audible detail. Because we can hear instantly what tires on gravel sounds like. We know that, and it's very familiar. There's a lot of different sensory information all packed into very small spaces.

[Howard] Yeah. I noticed, scanning back over it, that he doesn't use comparison to describe things. There are places where he uses words that might more commonly be used to describe other things. "They were moving fast and crunched to a stop," gives us a sound effect as they are stopping. But it's very straightforward description. He doesn't compare the red and blue lights on the raindrops to something else to help us see red and blue flashing through the raindrops. He just calls it like it is. It's very direct.

[Mary Robinette] That is consistent with the character.

[Mary Robinette] Which brings us to our homework. Dongwon, I think you have that this week.

[Dongwon] So, I think our homework is to sort of take what's been done here, and take a lesson from that. Write an introduction to your story that focuses on entirely the character's view of the world. Maybe, again, take that scene that you worked on for the past couple homeworks, and rewrite it again. Not necessarily the character reflecting on their interiority, but how does the character interact with the world? How do they see the world, both in mechanical and philosophical ways? How is what is happening in the world around them filtered through their point of view? When we say point of view, this is what we're talking about.

[Mary Robinette] All right. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go write.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 16.31: First Page Fundamentals – MOBY DICK

From https://writingexcuses.com/2021/08/01/16-31-first-page-fundamentals-moby-dick/

Key Points: Mental illness. Suicidal ideation. Dark humor, and a lot of tone. Authority, a command to the audience. Plus character. Specifics, visceral and relatable. Contradictions and questions. An audience surrogate? What kind of ride, what kind of story is this? Stakes. Ripples and echoes that shape everything to come. The mythic tone of oral history. Alliteration and front rhyme.

[Season 16, Episode 31]

[Dongwon] This is Writing Excuses, First Page Fundamentals – MOBY DICK by Herman Melville.

[Mary Robinette] 15 minutes long.

[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're not that smart.

[Dongwon] I'm Dongwon.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Howard] And I'm Howard.

[Dongwon] So we're going to do…

[Dan] None of us said, "You can call me…" and then our name. I think that's… I admire our restraint.

[Dongwon] [garbled] restraint.

[Chuckles]

[Dongwon] So we're going to do another deep dive into an opening page. In this case, we're going to do Moby Dick. It probably has one of the most famous first lines that Dan just referenced right there. So, I'm going to hand it off to Mary Robinette again to introduce us to this little sample here.

[Mary Robinette] Just a brief content warning. Much like when you make promises to a reader at the beginning of the book, we want to make sure that you have the opportunity to nope out of things that you don't want to read or listen to. Moby Dick deals with a couple of things. It deals with mental illness and suicidal ideation. Those are both present in the paragraph that you're about to hear.

Moby Dick. Loomings.

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

[Dongwon] This is another example of an opening that I absolutely adore. I think it captures so much of the spirit of this book in just a tiny little microcosm. It's darkly humorous. Not to make light of the very serious issues on display here, but the tone of it, I think, really establishes so much of the book. Given the grimness of a lot of things that lay before us, he's approaching it in such a specific lens that I think sets us up to meet Ishmael, sets us up to meet Queequeg, sets us up to spend time on this ship with all these people who all have their own reasons to be at sea, but, fundamentally, are all because they are escaping something. They're escaping the burdens of everyday life. You have that last note that ends on "all men in their degree, cherish very nearly the same feelings for the ocean with me." That choice to go to sea rather than submit to the other things that are plaguing Ishmael in this scene I think is really the core spirit of this whole book.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. We tend to think of Moby Dick as the pursuit of the great white whale. While that is happening, it really is about escaping. It is about the internal conflict. The great white whale, what that represents is that's the avatar of the escape. It's… It is the not-self. But this book… It's been, I will grant, a very, very long time since I read it. But for those of you who cannot see the…

[Suppressed Snickers]

[Mary Robinette] Video feed, Elsie has just joined us by jumping up the back of my chair and across my face. Okay. So, hello. Elsie, would you like to purr for these nice people? No. Okay. Good job. So, what were we talking about? Use of flashbacks?

[Chuckles]

[Dongwon] I think the thing… Even putting aside, because we are focused on how first pages work. So we can put aside sort of the bulk of Moby Dick, and really focus on what draws people in in this case. Again, I like it because it is that microcosm. But in terms of the mechanics, what pulls people in, you have a few things. Going back again to the idea of authority, it literally starts with an authoritative statement, which is, "Call me Ishmael," right? It's a command to the audience. But also, there's so much character built into that, in that sense of unreliability. You get the sense immediately, Ishmael is not this guy's name. He's asking you to call him that for some reason. The slipperiness that's injected into it immediately set so much of the tone for what's pulling us into this paragraph, what's pulling… Introducing that breadcrumb. Breadcrumb one. The authority of the command and the doubt about who this person is. Then we're sliding immediately into this portrayal of someone who is suffering some kind of mental illness, some kind of condition here, whether that's depression, whether that's suicidality, all these things are really coming to play in this scene. That's driving him, in a very real way, to make this choice, which is to go to sea.

[Mary Robinette] The other thing that he does, again, in that things are going to be somewhat squishy is "some years ago, never mind how long precisely." Again, it's that command to the reader. But then he gets… He gets very specific about all of the different kinds of symptoms that he spots in himself. So I think one of the things, for me, again, in terms of the ways that this pulls me in is it's like, "Look, don't worry about this thing. Don't worry about that thing. Here are the things I want you to think about." It's it's like this examination of self, the… Bringing up the end of a funeral procession, the moment when you think maybe I should just step into the street. These things are specific, they're visceral, they are inherently things that a listener or a reader can relate to in some ways, and disturbingly so.

[Dongwon] [garbled]

[Mary Robinette] And also funny.

[Dongwon] My favorite bit of this is the methodically knocking people's hats off, right? It creates this very specific image of this guy just losing it and the way he's going to lose it is walk in the street and knock everyone's hats off because he so frustrated with something. Right? Voice is a huge component of what makes this paragraph work. But the other aspect is character. All the things about Ishmael that raises all these questions and all these story promises of finding out what's going on with this guy. Why is he like this? How is he going to address this stuff that he's struggling with in this paragraph? Just the specificity of the image, the specificity of the way in which his frustration is manifesting itself in knocking people's hats off, I think opens huge doors into this story, into the character, and is that just absolute trail of breadcrumbs that pulls me into the book to find out what's happening next.

[Dan] Yeah. Well, that word methodically changes everything about the sentence. This is not him losing control. This is not him becoming so frustrated that he has to go out and knock a hat off. That's not what's going on. He's trying to pick a fight. He's trying to get himself in a fist fight so that he can feel something, so that maybe someone will beat him up or kill him, just in order to start something. I love that line. That was absolutely the part that stood out the most to me.

[Dongwon] Then it's paired with this… With the philosophical flourish Cato throws himself on his sword, I quietly take to the ship. Right? There's this high-minded intellectualism that suddenly slips in here. Here's this guy. We know he's broke. We know he's sort of at the end of his rope. But he's still going to talk about Cato. He's still going to talk about philosophy and history. But then contrasting that with him quietly heading to his destiny. Here is again this disjunction, this pairing of contradictions, in this character that raises all these questions about who he is.

[Dan] Yeah. Now, I have to admit, they're going to take my English degree away for this, but I've never actually read Moby Dick. So, coming to this completely cold, what stands out to me more than anything is what you've already talked about, that this is entirely character focused. Moby Dick has such a reputation as being this very plot heavy and/or metaphor heavy kind of slog of a book that is incredibly detailed about the process of whaling and about all of these other things. Nothing that I have heard about the book prepares me for this paragraph being so intimately based on one person's mind and mindset. It… This suggests to me that it's much more character driven than I think the clichés about the book have led me to believe.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Why don't we take a moment to pause for the book of the week, actually, which is a preparation for next week's episode?

[Dongwon] Yeah. Next week we're going to do our third and final deep dive. We're going to be reading Lee Child's The Killing Floor. These are the Jack Reacher series of books which are very well known, very successful series. Killing Floor is the first Reacher book. It's Lee Child's first novel. I think it's an absolute master class in how to write a thriller. These are some of my favorite thrillers ever. I think it will be an incredibly instructive example. It's also a fun read that will take you about 30 seconds from start to finish. You won't want to put it down. So, yeah, our book of the week is The Killing Floor by Lee Child.

[Howard] A couple of fun trivia bits about Moby Dick. Herman Melville wrote this across a span of about 18 months. Which is a year longer than he planned to spend. About halfway through the writing of it, he met Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is supposed by many that this meeting inspired Melville to go back revise and expand and make the project a bit bigger. Because Moby Dick is actually dedicated to Herman Melville… Err, dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne. In token of my admiration for his genius. I think that… I don't know what his writing process was like. I doubt that the first line came first for him. I suspect that part of that expanding and revising was the recognition that Ishmael's voice was a poem, if you will, that was going to get stretched through the book in ways that perhaps it hadn't.

[Dongwon] In fiction, sometimes, we talk about audience surrogates, right? So, this is Kitty Pride in the X-Men. That character that the audience can relate to to get them into the story. I think Ishmael's operating for us in some of those ways. Right? He's going to be our lands into understanding Ahab as we understand what's going on with Ishmael. Right? Ishmael being the sort of larval stage of Ahab as he descends into his obsession, into his madness, and all of that. So, I think again this is the author telling us from the very first line what we're in for, what kind of story this is. This is going to be a story about men struggling with their internal selves. Dan's right, so much of the way we talk about this book is this metaphorical, like, man against nature and all these things. But really, at the end of the day, this is a group of people who are characters divided against… Minds divided against themselves. Trying to overcome their own limitations, their own obsessions to literally survive the experience. Although the stakes are there. Survival is on the page. Dealing with mental illness is on the page. Figuring out a solution to what kind of life do I want to lead. All those things are immediately in this first paragraph. I think the echoes from that will ripple throughout the book. Right? This is the first stone thrown in the pond, and then that's going to shape everything that comes after it.

[Howard] One of the… The book… There's sort of a parenthetical aspect between the beginning and the end of the book. In the editions that we have today, there's an epilogue, in which we learn that Ishmael survives the final events of the book. The first UK edition in 1851 didn't have the epilogue. That forces me to imagine the experience of the British reader of 1851 who… First, like, call me Ishmael. Some years ago, never mind how long… And then gets to the end of the book and it doesn't look like he lives. How does that even work?

[Mary Robinette] So I want to… Because we're talking about opening lines and the importance of setting things. There's another book that is related to Moby Dick that… It's called Two Years before the Mast. We were talking about what inspired Herman Melville to write it. He, in multiple places, cites this book, Two Years before the Mast, which is a memoir. It's a real book about a British fellow who went to sea. This is the opening of that. I want you to notice the difference of it and the difference in the promises it makes. Even though the subject matter of the book, which is being at sea, is, on the surface, exactly the same. Or I should say being at sea and a lot of details about being at sea.

