Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 87

The Eighth Element

From Donald Maass, at Writer Unboxed, this: The Eighth Element

As some of you may know, Donald Maass is a very well-known agent. Here’s how this post starts:

As you can imagine, I’ve read a lot of manuscripts.  How many?  Many thousands, certainly.  Generally, they are good, just not ready.  Why not?  There are eight common lacks but the last one is the hardest to pin down.  It’s not so much a craft technique as it is a quality.

The missing quality is one that falls somewhere between insouciance and recklessness.  It has aspects of courage and authority.  … It’s not safe.  It’s not careful. … Not that a novel should offend readers, but neither should it make few ripples in readers’ minds. …

Timeless stories are written with high authority.  It’s authors who don’t apologize or wonder if they are worthy.  They assume that they are and not only that, they have been appointed to tell us who’s who, what’s what, and to do that in their own quirky way and if you don’t like it then go jump in a lake.  It’s as if those authors don’t care a damn who approves their novels but care like hell about the ache and joy of the human condition.

Maass goes on from there. It’s a fiery post — I like it! — and then he offers a bunch of writing prompts and suggestions, of which the last struck me:

Write better than your favorite author and/or better than anyone.  Write that way right now.  Who’s telling you that you can’t?

Writing prompts never work for me — writing advice is normally something I ignore or critique — but you know what, I actually think that’s good advice. I really do. Aim high! Write better than your favorite author! Do it right now!

That’s exactly what I aimed to do when I wrote The City in the Lake. Maybe not better. But I was aiming to write as well as Patricia McKillip, the same kind of story. That was exactly where I aimed. Aim high!

The funny part of this post is what isn’t in it. There are eight common lacks but the last one is the hardest to pin down. Really? Could be, hard to say, because Maass never mentions what the other seven are!

That certainly leads to a sudden urge to guess what he might mean. At least, I have that impulse. Seven elements of craft or art where authors fail? Let me see. Seven. Okay, in no order whatsoever:

Lack of setting up front; “white room” opening.Lack of engagement in the opening; failure of the voice to engage the reader; “boringness.” I mean the prose may be functional, but it goes beyond plain or unadorned to drab.Lack of coherent plot; episodes of disconnected action.A failure to draw out an effective character arc; a failure to give the protagonist or others motivations that seem plausible and strong enough to drive their actions.Sheer lack of sentence-level craft; awkward syntax or using words that don’t mean what you think they mean — like “tenet” instead of “tenant!”Unrealistic dialogue — I mean dialogue that feels unrealistic, of course, as all dialogue is pretty unrealistic. Or boring dialogue. Or clumsy dialogue.Failure to land the ending. An unsatisfying ending is a dire fault.

I have absolutely no idea what Maass had in mind. Maybe he’s listed those out in other posts. In fact, I’m sure he has. Also, these sorts of things mostly take a book out of the “good but not ready” category and drop it into one of the many and various “not good” categories. Still, when I think of points of potential failure, these are some of those points.

None of that interferes with his essential point:

Write better than your favorite author and/or better than anyone.  Write that way right now.  Who’s telling you that you can’t?

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Death’s Lady Prices are low right now

By the way —

Because The Year’s Midnight was picked up for the SFWA bundle, I dropped the prices of the books in the series for the duration of that bundle’s availability. I dropped prices in all venues — this series is wide — and set the prices to come back up on December 15th.

So, if you haven’t ever taken a look at these books, this would be a good time to check out the series.

The bundle did pretty well — that is, I have no idea whatsoever how well bundles usually do, but I was pretty happy to get an extra $400 dropped in my lap. That won’t entirely pay for the Tano cover, but it’ll come pretty close. And of course hopefully many readers will go on eventually to order the other books in the series!

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The clamor of new ideas

It’s interesting how, when you’re (a) mildly stuck on a current WIP, or (b) really not enjoying a current WIP, or (c) revising a current WIP, ideas about totally different stories suddenly start to jump up and down in the front of your mind, clamoring for attention.

Not sure this always happens. In fact, I’m sure it doesn’t: Tuyo was so obsessive that during the entire writing and revision process, it drowned out absolutely everything else. But that’s somewhat unusual. Twice during work on Tasmakat, I’ve hit periods where other stories suddenly moved from the back of my mind to the front. Once was during a mildly stuck period, in which I suddenly started thinking about Silver Circle. Which I really do want and plan to work on in 2023, hopefully for release in 2023, but I certainly did not want to work on it right then. (I did take notes.)