2 years before the mast

The fourteenth of August was the day fixed upon for the sailing of the brig Pilgrim on her voyage from Boston round Cape Horn to the western coast of North America. As she was to get under weigh early in the afternoon, I made my appearance on board at twelve o’clock, in full sea-rig, and with my chest, containing an outfit for a two or three years’ voyage, which I had undertaken from a determination to cure, if possible, by an entire change of life, and by a long absence from books and study, a weakness of the eyes, which had obliged me to give up my pursuits, and which no medical aid seemed likely to cure.

So, both of these are men that are going to see to fix something, right? But the promise that is made in that opening paragraph about the ride you're going to be on is entirely different. They're both told authoritatively. They're both internal and about the character's sense, but one of them's much more focused on the surroundings and we're going to get on this ship and this is going to come to an end when I get off of this ship. The other is my mind is a mess.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] And I'm going to sea because my mind is a mess.

[Howard] I went sailing because I need glasses.

[Laughter]

[Dongwon] Yeah. The other genre thing I want to flag here is this opening firmly places this book in a tradition of oral history, of oral storytelling and folklore. Which is a totally different ride from what Mary Robinette was just talking about in Before the Mast. I think framing it that way gives it this mythic tone immediately. It calls to mind Percy Bysshe Shelley's Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It calls, like, the Odyssey. He's referencing this grand history of oral epics and I think framing it that way again gives us such a sense of where this story is going. So when he spends the next three chapters talking about huddling in bed with another man while they smoke pipes because it's cold and then goes into four chapters describing the biology of whales, we had in our heads still that this is going to be this epic storyline. This is going to be this long framework of an adventure even though we're taking all these digressions. I think that tone carries us through these digressions and lets us gather the joy of those moments which are very funny, very strange, very weird moments and then loop back into this bigger narrative, this bigger understanding of we're going on the Odyssey here, right? We're going on this grand journey and people will contend with the elemental forces by the end of this.

[Dan] I want to point out, just really quick, a word choice trick that he's doing here to grant it some more of that epic oral history vibe. Which is alliteration. In a lot of Western, especially Nordic, languages, Beowulf for example, has front rhyme rather than end rhyme. That the letters all… The words all start with the same sounds. That was a form of rhyme in this really strong epic oral tradition. So when you get down here and he says, "Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth, whenever it is a damp drizzly November in my soul," he is echoing that type of oral epic storytelling very deliberately.

[Howard] There's two sets of rhymes in that one line. Growing grim about the mouth. That is a beautiful phrase.

[Mary Robinette] Yup. Well, we are going to leave you with a slightly longer episode, which is appropriate for Moby Dick. We're going to give you a little bit of homework. That is to write an introduction that is purely internal to the character's mental state. So, much like this begins with him ruminating on where he is internally, that's where we want you to do with this homework episode… With this homework. Now, if you're in a mood to try something really fun, take the one that you wrote last week and rewrite it so that it is focused on the character rather than the description of the outside that you were doing last week. This week, focus on the character's interiority, that question of who am I at the beginning of this book.

[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go write.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 16.30: First Page Fundamentals: The Haunting of Hill House

From https://writingexcuses.com/2021/07/25/first-page-fundamentals-the-haunting-of-hill-house/

Key points: Voice! Sanity and dreams. The main character is the house. Two main ways to start a novel, action-driven and voice-driven. For voice-driven, the narrator ruminates on an important idea, something that gives urgency and stakes. Pay attention to punctuation, to how that emphasizes important things. Establish your authority. Tell the reader, up front, "I am going to tell you a story. Here is what the story is." Then tell them the story. Establish expectations, and subvert them. Imply menace at the corners.

[Season 16, Episode 30]

[Dongwon] This is Writing Excuses, First Page Fundamentals: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.

[Mary Robinette] 15 minutes long.

[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're not that smart.

[Dongwon] I'm Dongwon.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Howard] I'm Howard.

[Dongwon] So, this week we're going to do a deep dive into an example here. We're talking about, again, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. So, to start, Mary Robinette, would you mind reading the first paragraph for us all, so we're all on the same page, as it were?

[Mary Robinette] The Haunting of Hill House.

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against the hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

[Dongwon] This really is one of my all-time favorite openings of a novel in the English language. I think it does so many things right. This is, first off, a great example of how you use voice to establish what your book is. One thing that we, I think, don't really talk about enough when it comes to voice is the musicality, poetry of what she has done here. There's such an elegant rhythm to it that Mary Robinette brought out so wonderfully there that it flows in this way that you get into this sort of… Lulled into this particular state of mind by, and you have this dreamlike quality, which, again, is reflected by this idea that larks and katydids also dream. Right? That, in tension with this idea of conditions of absolute reality, and then connecting that again to sanity. Right? So all of these elements are immediately put on the page of… We're in this sort of hypnagogic dreamlike state. We're dealing with concepts of mental illness and madness. Then we are introduced to the main character of the book. That main character is the house itself.

[Mary Robinette] One of the things that I find particularly compelling about this example is… There are kind of two sort of ways of starting a novel. There's one that is sort of action-driven, which is what we usually focus on. Then there are voice-driven ones. Which are this thing where you take an idea and the narrator ruminates on it. It's something that is important. So there's something within this first paragraph that is also giving you a sense of the urgency, the thing that is important, the thing that is at stake here. That there is this house that so sense… The door is sensibly shut, that it's upright and it's holding darkness within. It's giving you a sense of "Oh, there's something terrible that is coming." But it never names what that terrible is. It's just making you this promise through what is important to the character, and the character is the house.

[Dongwon] It's such a quiet way to start. I mean, it's such a description of just a house and then some stuff about dreams and sanity, right? But really, fundamentally, the core of this paragraph is describing the fact that it's a well-built, well put together house. That is what it is. It's stood for a long time. It's probably going to keep standing for more. But then you end on that final turn, which is such like a delightful moment for me, which is, "Whatever walked there, walked alone." It's just this way of slipping the knife in right at the end of all of that lovely description, all of that sort of smooth beautiful rhythmic description. That the menace that's been building over the course of this paragraph sort of culminates in this moment of… There's going to be that moment of surprise, there's going to be that dark twist to this book. Again, that reflects the structure of the book, that reflects what Shirley Jackson is doing over the course of this story, of giving the characters, of giving them this experience, and writing in this very elevated way. But still, it's going to have that bite. There's still going to be that moment when the character twists and something is not right. Yup?

[Mary Robinette] I want to… Since we are doing a deep dive on this. I actually want you, the listener to go to the Writing Excuses webpage and look at the first paragraph which we will have in the liner notes. The reason I want you to look at it is I want you to look at how she has structured this. So, as a narrator, one of the things that I look at is punctuation. She is placing those commas, those periods, the semicolon… She's placing those very deliberately to provoke causes. Those pauses draw a line underneath things that are important. So where are the pauses that occur in this? Under conditions of absolute reality. We have a semi-colon. The larks and katydids are supposed by some to dream. There's this thing that's like some people think this, some people don't, you're going to have to make your own decision, is what she's doing right there. Hill House, not sane. Again, she sets that apart with those commas. We get to holding darkness within. That semi-colon again to just kind of punctuate that. Then, to really draw a line under the… What the thrust of this entire thing is, it's the very last clause of that opening thing, of that opening paragraph. Walked alone. With a comma, and then the period, and then the paragraph break. You step back slightly before that. And whatever walked there. That's also set apart and she's drawing attention to it very consciously, I suspect, with the way she's imagining the rhythmic quality of this language. So when we're talking about voice, this is one of the things that you can be doing. I'm not saying your writing must have a bajillion commas and semicolons. What I'm saying is use them consciously. Don't think about them so much grammatically. The grammar exists to describe and codify the ways that we naturally group language. What you're thinking about is where am I grouping my thoughts. What is important, what is the thing that I want to set apart so the reader can see it, and what are the things that I want to draw a line under?

[Howard] The very first line re-contextualizes what we are being told several times as it unfolds. Most people don't read this slowly. But. No. Live organism. Okay. No live organism. What am I being told? No live organism can continue. That's pretty bleak. For long. Okay, that's less bleak. To exist. Sanely. The word sanely has suddenly re-contextualized everything else. It's not existential, it's sanity. Under conditions of absolute reality. As the little things reveal, that sentence drives me screaming into the Gothic horror of the haunting of Hill House. I… To be honest, I have not read the full book. Exploring this first line convinces me that I might not like that ride.

[Laughter]

[Howard] But the poetry with which that very first line is constructed is absolutely beautiful. That's the sort of promise that I like to be made, I like to be the recipient of, early in the book.

[Dan] I am really loving the… Just the little clause, not sane. I mean, it's… The w… So much of this is beautiful. But that one in particular. Not only the suggestion that a house can have or not have sanity, which is fascinating by itself, and which does set up, like Dongwon said, the idea that the house is the character. But, compared to that first sentence, and I, like Howard, have never actually read this so I'm coming in cold and I would love to know if I'm wrong about this. But he's basically saying that in order to have sanity, you have to escape reality sometimes. The fact that the house is not sane implies then that maybe it does exist under conditions of absolute reality. That what we're about to see is not a dream, it's actually real things that are happening. Which takes away some of our safety net and makes this not only kind of unexpected, but also more dangerous.

[Dongwon] [garbled] with that not sane… Every time I hit that line, like, the whole theater audience in my head leaps to its feet and starts cheering…

[Chuckles]

[Dongwon] Like, every time I hit that moment, I'm just like… This is not sane. How did you do this? How do you make me feel this unsettled by that tiny appositive? That tiny, comma-framed phrase there? But. Anyway.

[Mary Robinette] Let's give the reader or listener a moment of feeling slightly safer. We'll talk about the book of the week.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] We'll take you away from Hill House just for a moment and talk about our book of the week. Which is prep for next week. That's Moby Dick. You're going to tell us a little bit about that, right, Dongwon?

[Dongwon] Yeah. So, we're going to talk about the opening page of Moby Dick. Probably one of the most famous lines, opening sentences, in English literature. But when I mention Moby Dick by Herman Melville, I can sort of in my brain hear a large percentage of the audience groaning at the idea that they have to read this ponderous weighty novel. I felt that way for a long time, until I read it sort of in my mid to late 20s. I finally sat down and I was like, "Fine. I'm going to read this thing. Everyone talks about it." I was completely surprised by the book that I actually found. That wasn't this dry tome. It's funny and it's deeply strange. There's like whole chapters that are just talking about whale biology and then long descriptions of like what whaling actually is. It's dark. I cannot overstate how strange of a book this is. It doesn't feel like anything else I've ever read. It's so… It's such an interesting examination of the human experience, of what it is to be in the world and figure out how to survive within it under these conditions. I love this book. It's not going to be for everybody, but I promise it's not the book that your English class taught you that it was going to be.

[Mary Robinette] So, ah…

[Howard] The book that my English class taught me was a… Like, 50 page Cliff's Notes of Moby Dick.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] That does not do that book justice.

[Dongwon] It absolutely does not.

[Dan] You're not supposed to admit that out loud.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] So, that is Moby Dick by Herman Melville. So go ahead and read that for next week.

[Mary Robinette] Meanwhile, we are going to continue talking about The Haunting of Hill House. Because there are other things that it is setting up in here besides just "Oh, this is really, really good juicy voice-y thing."

[Dongwon] The thing I want to draw everyone's attention to is… The punctuation is masterful. I mean, I think we focused on that for a long time for a good reason, but the effect of that on the reader, I think, is establishing an iron grip over your brain in this moment. She establishes an enormous amount of authority, of I am telling the story to you, and I am going to tell it my way. It's going to be distinct and unusual. But also, she just establishes this complete authority. That's one of the things you need to do to the reader in your opening page is tell them, "I am a good writer. You want to spend time here, because I'm good at this." Right? I think she does that in this way by manipulating the rhythm, by manipulating the punctuation, by doing unexpected and sort of things that you're quote unquote not supposed to do. She breaks some rules, but she does it in a way that's very masterful. So, I think, one of the lessons you can take here is to aim for this kind of authority. Which isn't necessarily meaning like you can break the rules in the same way that she does. But find a way to be as compelling and convincing of your mastery of language in your mastery of scene and setting and all those things as she does here.

[Dan] It strikes me, Dongwon, and tell me if I'm wrong about the book as a whole, but this opening paragraph is using a lot of the same tools and playing with a lot of the same toys as Lovecraft. That first sentence in particular is incredibly Lovecraftian, but in a much more sophisticated way than he ever was. Just the way that it is kind of combining these concepts of supernatural and science, directly. Phrases like no live organism and absolute reality. Then, at the same time, this is about a house that's not sane and katydids that dream. It's a really sophisticated combination of those very specific tools that Lovecraft used to establish the tone and the atmosphere.

[Dongwon] I think there's some… Yeah, I think there's a similar preoccupation with sort of this concept of insanity and the very specific way that… We don't really talk about it this way anymore for probably very good reasons. But she also has flipped it on its head in so many ways because instead of viewing the cosmic horror that breaks your brain, the thing that breaks your brain is absolute reality. It's having to be present with no ability to dream, no ability to escape sort of modernity in all of its like groundedness, and the concreteness of this house. So I kind of love the way that she has inverted that in this way and how the language just pushes you immediately into that space, and, I think, is in conversation with it, but I think in a way that says, "Lovecraft, you wish you could do this." Right?

[Dan] Yeah, exactly.

[Mary Robinette] [garbled]

[Dongwon] You wish you could dream the… To reach this level. So, yeah.

[Howard] I'm reading and rereading… I printed it out so I can have it in front of me as we're having this discussion. I realized that the thing that is not stated explicitly per se, but which is inextricably related to us, is that Hill House is a living organism.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Howard] Well, wow. That's a promise that I bet gets fulfilled later in the book.

[Mary Robinette] So, this thing that you just noted. This is a thing that I adore when an author does, when they demonstrate through all of the contextual clues that something is alive. She is not being coy about the fact that Hill House is a living organism. She spending a great deal of time letting us know that it's a living organism. In someone else's hands, that discovery would come later. That would be the I don't want them to know this thing. The big reveal is going to be the house is alive and the whole thing is from the house's point of view. That's not what she… She's right up front. This is a living organism. It is not sane. You're going to spend the next however many pages inhabiting that. Literally and metaphorically. This is… We've talked about getting the reader to trust you at the beginning. These are all things that she is doing with very deliberate choices. She's not being coy about the central thing. The interesting geewhiz factor. Which is that the house is alive.

[Dan] Yeah. And…

[Mary Robinette] You can absolutely do that. There are plenty of examples of being coy with the central… Sixth Sense. But how interesting it is when you go in, and it causes all of the stakes to shift, and become so much more immediate because you have that connection with the character.

[Dongwon] To me, it's always such a plus when a writer can start and tell you, "Here's what the story is," and then proceed to take you to the story. But when they've told you up front, "Here's what's going to happen," I just love that because it's setting expectations and then fulfilling them. As a reader, for me, one of the most satisfying things is being told, "I'm going to tell you a good story. Here's what the story is." Then they tell me the story. I'm like, "Yup. That was great. Thank you for that. Let's do it again sometime."

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Because the other thing that happens when they do this is this is what the story is. And it's not going to go down the way you think it is.

[Dan] Yeah. Well, she is telling us that right off the bat. She's establishing expectations, but also she is subverting them. Imagine any haunted house. It is going to be dark and creaky and full of… There will be weird breezes coming through because the walls don't meet. No. This house, the walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm. Doors were sensibly shut. This is not the kind of haunted house we are accustomed to. That by itself makes it more menacing. In the same way as like the introduction to Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs. He is clean, he's well shaven, he's not the creepy monster we thought. Neither is this house. Yet, there is still some menace to it. The fact that the doors have been shut is sensible. Which is just implying this menace at the corners of the story in a house that looks completely harmless.

[Mary Robinette] So, we are going to give you some homework. I'm actually going to give you two pieces of homework. Or three. One is Moby Dick. The other is there's an adjacent story that I want you to read. It's called Open House on Haunted Hill by John Wiswell. It's nominated for the Nebula. I think it's nominated for all of the awards this year. It's fantastic. It's basically what happens if you go to an open house at a place like Hill House. It's fantastic. Then, the last piece of homework that I have is your actual home, is that I want you to write an introduction to your book that is a voice-driven opening. So, this is going to be something that is… You're just doing description. There's no action. There's no dialogue. It's not about a person doing a thing. It's about a thing that matters deeply to the fundamental core of the story, and that you're just going to take some time and describe it. Inhabit that. Think about tone and setting and stakes and bring us all of those things that you would normally bring us through action through your descriptive text.

[Mary Robinette] So. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go write.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 16.29: Building Trust

From https://writingexcuses.com/2021/07/18/16-29-building-trust/

Key Points: Think about hospitality. You are inviting the reader into a space you have created, and you need to make sure they feel comfortable and know what to expect. They need to know what kind of ride they are taking. What are the stakes? Help people decide whether they want to keep reading or put the book down. Set the expectations. Raise questions and answer them. Your starting stakes are not necessarily the stakes of the whole novel, but they should be a microcosm, a small bubble that shows us the kind of story this is.

[Season 16, Episode 29]

[Dongwon] This is Writing Excuses, Building Trust.

[Mary Robinette] 15 minutes long.

[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're not that smart.

[Dongwon] I'm Dongwon.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Howard] And I'm Howard. And you should trust me.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Wow. We're going to have to work really hard to convince the audience of that.

[Howard] It's going to take more than the first line, I got to tell you.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] So, how can we build trust with the audience?

[Chuckles]

[Dongwon] So, one way I think about this is… One of my friends and clients, Amal El-Mohtar, has this really beautiful metaphor that… whenever she talks about writing a book, she uses this metaphor of hospitality. Right? You are inviting the reader into a space that you've made for them. Your part of your job as the writer, is the creator of this space, is to make sure they feel secure, they feel well cared for, and they feel comfortable. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean you have to invite them into a cozy, friendly space. You might be writing a horror novel, and the thing that you're inviting them into is a goddam haunted house right? So if you are doing that, then you are taking them and you are holding their hand and saying, "Trust me. I built you a scary experience." But one of the things about a haunted house is you know what you're signing up for. You know, at the end of the day, a murderer is not actually going to stab you. If you violate that boundary, then you've made a very bad experience for your reader. So one of the things you're trying to do…

[Mary Robinette] They've been stabbed.

[Dongwon] Exactly.

[Dan] Now all I can think is how can I get that to work.

[Laughter]

[Dongwon] But one of the things you want to communicate in the opening page is this is the kind of ride that you are on. This is the kind of story that you're on. But also, I know what I'm doing and you should trust me. I'm going to take care of you. Right? I think those are important things you really want to communicate to get that sense of trust and also authority. Also, I am in charge here. This is my house. Welcome. This is my space. You're going to be okay.

[Dan] Yeah. I really like the this is the ride you're on metaphor, because that makes so much sense to me. I hate roller coasters. If I get on a ride at a park with my kids thinking that it'll be some fun little like Peter Pan thing, and it turns out to be a roller coaster… I'm never going to that park again.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. A lot of this is just about things that we started talking about last week and the week before about establishing the breadcrumbs. There's a number of different ways that you can build trust with the audience. One of those… One of my favorite tools to use is the voice of the character. I… Like, I enjoy… Whether I'm doing third person or first person, when I pick up a book, the voice… The tone tells me so much about what kind of character… The character of the book and it gets into the character of… The character. I'm a writer, I'll go back and edit that later.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] But the point is that it… This, it your word choice, your sentence structure, what the character is thinking about, what you've kind of focused on, all sends a signal to the reader. This is… You're going to get more of this. Come with me, and I'll give you more of this.

[Dongwon] In addition to the voice, I think one of the things that really establishes what kind of ride we're on… I think voice is sort of setting the stage, but then communicating the stakes of your story, I think, are one of the best ways to really communicate what are the dangers here, what are the threats here, what kind of genre are we in, what kind of story is this. By genre, I really mean sort of the concept of the elemental genre. Is this a thriller? Is this horror? Is this twisty? Is this a romance? The thing to think about stakes in this kind of goes back to what we were talking about last week in terms of don't start with an action scene because violence and death are actually not great stakes in the beginning of a story because you don't care about the character yet. Stakes are about relationships. We are people. So we are wired to connect to other people. I think that's one of the main ways that stories work is we connect to a character's experience. What makes that relatable is their relationships to other people. Right? Stakes are about a character's connections, their feelings, their conflict between themselves and another person in the world, or sometimes a mind divided against itself. Sometimes an internal conflict within a character establishes the stakes of the story. I think as you can communicate that upfront, that can be the most effective way to sort of establish what kind of story and what's on the table and where we're going.