And then yesterday, for no perceptible reason, I suddenly thought, You know, I could write a Tuyo-world story where the main character is a young Lau woman … who finds herself in difficulties … and disguises herself as a young man … and, hey, she could hire a bodyguard! … so that she can travel to Gaur and get Aras to deal with the source of the difficulties!

And there I am, with like 60% of a story suddenly in my head. I mean, would that be a romance? Who knows, maybe, that’s certainly a romance setup. Given that I’m trying to gently (sometimes not so gently) shove every society in a good direction for that particular society, and obviously Lau society could use another nudge toward improved freedom and status for women, maybe this young woman could kick a pebble into motion at the top of a mountain so that the reader, if not she, can see the rumblings of an approaching avalanche?

Anyway, I need to make a note about this in the Possible Story Ideas file so that I don’t forget. I do know some things about the women’s side of Lau culture that so far readers have not been able to glimpse, except in the very most tangential way possible. Eventually I should write a story from a Lau woman’s pov so that readers have a better chance to see that side of Lau society.

By the way, I’ve now got the Tano cover on schedule to be done during the early part of February. So I definitely plan to write the story, at least most of it, over Christmas Break, no matter what else I’m also working on at that time.

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Words You’re Using Wrong

Here’s a post at Writer Unboxed: More Words You’re Probably Using Wrong

Instant reaction: Oh, I am not.

Second reaction: Who do you think you are, anyway?

Of course, my THIRD reaction is: Sure, I’ll click through just to be able to roll my eyes at your list. So, if getting people to click through was the aim, good job, that’s certainly a title that will get people to do that.

Here’s the first entry on the list:

You don’t “feel badly” for someone, unless you’re trying to have a feeling for them and you just can’t swing it; you simply feel bad for them. (Probably because of their substandard grammar, I’m betting.)

Who knew that? I knew that. On the other hand, sometimes a character may say she feels badly for someone because this is a normal, common phrase in conversation. Unless every character is an English teacher or a literature professor or unusually pedantic, they are likely to say, “I feel so badly for her — what a tough situation she’s facing!” I do agree that the author ought to know that “feel badly” is incorrect (unless someone is inferior at feeling), because sometimes a character IS an English teacher, literature professor, or unusually pedantic. In that case, the character ought to say, “I feel bad for her,” except that this sounds awkward even if it’s right, so in fact they’d probably say, “I feel terrible for her,” which sounds fine and sidesteps the whole issue.

Related: “Hey, Bob, how are you?” is frequently answered with “Good, thanks,” and this is also technically incorrect. Does that ever bother any of you? I personally avoid saying Good in this context. I could say “Fine, thanks,” which is correct, but in fact I usually say “Just peachy” or “Adequate,” or some other phrase that is mildly entertaining. I mean, entertaining to me. I may be amused by odd things.

Ah, here’s one:

While we’re on the topic, “any more” referring to quantity should be two words, not one, in usages such as the last sentence. “Anymore” is only for time, despite that for some philistines these usages are supposedly interchangeable.

And of course that immediately reminds me of “all right,” which is, in the same way, TWO WORDS. TWO. Except that in this case there IS NO EXCEPTION FOR TIME OR ANYTHING ELSE. I just loathe “alright,” and I don’t care if that’s a losing battle because this is a hill I’m willing to die on.

I don’t even know why, to be fair. Why this particularly error? Which is practically becoming standard usage? I don’t know, but I detest it. It makes me flinch every. single. time. I see it in print, and because this mistake is so common, that means a lot of flinching in some books.

I may never fully recover from the original publisher of Black Dog changing “all right” to “alright” throughout WITHOUT ASKING ME FIRST. I’m telling you, it was traumatic.

What else? Oh, here’s this one:

Less refers to number; fewer to amount. For that matter, “number” delineates the numeric quantity of something, and “amount” its volume.

Absolutely, and that is why you may hear me murmur “fewer” under my breath when listening to a speaker at any event.

Okay, scanning through the whole thing: I do not use any of these wrong, so there. Of course, that feeling of satisfaction means the post wasn’t a waste of my time, so there’s that.