[Howard] I… In the first episode we did, Dongwon, you talked about nobody wants to read a book. Your first line is there to prevent people from throwing your book in the trash. I think that on the topic of building trust, at some point, you have to be willing, in that first page, to tell people if you don't want to be on this ride, it's okay to put this book down. Because there are people for whom this is not a book they want to read, and I would rather they know that soon then be angry at me for having found it out 60 pages later. The example that I use is the opening scene of the 2011 Three Musketeers movie in which a guy wearing steam punk-ish scuba gear emerges from the waters of Venice and fires repeating crossbows at his enemy. I looked at that scene and thought, "Oh. Oh, that's the ride we're on. Okay. I'm here." But, you know what? If your suspenders of disbelief have already snapped, just pull your trousers up and leave the theater and be done. Because this isn't a movie for you. So when I think about building trust, I want to make sure, yes, that I've planted the hooks so that everybody is going to read to the end of the first page. But then on the first page, I'm going to include things that tell people this is what you're here for. If this isn't you, it's okay to leave.

[Mary Robinette] This is why when you… You will often hear me talk about like within your first 13 lines, try to get some hint of your genre element, preferably like within that first three. So that readers know what they're in for. Using the example of the Three Musketeers, if we had started with a historically accurate beautiful court scene and then moved to the repeating crossbow, when you get to that, you will flip the table and storm out. Whereas the other way, you're setting expectations. It's like, "No. You're going to get the pretty clothes, but that's not what this book… This film is about."

[Yep]

[Mary Robinette] So, a lot of it with this is making sure that the reader understands kind of the scope, in addition to all of those other things.

[Mary Robinette] Why don't we take a moment here and pause for our book of the week?

[Dongwon] Yeah. So, our book of the week is actually going to connect to next week's episode. So, we are talking about Shirley Jackson's masterpiece, The Haunting of Hill House. This is one of the greatest horror novels of pretty much all time for me. I think it's one of my favorite books ever. It's very different though from what we expect if you're thinking of horror as Steven King novels. It's very moody. It's very atmospheric. The thing that were going to be talking about is that first page. Really, almost just the first paragraph of that book. So, if you're not really up for reading a whole horror novel, just feel free to read that first page. But for those of you who are open to it, I think it's one of the most incredible pieces of literature out there. It is also an excellent TV show that's been made out of it that has very little to do with the book, but it's also very enjoyable.

[Mary Robinette] You… Thank you. So that's The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.

[Mary Robinette] You looked like you were about to say something right before we paused for the book of the week. What was that, Dongwon?

[Dongwon] Oh. Really, talking about this idea of setting those expectations in that first paragraph, when… One of the most important questions in publishing, I think, for me… Sometimes I talk about it as maybe the only question in publishing and everything else is some version of it, is deciding who this book is for. But when you decide this book is for this person, inherently in that statement you are saying this book is not for this other person. Right? That's okay. It's okay to have your book not be for a certain segment of the audience. Dan doesn't like roller coasters. You shouldn't try to make Dan get on your roller coaster. So, I think communicating that in the first part…

[Dan] Don't say it that way, because now everyone is.

[Laughter]

[Dongwon] I think really being clear about that is really important to let people opt out as much as you're letting them opt in.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Absolutely. The other thing, for me, when we're talking about building trust, goes to something that Howard said last episode, which was raising a question and answering it. This is one of the things that I find… One of the most effective tools that you can do to build trust with the reader is… Because writing a novel, writing a short story, is about withholding information until the point at which you want to deliver it. So what you want to do is you want the reader to know that you will deliver the information when they need it. One of the ways you can do that is to raise a question and immediately answer it, raise a question and immediately answer it, raise a question… Don't answer it. They know, "Okay. I'm not getting the answer right now because it's not important at this moment. I will get it later." But you want to make sure that those… That the ones that are kind of obvious questions, the ones that the reader is going, "well, hang on," are thematically linked to the thrust of your story. Just a question for the sake of why is that happening is going to… Again, with the breadcrumbs, draw them down the wrong path. So, like when I'm talking about a thematically linked question, if you've got a murder mystery, why is that dead body on the floor, that's a thematically linked question. You don't want to immediately tell them why the dead body is on the floor, because they have to figure it out. Whereas if it's a battle, why is that dead body on the floor isn't the question. Right? That's… It's like, "Ah. There's a dead body on the floor from a bullet wound. It looks like… It's… One of the enemy soldiers is on the floor." You want to answer the question almost before they get to it. So that they aren't…

[Howard] To extend…

[Mary Robinette] It popping up.

[Howard] To extend the dead body metaphor…

[Mary Robinette] Which we love.

[Howard] The vast majority of us have never been in a room with a dead body. So, often the question is why am I reading a story about a person… Why is this person in the room with a dead body? Is this a police procedural? Is it a war documentary? What is it? So that's… I like that question.

[Dan] Well, I think it's important to… This is such a wonderful example, because you can illustrate a lot of different ideas with it. There are a lot of authors, and Dongwon mentioned this, I think last episode, that you have already spent hundreds of thousands of hours thinking about your book and your characters. So to you, this might not be a question. You might not realize by putting that dead body on the floor that you are posing a question to the reader. Perhaps what you're trying to do by not explaining the body is to illustrate that the people in this war scene are inured to death and they are desensitized to violence. You're just trying to show how grim and dismal their life is. But it actually is a question, and the readers are going to wonder about it and that's going to lead them off track.

[Dongwon] Often times those questions, we also talk about them as story promises, right? You asked the question, you are promising to the reader I will address this in some way. Maybe in an offhand way, maybe in a small way, maybe a big way. I think when Mary Robinette was talking about that series of questions that are asked and answered, I think of those in terms of… As we talk about the story stakes, the way in which the stakes in your opening scene don't have to be the stakes of your whole novel, right? Because if you're giving… If you're writing 150,000 word epic fantasy, the stakes of the whole novel are not going to exist in that first scene, and it would be madness to try and get them in there. But you need to give us some stakes, and those need to be thematically connected to the big stakes. But you're doing a little microcosm, you're giving us a small bubble in which we can understand the kind of story that we're in and where we're going to be going with that. So think about ways that you can have a nearer, smaller version of the stakes of the story as what's in that first scene, what we're engaging with there. So that then we have an idea of where it's all going over the course of the 800 pages that come after this.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. One of the things that we talk about so often when talking about stakes, when talking about how to make a novel more immediate, is the character. The character of the no… The character that you're along the ride on. Something that I have recently had an epiphany about… When Dongwon was talking about a mind divided against itself, that when you're on a character story, that the essential question that the character is asking is who am I. That they've hit something that has caused them to have some doubts or some conflict about who they are. So you can begin to show those cracks in who… Who their understanding of themselves is even in that opening scene when they have to make a small version of a larger choice that they're going to have to make later. That who am I… Am I the person who takes the call from my mom or am I the person who finishes ordering my coffee? That call later is about something much, much bigger. It's… That's a very small stake-y thing, but it is… It's that who am I question can often lead to more specific and personal stakes later.

[Mary Robinette] Actually, Dongwon, do you have, speaking of characters, do you have homework for us?

[Dongwon] I do have some homework. The thing that I want you to do is to break down every character that appears in your first chapter. Ideally on an index card. Then, on those cards, write out what each character's wants and needs are. What does the character think they want? What does the character need to get to resolve their arc? Then, ask yourself, what stakes are on the page there that you can work into this scene in an explicit way? If you have a strong idea of where each character is going, then you can start injecting those stakes and making sure there represented on the page in those opening scenes. I have a second piece of homework, which I mentioned briefly earlier. Which is, we're going to be talking about specific examples for the next few episodes. Next week is going to be The Haunting of Hill House. So do yourself a favor and read that first page. Then when we get into the in depth conversation, you'll have a little bit more context of where we're going.

[Mary Robinette] Thanks so much. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 16.28: Common First-Page Mistakes

From https://writingexcuses.com/2021/07/11/16-28-common-first-page-mistakes/

Key Points: Don't start with a character waking up. These little moments of life don't really tell us what the book is about, or even much about the character. Your opening should ground the reader and orient them. Don't start with dialogue. We don't know who the person is or where they are. Be aware, readers take your beginning literally, so avoid wild metaphors. Keep our readers going forward as fast as possible. Make your opening a trail of breadcrumbs. What kind of questions do you want the reader asking? Don't start with a fight. We don't know what the stakes are, or what's going on. We don't care about the character yet. Action is only exciting if there is real tension to it, a real threat to it.

[Season 16, Episode 28]

[Dongwon] This is Writing Excuses, Common First-Page Mistakes.

[Mary Robinette] 15 minutes long.

[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're not that smart.

[Dongwon] I'm Dongwon.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Howard] And I'm Howard.

[Dongwon] Okay. This week, we are talking about some of the most common mistakes that we all see in first pages of books. So, there's a few things that are sort of talked about a lot in workshops, among agents, among a lot of the writing advisors. But we wanted to break down a little bit why these are… Why these don't work as places to start your book, even though they are sort of natural places that you think might be a good way to open. So, I think the first one is a really classic comment that you hear a lot, which is, "Don't start your story with a character waking up." We see this a lot of a character coming out of sleep, waking up in bed, and again, it's this thing of starting the story at the beginning because you think, "Oh. My character's going to have a big, exciting day. I should start where the day starts." Which is them getting out of bed, seeing themselves in the mirror, so that they can describe themselves, get a cup of coffee, drive to work. These are all natural things, because it's what we think about as a person's life. Because a lot of a person's life is these little moments. The problem is, as a reader, you don't know anything about what the story is. By the time you're done with that scene, you have no information about the book. You may know a little bit about the character. But these also aren't moments that are really defining who a character is and what they care about under pressure.

[Mary Robinette] Right. Because one of the things that you're dealing with in the morning is that you're disoriented. Right? Part of your goal in that opening is to ground your reader and to help them feel oriented. But a character's natural state… I mean, your natural state in the morning is disoriented. The things that you're thinking about are not the things that are most important to you through the day. They're just like, "Where are my pants?"

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] That's not… I mean, I'm sure that there is out there somewhere someone who will write a really compelling story about where are my pants…

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] But that's…

[Dan] But it's not you.

[Mary Robinette] It's not…

[Dan] I mean, I do so many chapter critiques, and I teach so many classes, I am astonished at the sheer number of people who will tell me to my face, "Yes, I know that we're not supposed to do this. But I'm doing it differently." No, you're not. Like, that's why we tell people not to do this. The odds of you, on your very first novel, being the one who cracks the code and is able to do this cliché in a brilliant and innovative way… It's just safer to stay away from these kinds of things.

[Dongwon] Of course, the problem with any kind of writing advice is there is someone out there…

[Dan] Yes.

[Dongwon] Who did do it and it's great.

[Chuckles]

[Dongwon] Odds are, it's not you. Maybe it is. You can try. But then don't be frustrated when it doesn't work.