I feel that for the sake of completeness I should add: my personal struggle with my fingers typing random homonyms continues. In fact, I’m starting to make even worse mistakes, such as typing “type” when I mean “time” or whatever, so that’s ridiculous. I do catch almost all of those instantly, before the back half of the word is on the page, but I do wish whatever part of my brain is responsible for typing correct words would take this sort of thing seriously and cut it out.

You know what else has started to happen? I don’t remember this one in previous eras of my life, but I’m starting to type “has” instead of “had” a nontrivial number of times per book. Like, I don’t know, I think I’ve corrected that particular error maybe half a dozen times in Tasmakat, which I guess would mean something like twice per normal-length book. It’s impossible that this is an actual error, so I think it’s probably another varietiy of the homonym problem. If you’re proofreading for me, I hope you won’t ever see that because I hope I will have caught all those myself. I sure do wince in embarrassment when a proofreader catches something as dire as that, which sometimes does happen. Thank you to all past and future proofreaders for helping me not look totally illiterate!

Despite all the above, I don’t think I will EVER type pique instead of peek or peak, or the other errors showcased by the linked post.

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Buffy as Giles, sort of

Here’s an interesting post at tor.com: Sarah Michelle Gellar Finally Gets to Be the Giles in New Paramount+ Series Wolf Pack

A werewolf show? Yes:

Based on the book series by Edo Van Belkom, Wolf Pack follows a teenage boy and girl whose lives are changed forever when a California wildfire awakens a terrifying supernatural creature and drives it to attack a highway traffic jam beneath the burning hills. Wounded in the chaos, the boy and girl are inexplicably drawn to each other and to two other teenagers who were adopted 16 years earlier by a park ranger after another mysterious wildfire. As the full moon rises, all four teens come together to unravel the secret that connects them — the bite and blood of a werewolf.

I like werewolves who aren’t animalistic killing machines. I wonder what the werewolves here are like? I’ve never read Belkom’s series.

In an interview with Den of Geek, Gellar admitted she could share “very little” about playing Ramsey. “I’m the mystery,” she explained. “I can tell you a lot about each of the other characters, but I’m the one that you’re like, ‘What?’ It just seems like I’m all business, and I have a mission, and I’m on it.”

She did, however, concede when asked if she were more like the Giles of the show. “I’m the Giles,” she agreed. “A little bit different, but yes, and definitely behind the scenes, I’m the Giles.

Sounds interesting! Trailer at the link.

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Update: Nothing to report

Sorry! I had a busy week and weekend in other ways and progress on all fronts was slow.

My pump failed. That was more than a week ago, but last week was when it got fixed. This wasn’t so dire because when the pump first failed, the well guy switched my house over to the other well — my mother’s well — so I only lost water for half a day. Then he pulled eight hundred feet of pipe out of my well and … did stuff … and fixed everything in whatever way things like that get fixed, and put my house back on my well. He thought at first they’d have to drill a whole new well on my side of the road, but no, fortunately. Even though the problem turned out not to be too extreme, I will say, my water was really muddy for a day or two. But it’s almost clear now. I’m going to get drinking water from my mother’s house for another day or so, though.

So that was exciting.

I also had a computer glitch on Sunday. I was too mad about that to sit down and read a book, so this gave me time to start getting caught up on (truly dire) housework, eg dusting, because what the heck else was I going to do? If you have gravel roads and a terrible drought in late summer and fall, the dust, I’m telling you. Now that I’ve started, I guess I’ll dust everything. The biggest issue is dusting hundreds of cookbooks and the various kitchen counters and the enormous kitchen island and then putting everything back. Also I’ve been throwing papers on a pile or two all year and I guess I need to sort those and dust that table.

After this, it should be way better until we hit next summer’s drought.

Also, Sunday was my mother’s birthday — she’s 87 — and she swore she did NOT want a whole big layer cake, so I made cupcakes and iced ONE cupcake and sprinkled it with crystalized orange peel and took her this ONE cupcake, and she laughed. I took her the other cupcakes this morning. Except for the ones I kind of ate in the meantime, of course.

As for the laptop, I just set the dratted thing aside, brought it to the IT people at work today and said I HAVE STUFF TO DO, CHRIS, MAKE IT WORK. He did, so I’m pretty sure that’s fixed. So, that’s good, and the coming week should be better, I hope.

I will just mention that the thing with the well made me remember a time when I looked up how people used to dig wells back before modern equipment. Wow, what an enormous amount of labor that used to entail. That was when I was writing The Mountain of Kept Memory. You know why there’s a river that runs past that mountain? Because I wanted a small homestead there and I didn’t want those people to have to dig a well, that’s why. The story changed and changed again, so that in the end I could have just said There’s a well, let’s move on, but by that time the river already flowed past that homestead and the mountain.

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Well, I guess it’s official

So, I still haven’t actually WRITTEN a shorter-length story from Tano’s pov.

I have thirty pages or so, but that’s it. Plus, I mean, ideas about the middle and a surprisingly clear picture of the end. Surprisingly clear for me, I mean. It’s been typical for the Tuyo-world stories that I’ve had fairly a clear picture of the endings, but that is surprising because usually I don’t until I’m about 2/3 of the way through and then boom! the rest of the story unrolls before me.

Anyway, getting a cover takes long enough that I said to myself this morning, You know what, if I write that, I’m going to want to bring it out before Tasmakat. And you know what I’ll need for that? A cover. So maybe I should order a cover right now, even that will mean committing to writing the story for sure.

So I did. So I have. This time, I expect I will probably have the story written before I get the cover, but (probably, I hope) not a lot before, depending on how fast they get to the cover.

I know when this story starts — immediately after the end of Tarashana. That’s the part I have written. I know how the central action problem gets introduced. I have that part written too.

I know what the central relationship problem is, and so do you, obviously: Tano needs to find a way to feel that he is really a member of inGara. He needs a solid place to stand from which he can move forward into the rest of his life. I’m sure you can all immediately guess some of the characters who will be important: Raga and Arayo. I will probably add another young man to this group. Do you recall how Tano might have specifically wanted one young inTasiyo man to step away from the inTasiyo? That was the one who took his little brother to the inKera. Did you wonder about that? Well, I know something about the backstory there, and the only reason I hesitate is because four is kind of a crowd. But what the heck, I’m sure I can handle it. Pretty sure.

Other important characters: Sinowa inGara, Marag inGara, and definitely Ryo and Aras. They’ll all appear at the beginning or the end or both. The young men are the primary characters and carry the story through the middle.

Two good things about writing this story:

A) It can serve as a precursor to the (probable) (highly probable) series from Tano’s point of view. Craig gave me a great idea for an overarching quest type of plot that would be perfect for Tano and Raga. There is, by the way, a hint about that problem at the end of Tasmakat, and this isn’t an accident. You will all probably recognize it when you see it.

My inclination is to step forward five or so years and start Tano’s series at that point, when he and Raga and the others are all about twenty or so and Tano has definitely found his feet among the inGara. He will still be dealing with various lingering trauma from his past, because obviously he will be. That’ll take a long time, because, again, obviously.

Ryo and Aras would probably appear as secondary characters in Tano’s series, by the way. I mean, they definitely would, unless I change my mind radically about the overall plot, which is unlikely.

Anyway:

B) This story about Tano can also let me show both Sinowa and Marag from a different pov.

Do you remember when you all were tossing ideas at me for a possible short story that wouldn’t contain important spoilers? Those were all good ideas, and Tano’s story offers me a chance to set up a prequel story about Sinowa and Marag. I can start thinking about how they got together, with an eye toward writing that story, possibly (probably) with Baby Ryo appearing at the end of the story. Showing them from Tano’s pov could serve to help me think about how they interact, how they feel about each other, what their backstory might include. It would also potentially set them up as interesting to readers. All of this would be good.

Will I write Tano next, immediately after sending Tasmakat to first readers?

I’m not sure. I need to do fairly significant revision to the various SF novels I’m bringing out next year, but by “fairly significant” I mean weeks, not months. If I did that, it would be done, and THOSE would be ready for first readers and/or proofreading. AND I really should order covers for them too, come to think of it.

But I will probably write Tano before I start serious work on Silver Circle, because it should be short and quick and Silver Circle is likely to be longish and much less quick.