[Mary Robinette] So, like, for instance, there's a book that's just come out, which is Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. His character literally… It starts with his character waking up in a literal white room. But he has reasons for doing that. Like, this is one of the things, it's like when you do something like that, you are buying a thing. He's buying something very specific with that. He is buying a character who has been in a medically induced coma in spaceflight. Most of the fun of the book is figuring out… Like, all of the book, really, the fun of it is him figuring out what's going on. So, he's buying a specific thing. However, I'm also pretty darned convinced that if that manuscript landed on an average agent's desk, that they would bounce off of that. You have to buy trust from the reader in some way. Starting with something that… Something like that on your first go round is just not safe. Like, Andy Weir has bought trust because he's Andy Weir. Not because of the actual writing on the page. Which is not fair, but it's true.

[Howard] The first lines, the first page of The Martian were outstanding. They grabbed me straight out of the gate. The book convinced me that I am… I am willing to pick up more Andy Weir books and read well beyond the first page before making decisions.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Howard] That is a luxury that debut authors simply don't have.

[Mary Robinette] Well, the other thing is that he's using all of the other tool. He's using voice and he's created an unusual setting that the character is waking up in.

[Mary Robinette] But there are other mistakes, too. It's not just waking up. There's starting with dialogue. This is another example of a thing that I see a lot of people do. You can do it. Like, the book that I started… I mentioned last week starts with a line of dialogue. The problem with starting with a line of dialogue is that we do not hear a voice without attaching things to it in the real world. It's incredibly rare to hear a voice and have no sense of who the person is. But when you start with a line of unattributed dialogue, you have no sense of who that person is, you don't know where you are. So…

[Dongwon] The thing that I… Oh, I'm sorry.

[Mary Robinette] Go on. Oh. What I was going to say was that the reason that it works in The Last Watch and then also Ender's Game begins with just straight dialogue. No dialogue tags at all. Very, very short. But what it is telling you is that these characters are not important. The subject of the conversation is the thing that is important. In J. S. Dewes's, the subject of the conversation was the main character. In Ender's Game, the subject of the conversation was Ender. It's very, very fast and it gets you on and it launches you. What were you going to say, Dongwon?

[Dongwon] Oh, the thing that I notice most of the time is that when it does start with that line of dialogue, I immediately forget what that line was. It's almost invisible to me. Nine times out of 10, because I have… There's nothing for me to attach it to. Right? The important thing to remember is you have spent hundreds, maybe thousands of hours thinking about those characters, this world, your plot, all these elements. I, as reader, coming to your story for the first time, know exactly zero things about the book that you're giving me. I have nothing to attach anything to. So anything you present to me, A, I'm going to take it very literally, so be careful of wild metaphors in your first paragraph, because I will take them as real actual things that you are saying. Like, if you say this person is a duck, I'm going to think that person is a dock, even if what you meant was metaphorically, this person walks and talks like a duck. Right?

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. For instance, Gregor Samsa? Not actually a cockroach.

[Dongwon] Debatable.

[Chuckles, laughter]

[Dongwon] But, yeah, so starting with a line of dialogue with nothing to attach it to in terms of character or setting or story… It just vanishes. It disappears into some recess of my brain, never to be seen again. So I have to go back to that later to get context for wait, why are they talking about this? Oh, right. Somebody said something before. The last thing you ever want your reader doing on the first page is having to go back to the top again.

[Dan] Yeah.

[Dongwon] You want them going forward as fast as you can make them.

[Dan] Let me give an example of this. Sometimes… So, like in the example that Mary Robinette gave last time, I think the first line of dialogue was "Spread your legs and bend over." Right? Which by itself is very eye-catching, it is very compelling, because it's shocking. That kind of gives it a pass and makes it work, because it makes it more memorable. But… So, consider one of my very favorite first lines of all time, which is Paradise by Toni Morrison. It's narration. The narrator says, "They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time." It's incredibly shocking. It's compelling. But because it's narration, it's easy to understand. If you take that exact same line, they shoot the white girl first, and you put it in quotation marks, what you're doing is adding a bunch of extra layers on top of it that the reader doesn't understand. We don't know who's saying it. We don't know why they're saying it. We don't know who they're saying it to or in what situation. Which means we understand it far less then if it was just the exact same words, but as narration.

[Mary Robinette] That is a great example. Speaking of first lines, let me use this to segue to our book of the week, which is something I'm going to talk about. This is a literary magazine that I think you all should pick up a copy of. This is the place that I made my first couple of sales. It is called, literally, The First-Line. thefirstline.com The premise of the magazine, it's a quarterly. They… Each issue of the magazine, every story in that issue has the exact same first-line. Because their premise is that if you hand call me Ishmael to Mark Twain, you do not get Moby Dick. You get something totally, totally different. So it's a really good example of what a first-line… Like, how important a first-line is, but also how much the rest of the story comes from the specific author. Like, the first-line is incredibly important, and also, not important at all.

[Mary Robinette] To segue us out of that, I'm going to talk about a literary horror story, which is that my second novel, Glamour in Glass, when it came out, they accidentally omitted the opening line of the novel.

[Ooo]

[Mary Robinette] So, this is a thing that we… I had done all of the things. I had gone back… I labored. I am not kidding. There is a handwritten page that is just me rewriting that first-line over and over again to get exactly all of the beats that I wanted. They left it out. For reasons, not on purpose, it was a… For reasons. We'll just leave it at that.

[Dan] Where did you bury the bodies?

[Mary Robinette] You know, we have 12 acres.

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] And there's a gully. So…

[Dongwon] I feel that story in my bones every time I hear it. Goof.

[Mary Robinette] But the thing is, if you don't know that first line is missing, the book actually plays just fine. It breaks me inside, because I labored over it, and also because my closing line is an intentional mirror of the opening line. But one of the things that I did as kind of part of that how do we deal with this was that I posted a thing on my website of the second line to books and asked people to guess which book this came from. People were able to guess. So the thing to understand, I think, about openings is that it is a series of breadcrumbs. The mistake that a lot of authors will make is that that first thing that they put down on the page isn't a breadcrumb leading to the next thing. There's no logical causal progression. They're just trying for I'm going to try to catch… I'm going to hook the reader with the shocking thing, and then we don't go on from there.

[Dongwon] I think that's really the argument with dialogue is it doesn't give you a base to build off of. It will connect at some point, but in the example were talking about, in terms of The Last Watch, it connects so cleanly to the next line that you do get that breadcrumb effect. The way I think about it is you have a first-line that leads to the first paragraph which leads to the first page which leads to the first scene. If you can get them past that threshold, you have them, at least for the first chunk of your book. You've got them into your book at that point. So if you think about that progression as sort of a clean step up into where you want to get to, I think that can be really helpful.

[Howard] I also like thinking about it in terms of the kinds of questions I want the reader to be asking themselves. Even if they're not consciously articulating those questions. And how swiftly and satisfactorily I can answer those questions. If the first line of the book is dialogue, the reader's question to my mind should be something along the lines of, "Why would someone say that?" Then I immediately am told why that is being said, and it is an answer that raises another question. "Oh, that makes perfect sense. But what's going to happen to…" And now I'm hooked. So the first line of dialogue can work that way. But, yeah, if the first line of dialogue, if the question I'm asking is "Uh. Who is talking? What's even going on?" That is way too broad a question. I want that first line to ask me a narrower question, ask the reader a narrower question, so that I can answer it specifically.

[Mary Robinette] One of the things that I'm going to talk about, just to segue us a little bit away from verbal dialogue, is also physical dialogue. Wesley Chu talks about combat as being nonverbal dialogue, that it is a conversation. So when you start with a fight scene without telling us why we are in the fight scene, it's like coming in on two people having a conversation without understanding what any of the stakes are. So another very common mistake that you will see is, again, you want to start… You want to start with the action, so you start with people having a fight. The reason that James Bond films can start with a cold open of Bond doing the things is because we know that we're in a James Bond film. Bond is already an established character.

[Howard] And the cold open is the… dun dada dun dun... dun dun dun... The music that tells us why we are here. It's…

[Mary Robinette] Yes…

[Howard] That opening romp isn't quite that cold.

[Dongwon] I think one of the challenges of starting with a fight scene… People think, "Oh, I need to start in media res, and that's going to be exciting." But we don't know the character yet, we don't care about the character yet, so if this character dies, I genuinely don't care. Or if they get shot, I'm like, "Okay. Cool. What's this book about?" Right? So, I think you need to give us something that we really care about in some way to attach to the character and really pull us into the story that way. So I think people think action is a great way to start because it's exciting, but action's only exciting if there's real tension to it, if there's real threat to it. There's no threat if there is no character that we know yet. So I think it can be a really tricky place to do it I think with all three of these examples, as we're talking about it, it's sort of become clear as we talk about it and when we get in-depth with it, is that these aren't fatal errors, but they are starting a book on hard [mode]. Right? It is possible to do these things, but you've set yourself a very high threshold that you need to clear in terms of your need to communicate to the reader knowingly… You kind of need that wink, wink, nudge, nudge, in those opening pages of I know I'm not supposed to do this, but I'm doing it anyways, and you're going to trust me, because I'm so competent at doing this thing. So it's all about building that trust in the reader in that opening scene.

[Mary Robinette]

[Dongwon] Go ahead.

[Mary Robinette] In fact, building trust is what we're going to be talking about next week. So, before we… Because I can feel myself wanting to talk about how to do that, right now. But why don't we give them homework, which is a very simple assignment this time.

[Dongwon] Your homework is make sure you haven't done these. Go back to your first page and consider where you're opening. Go back to that first scene and consider am I doing these mistakes. Maybe not necessarily one of these specific things. But think about the principles we started to talk about here in terms of making sure we have a character we can attach to. Making sure we have context, and that we're not coming into the story disoriented and confused. Really examine that first page and see am I making these mistakes. If not, then how do I make sure that we're moving forward from here?

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. It really is my character… Have I given the audience something to orient? Have I given them a breadcrumb about what the future story is going to be like? We'll talk next week about how to build trust with your reader. But right now… You are out of excuses. Now go write.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 16.27: Nobody Wants to Read a Book

From https://writingexcuses.com/2021/07/04/16-27-nobody-wants-to-read-a-book/

Key points: How do you start a novel? What kind of first page do you need? How do you keep them from throwing the book away? Three sales tools, the cover, the jacket copy, and the first page or first paragraph. That first experience is what closes the deal. Make sure you don't bury the good stuff 30 pages in. Procedurally, give yourself the freedom to write the bits you think you will love, and what leads into that. Then, later, see if you have a hook, and go back and write that. The opening needs to communicate to the reader what kind of rollercoaster they are getting on. Set the hook and pull people into your story. Don't start at the beginning! That's often boring. Start with the interesting part. Don't jump too fast to the big action, though. You may want to use an ice monster prologue, or cold open. Think musical theater overtures!

[Season 16, Episode 27]

[Dongwon] This is Writing Excuses, Nobody Wants to Read a Book.

[Mary Robinette] 15 minutes long.

[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And I don't want to read your book.