Maybe I can revise everything AND write a complete draft of Tano over Christmas Break. It’s a whole month. I wrote all of Shines Now over Christmas Break last year and that was about 220 pp on top of the 50 pp I started with. Surely Tano wouldn’t be longer than 200 pages?

Meanwhile!

I need to write the last third of the Gen Bio final. I really like (most of) my students, which is tough because it means I would really like some of them to maybe get Bs instead of Cs or, God help them, Ds. So at the very last minute, I am redesigning the final exam. I’m cutting it up into sections that correspond to sections from the class, ten questions per section, and I told the students that if they get eight out of ten questions correct in a given section, I’d reassess the corresponding terrible test grade and adjust that grade upward. Not sure exactly how I would do that. Average the terrible grade with an 80% grade, weighting the average — or even maybe not weighting it? Just replace the terrible test grade with the much better section grade?

I really don’t think the students can get eight or more questions right per section without learning something about the topic. I mean, they sure haven’t so far or I wouldn’t have any reason to contemplate this kind of adjustment. If they learn something about the topic, even at this late date, then they learned it, right? The point of the class is to teach the subject, obviously. I’m willing to boost grades to show that they’ve learned stuff, as long as they give me any reason to think they have learned something.

Not sure how much that will actually help any students in practice. It is intrinsically not that easy to learn a lot of stuff in a hurry, and the final is on the fifteenth. On the other hand, given the possibilities of sharply improved grades, I think some of them will be super motivated to study now. Those are the students whose grades I’d most like to see go up.

I’m not entirely sure whether to totally skip the community ecology chapter or whether to cover that on the last day. The last day could be purely review. But it’s not my job to review everything for the students. It’s their job to review. They can come find me during the early part of finals week if they want to ask me questions or go over something. So … not sure. I have tentatively removed questions about that chapter from the final exam, but I can always put them back. I’ll finalize that powerpoint and load it to the Resources page and then, I guess, decide next Thursday, at the last moment.

By the way, two of my students caught me outside of class yesterday and told me how much they’d liked the class and that it was kind of a new experience for them not to have the instructor hold their hands all the way through. That was a nice bonus to the day, and the semester. I hope they both do find their grades jumping upward after the final.

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Chapter length

Here’s a post at Janet Reid’s website: Chapter length

This is a question-and-answer post, because that’s mostly what Janet does. The basic question: Do agents (implication: and editors) care about chapter length? Answer:

If you’re writing a high octane, page turning thriller, short chapters are a good tool for keeping up the momentum. If you’re writing atmospheric character driven suspense novels, you don’t want people on the edge of their seats, you want them reading more slowly and building dread. So, it all depends on what you’re writing.

I don’t count words in chapters when I’m considering a book for my list. It’s only if I feel whiplashed, or as if I’m inside a pinball machine, that I go back and assess whether the chapters are too short. …

This is place beta readers can be of help. But be careful what you ask. Not “are the chapters too short?” Rather: did you get confused? Did you feel rushed?  Ask how they feel about the book, not what needs to be fixed.

Two good points here:

A) Shorter chapters give increase the feeling that the book is fast-paced, longer chapters make the book feel slower-paced.

B) Don’t ask about chapter length. As about the feel of the book.

I learned the first point from my editor at Random House, because I was switching a book from Adult to YA and she said specifically, “Can you cut the chapter length to about ten pages in order to give the story a faster-paced feel?” Answer: Yes, and gosh, it’s nice to be asked to do something as easy as re-doing the chapter breaks.

Ever since, I’ve tried for chapters of about 20 pages for adult novels and about 10 pages for young adult. I’m not remotely obsessive about this, so ordinarily my chapters range from about 14 to about 26 pages. I mean, I just write along without worrying about this, and eventually I think, Hmm, how long has it been since the last chapter break? Then I back up and check the page number of the last chapter break, scan forward about twenty pages, and start looking for a place to put the next chapter break. Usually I find a place in that range somewhere.

Sometimes, of course, I have a great line that would make a fantastic chapter break, and then I may break there almost, but not quite, regardless of the length of the resulting chapters. But a lot of the time, I just look for a reasonable place to break the story and drop the chapter break into that place.

At the very end, I go through and take a look at how long each chapter is and sometimes move chapter breaks around.