[Dongwon] I'm Dongwon.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Howard] And you can't make me.

[Mary Robinette] That's Howard.

[Chuckles]

[Dan] So this is the start of our new intensive course, brand-new subject with a brand-new teacher. Dongwon, tell us very briefly a little bit about yourself and about what we're going to learn about for the next two months.

[Dongwon] Yeah. So, I'm Dongwon Song. I'm a literary agent with the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency. I do mostly science fiction and fantasy for adults, YA, middle grade. Some graphic novels [garbled] as well. So, we're going to be talking about here how to start a novel. The importance of first pages, some of the techniques that really work, and we're going to sort of break down different aspects and then get into some examples over the course of the next few episodes.

[Dan] Awesome. We're excited. Dongwon's also kind of the fifth Beatle, so to speak. I think…

[Chuckles]

[Dan] You've been in more Writing Excuses episodes than anyone except the four core hosts. So, we're always happy to have you.

[Dongwon] I've done a couple of them. It's always a delight to be here, so thank you.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. As you were asking him to introduce himself, I'm like, "I'm pretty sure these folks know him by now."

[Chuckles]

[Dan] Well, take it away.

[Dongwon] I get a lot of emails that say I know you from Writing Excuses. So it's quite lovely. But…

[Mary Robinette] Tell us about first pages, because we've got novels to write and we have to convince Howard to read them.

[Howard] Good luck with that.

[Dongwon] Well, so I picked a slightly controversial title for the start of this one, which is Nobody Wants to Read a Book. I pulled that from a quote that crossed my feet recently. There was an interview with this legendary comics writer, John Schwartzwelder, who's mostly known for his work on The Simpsons. I'm going to read you the quote that was in this interview that was in the New Yorker. It's "Nobody wants to read a book. You've got to catch their eye with something exciting in the first paragraph, while they're in the process of throwing the book away. If it's exciting enough, they'll stop and read it." This just like perfectly encapsulated how I think about the way you need to start a book. You sort of have to assume that the person who's picked it up is not interested in what you have. Because in that moment, but they're really doing is trying to make a decision about am I going to invest in this book. I think we think about that in the bookstore in terms of like I'm going to pay $20, $10, five dollars, whatever it is. But really, the thing you're asking them to do is to give up hours of their life to spend with your words and your story. There's a lot of things people can be doing with their time. They could be playing video games, they could be hanging out with their family, playing with their kids. So to get them to do that is a really big task.

[Mary Robinette] True story. Andy Weir gets a ton of ARCs. He got mine and was literally in the process of throwing it away. Like, it was in his hand on the way to the trashcan. Like, the trashcan was below it. He read the back cover copy and he's like, "Hang on a minute. Apollo era science fiction? That sounds like my jam."

[Dongwon] Because, I think… That's a great example, because you really have three major sales tools to convince a reader. One is the cover of your book, right? Whatever shiny image is on there tells them this is the genre, this is the category, this looks cool to me. I like this painted Dragon, right? You have your jacket copy, which, as Mary Robinette was just talking about, is like that opportunity to be like this is what the book's about in a really concrete way. But, I think the thing that really clinches it, the thing that closes the deal is they open it and they read that first page and say, "Yes, this is for me. This is exciting. I like this voice, I like these words." So, really, if you think about it… I never encourage you to think about your audience as like a hostile engagement, but in this one case, if you think thinking about it on the way to the trashcan like flying out of their hands, how are you going to grab them in that moment, is such a useful way to approach it. So, I think, when you're thinking about that, as you're going into the publishing process, it's not just readers in the bookstore, right? It's agents, it's editors, it's really everyone in the process. When I'm looking at queries, I look at your pitch, and that is the first thing. But the thing I almost always do, even if I don't like the pitch, 90% of the time, unless it's like something truly terrible, I will scroll down and just read the first few sentences. Just to check, just to see, do you have the thing or not. Right? So, often times, even if I don't like the pitch, if I like those first lines, I'm going to dig in more, I'm going to read that whole sample. I'm [inaudible] right? That is really the opportunity for me and so many people like me to make your case as clearly as possible of why you should be… Why I should be spending this time with you. Why I should be investing all this time and energy into reading your project, in your book, and probably going forward.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. One of the things, when I was… That was super instructive when I was… Before I had started selling novels was I had this children's book, and I let a friend of mine… A friend of mine's wife was an editor at a major house. She's like, "Well, let me take a look at it." Because I was sitting in… We were in a green room situation, and she's like, "Well, hand me the manuscript. Let me take a look at it, and I'll show you how I read things." She's like, "I want to make it clear, this is not me reading your manuscript. This is me demonstrating how I do it." She started reading it. She read about the first page. Then she scrolled ahead real fast and she said, "Yeah. So, I always jump ahead 30 pages because what I find is that most debut authors bury the good stuff 30 pages in."

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] "Because the first part of the book is actually them writing their way into figuring out what the book is. Then they don't cut it later."

[Dongwon] Absolutely.

[Howard] Procedurally, the thing that I was going to offer, the tool that I use… I have a reason that I want to write a book. I have a reason I want to tell a story. There's something about it that has hooked me. Often, my first sessions of writing are an effort to articulate that so that I remain hooked. Those are rarely really good first pages. They're usually a voice, a couple of chapters in or something. So I allow myself the luxury of writing some of the bits that I think I will love. Then, writing the beginning material that leads into that. Then, at some point, I have chapters, I have scenes, I have material, I have whatever. Much of which deserves to be cut, because it's a draft. But this discussion of what are the words that I want to put on the page that will prevent Andy Weir from dropping the book actually into the garbage… What are the things that will hook a reader? I don't lead with that. Because coming up with that bit first is really difficult. But, once I have voice and worldbuilding and character and whatever else, the hook, whatever that hook is going to be, has often revealed itself and it's not what I would have thought of at first blush.

[Mary Robinette] Which I think is a great segue for us to talking about our book of the week. Which is, The Last Watch by J. S. Dewes. I'm going to just… I'm going to give you a word picture of the cover. The cover is a deep black infinite space with words, The Last Watch, Advanced Reader Copy. But there's a spaceship that is in the process of exploding. There's a diagonal stripe of brilliant blue white light. On one half, the ship is exploding, and on the other half, it's perfectly sound. Then, the blurb is, or the tagline is They're Humanity's Last Chance. So, this is the first line of the book, and this is part of… Or the first paragraph of the book. You'll be getting a lot of these this episode, but this is part of why I was like, "Well, I'm going to keep reading this."

“Spread your legs and bend over.”

Cavalon’s face flushed. Actually flushed. Embarrassing Cavalon Mercer was a feat few could boast. He was a little impressed.

He looked over his shoulder to grin at the guard, but the sour-faced man narrowed his eyes and jabbed Cavalon’s hip with his shock baton. A jolt of electricity shot along the nerves of his leg.

“Spread ‘em, soldier.”

[Mary Robinette] So what's fun about this, and part of the reason I was like, "Oh, I'm in," is because of… She's just great with the voice of the character. He's snarky all the way through. She's also good at unexpected turns. Like, that paragraph goes… That opening goes several different places that you aren't expecting it. The entire book is very much like that. It is not a predictable read. I just… It's space opera, it's great fun. It's also heartbreaking and super fast-paced. Like these poor people, I think… Anyone who lives to the end of this and… There's… Spoilers. People die in this book.

[What!]

[Mary Robinette] Anyone who lives to the end of this book has got to be just packed with PTSD. But… They have snarky breaks. I'm getting there.

[Dongwon] I mean, I think that's a great example, because so much of what you want to do in the opening of a book is to really communicate to the reader what kind of roller coaster ride they're getting on. Right? You want to tell them up front this is the kind of book you're going to be reading. So communicating that it's snarky, there's going to be twists, there is a sense of fun, but also there's a real sense of menace and violence, right? That paragraph gets all of those elements across in very little space which is exactly what you need to be doing. We're going to talk about this more in detail later, but, like that first paragraph, that first page needs to be doing so much work. It's going to sound really intimidating as we talk about it, like, "Wait, how do we get all of those things in there," but there are techniques to do this and there are ways to do this. I think the more you think about how do I put more into this opening page without overwhelming the reader, the more successful you're going to be at like setting that hook and pulling people into your story.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. It's so tempting to get right into that, right away, but I know that we're going to be talking about these tools as we get deeper in.

[Dongwon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] So, let's, I think, continue to focus on it from a reader experience. Which is, as you're saying, the things that cause people to toss a novel away.

[Dongwon] Well, one thing I wanted to hit on, and, Mary Robinette, you and Howard are both touching on this, is a thing that I say a lot is, that the beginning is a terrible place to start. Right? Where the story begins for the characters is often incredibly boring for us as readers. Because nothing's happening yet. Right? Where the characters are starting their story, they're entering into the situation, so they're not in a place that's intrinsically interesting. There aren't any stakes for them yet. There's no tension for them there yet. So one thing I like to think about is how do you skip that proverbial 30 pages ahead, how do you skip to the part where the book is really happening now, and then backfill the information that you need that got the characters to that point? Which is, start at the interesting part. Start with the interesting, don't start with the beginning.

[Mary Robinette] By the same token, you can start too quickly. One of the pieces of advice that I got specifically for murder mysteries from Hallie Ephron was that mostly the most common thing that she sees is that people start with the body drop, and that you actually have to take a little bit of time to let people see what normal is like before everything starts going completely sideways. So it is this fine line where it's so tempting to start mise en place, which is… Or mise en scene, which is what this book does, where we are right in the middle of action. But this action that he's right in the middle of sets promises, but it's not the big action that is driving the book itself. It's these breadcrumbs that you want to lay.

[Dongwon] Yeah, the tension in that scene feels like it's a microcosm of what's going to be happening, right? There are stakes in that scene of he's under threat, he's being shocked by the baton, he's under some kind of investigation. But we as readers already feel that this is going to be a small thing inside of the greater space of the story. I think being able to communicate that is one of the ways to be really effective.

[Dan] There's a principle that I talk about a lot, that I refer to as the ice monster prologue, which I stole from the first Game of Thrones book. Not that he calls it that, but that's where I came up with this. Because sometimes I think you're right and I would say most of the time, you need to jump ahead, skip those 30 pages and get to where the story gets good. But a lot of the time, especially if what you're telling is an epic, you want to take a lot of time to establish the character and establish their life and let it breathe before things really get big. So, think about, for example, the opening of Star Wars: A New Hope. Like, if we started with Luke, we would be on a farm in a desert and there would be a good half hour before anything really interesting happened. So instead, they start a little bit before that, and we get a big space battle in the star destroyer and people shooting and droids escaping. It's only about 10 minutes, but it helps us… It establishes that promise early on, like, stick with me. Were about to go to the boring farm stuff, and it's obviously… It's not boring. But just don't worry. This is the kind of story that has space battles in robots and lasers in it. You just have to trust me while we get through this early farmboy sequence.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. James Bond actually does the same thing with the… It's called a cold open.

[Dan] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Where he is wrapping up another mission. Because if you actually start at the beginning of this mission, it's a lot of office building.

[uh-hum. yup.]

[Dongwon] Law & Order is the other great example of you always start with that cold open of… You do have the body drop, but then you can wind back to the detective getting coffee or starting their whatever it is. Prologues are their own huge topic, but I think these are great examples of ways to quickly establish stakes and tone before you get into the characters going about their lives in a very… More gradually warming up to them and warming up to the world.

[Howard] In a… Procedurally, for the writer, I think it's useful to look at musical theater overtures. If you've ever listened to one of those, those overtures will always have elements of some of your favorite pieces in the whole musical, strung together in this sort of medley that then leads into our first scene. That can't be written, that can't be composed until the rest of the musical has been written. That's how hard these first pages may be for you to write.

[Mary Robinette] Metaphorically speaking, the other reason that that's a good example is that the overtures were originally composed literally to get the audience into their seats. They were there to play while the audience was sitting down. So…

[Howard] Oh, wait. Early Apollo era trombone?

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] So I think that that brings us to the end of the episode. Which means that we should give you some homework to prepare for next week. Dongwon, you have that for us, don't you?

[Dongwon] Yeah. So, what I want all of you to do is to go back to the last three books that you read. Sit down and read that first page. Read the first paragraph. Read that first line. Then sit down with a notepad and take notes in a very literal way about what did you find exciting about them. What works for you and what didn't work for you? What works about a first page is very subjective. So I want you to think about why did I decide to keep reading this or what almost made me throw this book in the trash. Right? What almost kicked you out of the experience in that way? I think as you start to be really analytical about that, you'll be able to take some lessons and apply that to your own work.

[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go write.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 15.07: Creating Chapters

From https://writingexcuses.com/2020/02/16/15-07-creating-chapters/

Key Points: How do you make chapters? Feeling! Some people create them, others chop things into chapters. Chapters have a beginning, middle, and an end, like a short story. Chapters have a miniature arc of action. Chapters are like episodes, climbing towards a finale. Chapters interlock, forming a part of a book. Take your outline, which describes scenes, and think about what scenes can be combined into a single chapter, thematically or emotionally. Pay attention to the page turn! The chapter break forces a new beginning. How do you begin and end chapters? Do you do cliffhangers or not? Chapter titles, first lines, first paragraphs may signal what a chapter is going to be about. The beginning of a chapter is like the first line of a book, a place to grab the reader and pull them into reading more. Use cliffhangers sparingly. Try to use cliffhangers with a promise of what you are going to get, rather than just question marks. Pay attention to genre, thrillers need tension. Make your chapters rewarding, but keep your readers wanting more, too.

[Mary Robinette] Season 15, Episode Seven.

[Brandon] This is Writing Excuses, Creating Chapters.

[Victoria] 15 minutes long.

[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're not that smart.

[Brandon] I'm Brandon.

[Victoria] I'm Victoria.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Howard] And I'm Howard.

[Brandon] We are, again, taking questions that we have been given and creating episodes around them. This one is a common question we get asked, which is, how do you make chapters? How do you decide where to break your stories up, and how to divide them up? I get this a lot, like in Q&A sessions that I'll do and things like that. It's always kind of hard to answer, because it's not a thing I studied. It's not a thing I ever looked at in anyone else's books. It's just a thing that I just started doing, and it just felt natural. I talk to a lot of writers, and that's how it goes. Right?

[Victoria] Yeah, it's hard to sit here and think about what are the mechanics or what are the rules. I feel like we're going to be able to talk about a lot of our personal guiding principles, but not necessarily any codified guidelines for something like this.

[Dan] Yeah. Although the good news is, based on what we're saying, listeners, you can take away that, at the very least, this isn't something that matters is much as you think it does. Right? You can kind of fake your way through it until you get a feel for it, and it will turn out better than you expect it to.

[Howard] We had a difficult time naming this episode. I think… I just realized the disconnect for me is that I don't create chapters, I chop things into chapters. I had a thing that is… I have a thing that exists, and I am deciding where the breakpoints are. Rather than saying, "Wow, I need a chapter here." As we prepared for the recording sessions today, we have a craft services table with food for us. I got to unwrap a block of cheese. That block of cheese is probably way less interesting than the novel, but it needed to be cut into chapters, it needed to be cut into pieces so that Howard didn't just walk away with a fistful of cheese. That's the way I think about it. These are…

[Dan] I mean, he still did, but…

[Howard] Well, that's because cranberry wensleydale is crack.

[Brandon] See, it's interesting because I do create chapters. I'm not taking the whole and just chopping it up. When I'm creating an outline, one of the things I'm doing is I'm… I'm just getting it all on there. But when I sit down for the day's work, I say, "All right, what do I need to achieve today? How can I form a chapter out of that? How can I have a rising action, how can I have questions be answered, how can I actually create something that feels like it has a beginning, middle, and an end?" Basically, I'm going to create a short story set in the world that is a continuation of other short stories.

[Howard] So, your chapters take shape after the initial outlines. I don't want to suggest that I do chapters when the final prose is done. Yeah, I'm the same way. In that I outline, but I don't outline to the chapters. They take shape later.

[Victoria] I think I'm in Brandon's camp here in that I don't like thinking about how hard it is to write a book.

[Chuckles]

[Victoria] A book is a very long, very daunting thing. What my plots do is essentially function like a series of escalating episodes. I treat each chapter as a short story, as a short story of kind of interlocking stories. Almost like a season of television than a movie. So when I'm approaching a chapter, whether it's a short chapter for middle grade or a longer chapter for a fantasy, I make sure that I have a miniature arc of action happening within that chapter. I want to fulfill certain promises. I want to not only move my characters from A to B physically and emotionally, but I almost wanted to feel like an exciting little episode that does something in the interest of climbing the steps toward my finale.

[Brandon] Yeah, the great thing about this also is once you learn this with chapters, like… I don't want to imply this isn't important to learn. That's not what I was meaning at the beginning, because I think it is. But it's something you can pick up on your own. The great thing is, once you start to learn it… People ask, "How do you create a thousand page fantasy novel? How do you create…" I've got Stormlight Archive which is two arcs of five in a 10 book series, and each… It gets, like, that is way easier than learning to create chapters, which you do over time, practicing, at least I did. Once I got able to interlock these scenes, basically episodes, I could be like, all right, these 10 episodes make a part of the book. Three of those make an entire novel. Three of those make a super arc through a series. Then you start to do this, and the chapter is where that all begins for me.

[Victoria] I do the same thing, I think. Shades of Magic is broken into something like 10 parts, each part has maybe 5 to 6 chapters in it. Each part is functioning as almost a season arc. The entire book is like a TV show. Each chapter within the arc is like an episode of the season. I know that I want to create a certain pace. But also, I do this from a complete self-preservation standpoint of I would get completely overwhelmed if I couldn't break it down into a substantial… Like substantially a smaller piece. On top of that, I like the satisfaction of a chapter that feels like we go through all of the emotional beats that I want you to. I wanted to feel… I have books where I have had a one-page chapter. I'm not saying you can't do that, to a different effect. But in something like… The longer the format, the more daunting it is, the more I recommend that writers begin to think of them as many, many bricks in a wall.

[Dan] When I started, my chapters were basically just how much can I write in one day. Which is why in Serial Killer, every chapter is about 2500 words. Because that's what I was doing back then. That's still my most successful book, so maybe that's a good way to do it. But, like, by the time I got to Makeover, which was like my 16th published book, I had… I'd become much more of an outliner. So when I create an outline, it's this big massive thing that tells me scene by scene everything that's going to happen. Then I will look at that and go, okay, which of these scenes need to be combined into a single chapter? Which is a little different than what you're talking about, at least narratively. Because there's not a single thread of storyline that goes from the beginning of this chapter to the end, because it will have two or three different scenes and possibly different viewpoints in it. But I try to do that in a way where they're all thematically linked together, or where there is an emotional through-line through it. So we're going to talk about this aspect of the story or the world or the technology or the magic. We're going to see one character deal with it, and then a different character deal with it in a different way. They will inform each other. That will form a chapter.

[Howard] Chapters and prose really are the one place where prose and comics share a structure, and that is the guarantee to page turn. With comics, you're always writing to the page turn. Because there is a visual reveal that is huge when you turn the page. With prose, you never think about that because you don't know where the pagination is going to be yet. With electronic publishing, you know even less. Except for the chapter break. You are… I have yet to read an e-book where I was forced to see the beginning of the next chapter while I could still see the end of the previous chapter. For me, that's huge. Because it means there is this psychological shift tween that thing I just read and not being able to read anything… I'm making the gesture, turning the page with my hands… And now there is all new information all at once. That is… I think that's important to think about, because even if they're just pushing a button to do it, you, the writer, now have a moment of physical puppetry control over the reader. You know they're doing anything. What can you do with words in order to make that more effective? I probably just made it a lot more difficult for everybody, didn't I?

[Dan] No. That's actually brilliant. I've never thought of it in those terms, but I can look back… Even that first one, at Serial Killer, and see places where I did that. Where, hey, you need to be… "I'll see you in the morning." Then the chapter break is, "By the time I got there, they were already dead." You can do tricks like that. That's… Now I'm going to have to think about that and try and do it on purpose.

[Chuckles]

[Brandon] Let's stop for our book of the week.

[Victoria] Yeah. So, the book of the week is Docile by K. M. Sparza. It's a debut novel, coming out in April. It's a really, really fascinating examination of consent under capitalism. It is a slight near future alternate history in which our debt crisis has reached a point in which people are selling themselves into kind of an indentured servitude for a variety of functions. In order to forget this part of their lives when they do choose to sell it… In order to erase their family's debt, they take a drug called Dociline. It's about two young men in the story. One who has decided to sell his family's debt off, and with it, himself, and has decided to refuse Dociline because of what it did to his mother. The other one is the one who buys his contract and is the heir to the Dociline Empire. It is about an examination of consent, of really, really interesting gender and sexuality, a lot of fascinating themes, and also, just a delightful read.

[Brandon] Excellent. Docile by K. M. Sparza.

]Transcriptionist note; Google Books says Content warning: Docile contains forthright depictions and discussions of rape and sexual abuse.]

[Brandon] Coming back to this, let's talk about… One of the other questions asks about how we begin chapters. I want to talk both about beginnings and endings. Because, thinking about it, where I break a chapter is often based on where I began a chapter. Because chapters work very well for me if I have some sort of note I can hit again near the end to signal, hey, we've completed this arc, or a character's looking for something, the character finds something. It's this MICE quotient thing Mary Robinette likes to talk about, I'm using very instinctively in creating chapters. So, how do you begin and end chapters, and then, kind of a question of this, if you want to talk about… Sometimes you want to end a chapter on a cliffhanger, sometimes you don't. What's the difference there?

[Victoria] Um… Go ahead.

[Dan] So, when I wrote Zero G and started my middle grade series, I wanted to give chapter titles. Because that's kind of a very good middle grade thing, I always loved chapter titles when I was a kid. That enabled me to set things up… This chapter is about X. Like, you know that right off the bat because there's a title that tells you. I realized, in the process of doing that, that that's kind of what I had previously been using first lines or first paragraphs to do. As a way of signaling a little more subtly this chapter is going to be about this character trying to do X. Some way of setting up, here's what you're in for, this is my promise, this is my establishing shot.

[Howard] Chapters, for me, are… The first line of a chapter is an opportunity for me to revisit the experience of the first line of the book, because often the first line of the book gets so much attention that, for me, anyway, the pros ins up far more refined. Not purple necessarily, but every word is exactly in place. I try to give that consideration to the beginnings of chapters because I see those as decision points for the reader. The… A lot of times, when I'm reading a book, I will turn the page to a chapter and realize, "Oh. Oh, this character. I'm not all this interested in this point of view." But, if there is some turn of phrase or some something right there at the beginning, to reward me for having turned the page… I'll muscle through it. But I'm a bad reader.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] Don't write for me.

[Victoria] Yeah, because I write my chapters like short stories, I do put the same amount of emphasis into the beginning and end of each chapter as I would the beginning and end of the novel. I also really… I love it, like I come out of a poetry background, I love the challenge of trying to distill, not necessarily a premonition of what that chapter's going to be, but I write multiple perspectives. For me, that opening line of each chapter is a way to instantly ground you in the voice. Because I don't mark it. I don't start the chapter by telling you whose perspective it's in. So I'm relying on the moment of perception. I write it from third person, so it's just a close third. But the moment of perception at the beginning of the chapter can tell you so much about the person that you're following, about the things that they notice, not only what they're going to be going through in kind of a hinting way, but just where their emotions are at, where their mind is that, all those things. Then, yes, like Brandon, I am somebody who because I write them like short stories, and one of my favorite things in short stories is the full circle moment, I love finding a way to echo by the end of the chapter where we are at. Then, every now and then, I try really hard not to overuse the cliffhanger ending because I think it gets tired. I think you have to use it sparingly. I think there's a difference between having enough tension to make you turn the page and having a dum dum dum moment.

[Brandon] Right. I've… We've talked about this before on the podcast. I've… The further I've come in my career, the more I've disliked the cliffhanger that says, "And he went to open the door and…" dum dum dum. I've liked the cliffhanger that says, "And he opened the door and his ex-wife was there." Right? Like, the cliffhanger that promises you something rather what you're going to get rather than promising you a question mark. When you can make those work, I like them. I do like to use chapters occasionally to force the page turn. I think you do have to use those, particularly in epic fantasy, you have to use it wisely. The longer your book, the fewer of these, I think, you can actually use. Which is counterintuitive. But if it's a short book, it's… You feel less guilty making them read it all in one or two sittings. If it's a long book, that will get exhausting.

[Dan] Well, that's what I was going to say, too, is, in addition to book length, consider the book genre. Writing in thrillers, you want every chapter to end on something tense. Maybe a cliffhanger, maybe not, but if you ever get to a point of rest where your reader can say, "Oh, okay, everything's cool. No one's in danger right now, I can go to sleep." You're writing your thriller weirdly.

[Victoria] Yeah. So, I have a big fantasy series that I feel like behaves more in these epic ways, where you have to use them sparingly, where every chapter really functions like an episode. Then, I have a series wherein I wanted to feel like a comic book without pictures. In that case, it is the chop, chop, chop of the turn. It is treating every chapter like a moment. In that case, there is more grouping of chapters into a smaller arc. But it's about… You can use brevity to the same effect that you can use length. You can use any element, like we're obviously talking a lot about the opening line and the ending line, but every aspect of a chapter is the utility that you have, from the voice to the length to the paragraph formatting, everything that you choose to do. To how many scenes you want, whether you want to have scene breaks within the chapter or not. I think it's about setting rules and expectations for your reader. It's really weird if every chapter of your book is like 30 pages long, except for two, unless those two moments are affecting something that is extremely dramatic.

[Howard] Episode five of season two of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, one of my favorite episodes, and it structures for me, it outlines what I kind of feel like a perfect chapter is, because, all of the threads come together in this moment of triumph, and then we get a POV and realize, oh, wait, that wasn't all the threads. Oh, a bad thing happened. End of episode. Page turn. So it's enormously rewarding, and then there's this piece at the end. It's not that it's super short, there's this piece at the end which absolutely draws me further in. Yeah, my philosophy on chapters is that I want every one of them to be rewarding. I want people to be excited that they read that, but I want to leave them wanting more, so that the next chapter is something they'll turn to.

[Victoria] Well, I just want to say, I think rewarding is a key word here, because rewarding is different from dramatic. Right? Like, I think there's a cheat code sense that if you want the chapter to be the most exciting version of itself, for the most rewarding version of itself, you have to end in this like dum dum dum, whether implied dum dum dum or actual dum dum dum. Sometimes, the most rewarding thing that a chapter can do is give you the equivalent of a full meal, and then the promise of something new. I think it's about also… It's about balance. It's about varying it between those things.

[Dan] So, just last week, I read Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett, which is part of the Tiffany Aching series, one of my favorite ones. There was a chapter in there with a funeral. It ends with the funeral. There's no cliffhanger whatsoever. There's absolutely nothing to drive you forward. It is completely final. But. The way that the ending was written was so beautiful. It was this perfect capstone to the dead person's life, to the survivors moving on and still going forward, that I couldn't wait to read the next chapter. Because I'm like, "This is so beautiful. How can I not be reading this?"

[Brandon] Curiously, the Terry Pratchett young adult novels use chapters and his adult novels don't. There's no chapters, they just are scene, scene, scene, no numbers. I've always found that very interesting. Why he chose to do one way or another, I'm sure he answered at some point.

[Brandon] We are out of time for this episode. Although I have some homework for you. I would like you to take something you've written, and try moving the chapter breaks around. See how it feels to you to force yourself to end in the middle of what you thought was a scene. How to add more onto your chapter and end there. I bet you will find that you're doing this pretty naturally, that you're already creating these arcs. But maybe you'll learn something interesting about your writing and be a little more intentional about it. This has been Writing Excuses, you're out of excuses, now go write.

mbarker.livejournal.com

Writing Excuses 7.49: Beginnings Revisited

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2012/12/02/writing-excuses-7-49-beginnings-revisited/

Key points: "In late, out early" tells you the right place to begin. Also, you need to establish tone, setting, and character. Remember that beginnings are where you make promises to the reader. Prologues may work, but they are often overused. Orient the reader, don't disorient them. Your first scene needs motion, conflict, change. Make something happen. Establish a question and spark curiosity. Use something fascinating, interesting, geewhiz to pull the reader in. If it is not this world, quickly establish that it is another world. But remember learning curve. You don't have to try to tell us everything at once, just suggest and promise to come back later.
( The curtain rises... )
[Brandon] All right. Well. We are out of time. Thank you all for listening. Our writing prompt this week is going to be... starting a new story. I want you to do each of these things. I want you to give us character, place. I want you to give us a sense of tone from the first sentence. All right. Do all of it in the first sentence. Character, place, sense of tone.
[Mary] I want you to do it in 13 lines, which is how many lines someone will see on your first page.
[Brandon] All right. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go write.

[Brandon] Hi, all. This is Brandon. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I just wanted to give you a special reminder. Audible has my novella, Legion, up for free in audiobook. So since they're a sponsor of the podcast, I thought I'd give an extra shout out. They actually have, if you go to www.audible.com/sanderson, they have Legion up there. You... there's no trial, there's no strings attached, you just get it for free. So I hope you guys go give it a listen if you haven't already. You can go to audible.com/sanderson to download it and give it a try.

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Writing Excuses Transcripts

March 2026

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mbarker - Writing Excuses 21.11: The Cold Open - Action
mbarker - Writing Excuses 21.08: Setting Expectations
mbarker - Writing Excuses 21.07: Deep Dive -- "With Her Serpent Locks"
mbarker - Writing Excuses 21.06: Begin and the Beginning
mbarker - Writing Excuses 19.51: And That Was That
mbarker - Writing Excuses 19.48: Beginning With A Thrill
mbarker - Writing Excuses 18.44: NaNoWriMo Week 1 - Getting Started
mbarker - Writing Excuses 18.35: Organizing Your Writing, or Managing the Mega-Arc
mbarker - Writing Excuses 16.34: Novels Are Layer Cakes
mbarker - Writing Excuses 16.33: Tell, Don't Show
mbarker - Writing Excuses 16.32: First Page Fundamentals – THE KILLING FLOOR, by Lee Childs
mbarker - Writing Excuses 16.31: First Page Fundamentals – MOBY DICK
mbarker - Writing Excuses 16.30: First Page Fundamentals: The Haunting of Hill House
mbarker - Writing Excuses 16.29: Building Trust
mbarker - Writing Excuses 16.28: Common First-Page Mistakes
mbarker - Writing Excuses 16.27: Nobody Wants to Read a Book
mbarker - Writing Excuses 15.07: Creating Chapters
mbarker.livejournal.com - Writing Excuses 7.49: Beginnings Revisited

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Writing Excuses Transcripts

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Writing Excuses 21.11: The Cold Open - Action

Writing Excuses 21.08: Setting Expectations

Writing Excuses 21.07: Deep Dive -- "With Her Serpent Locks"

Writing Excuses 21.06: Begin and the Beginning

Writing Excuses 19.51: And That Was That

Writing Excuses 19.48: Beginning With A Thrill

Writing Excuses 18.44: NaNoWriMo Week 1 - Getting Started

Writing Excuses 18.35: Organizing Your Writing, or Managing the Mega-Arc

Writing Excuses 16.34: Novels Are Layer Cakes

Writing Excuses 16.33: Tell, Don't Show

Writing Excuses 16.32: First Page Fundamentals – THE KILLING FLOOR, by Lee Childs

Writing Excuses 16.31: First Page Fundamentals – MOBY DICK

Writing Excuses 16.30: First Page Fundamentals: The Haunting of Hill House

Writing Excuses 16.29: Building Trust

Writing Excuses 16.28: Common First-Page Mistakes

Writing Excuses 16.27: Nobody Wants to Read a Book

Writing Excuses 15.07: Creating Chapters

Writing Excuses 7.49: Beginnings Revisited

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