Obviously it’s different if you’re writing a novel with multiple pov protagonists, switching from one character’s pov to another’s over and over. In that case, switching at chapter breaks is the obvious thing to do, and so you’re really asking yourself two questions: How fast a pace do you think you’d like, and how long do you think the reader should stay with one pov before switching? This second question is probably why I feel that twenty pages is about right. I strongly (STRONGLY) prefer to stay with one pov for at least twenty pages before switching. Otherwise, it’s hard for me to get engaged with any of the characters. I hate being jerked from character to character at top speed. That’s an individual preference, of course, but it’s a very strong individual preference, so that’s probably why I prefer chapters of that length. But I do make them shorter if I’m aiming to write a YA novel.

The second point is also good. Generally — not always, but generally — the author doesn’t want specific advice about the nuts and bolts. She wants to know how the novel feels to the reader.

I personally want to know: Does anything feel too slow? Do you ever start skimming, and where? Does anything — any sentence at all — ever seem repetitive? Do you ever feel rushed? Does everything make sense? Did you ever feel confused about what was going on and why? Do the relationships between the characters work for you? Does anything in those relationships — a moment or an element of any kind — feel jarring or wrong? Does anybody act of character? And, of course, the big one: Is the story satisfying? Almost the same thing: Is the ending satisfying?

When just reading for enjoyment, a lot of readers are too forgiving. I know I am. If I expect to like a novel, I’ll just read it, and if I feel that a sentence is confusing, I’ll think, Well, I guess I missed something, I’m sure this is fine. If I’m skimming, I just skim, and if it doesn’t happen very often, I may not even notice. Obviously big things bother me. I’m particularly likely to be peeved if the protagonist does something ridiculously impulsive or bone-headed — that’s not something I’ll miss — but I may very well hit a jarring note and think, Oh, well, I guess it works? This is what I mean by too forgiving. If something feels jarring to you, then it didn’t work, and it’s no good telling yourself — and the author — that it was okay. It wasn’t okay.

What a beta reader ought to do is notice those moments and stick a comment in the margin: Puzzled here. Why is she doing this? Doesn’t seem like something she would do. Or Skimming here — in fact, I skimmed through this whole chapter. Or, and this is very important, The ending feels too abrupt.

That last is particularly important because the ending of a novel is (a) just crucial for reader satisfaction, and (b) often hard to write. We can probably all think of titles where the book was great, but the author didn’t stick the landing. There’s hardly anything else worse. That can retroactively ruin the whole book. I mean, it doesn’t always, but if it’s bad enough, it can. The ending just has to be good, and it can be difficult for the author to know whether it’s as good as it should be.

A beta reader should therefore, ideally, be simultaneously immersed in the book AND consciously aware of her own reactions to sentences, paragraphs, scenes, plot elements, and relationships. I acknowledge that this is tricky. I’m in beta reader mode right now because I’m reading the last of Sherwood Smith’s Norsunder War books, so I was ready to see a comment like “Don’t ask if the chapters are too short — ask if the book feels rushed” and run with it.

I’m really enjoying this one, by the way. Lots of time spent with the points of view of the characters I like best, though some of the other characters I like best have so far been shorted. Ten million characters do make for a complicated story. I certainly do look forward very much to seeing the bad guys finally defeated after all this huge buildup!

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Why Prologues Get a Bad Rap

Prologues get a bad rap because lots of them are awful. That’s why. There’s no need to go beyond that.

However, because I was recently thinking about prologues that don’t work for me, this this post, by someone named Tiffany Yates Martin, at Jane Friedman’s website caught my eye: Why Prologues Get a Bad Rap

So, sure, why does Martin think prologues get a bad rap? Let’s start with that.

The advice in the writerly ether concerning prologues is vast and … well, not varied. Most of it revolves around telling authors simply, “Don’t.”

Yet riffle through a handful of books on the shelf at any bookstore and you’re likely to see at least a few prologues—many of them in bestselling books and classics.

So what gives? Is there a cabal of rogue prologuers defying the injunction? A secret password certain authors get that allows them to break this inviolate commandment?

Good question!

A well-drawn, well-used prologue can set a story up and even become a definitive part of it … But prologues have developed their dangerous reputation because often authors fall into one of several common traps in using them that diminish their effectiveness.

That’s not nearly strong enough. It’s more like: often authors write one of several types of prologues that go way beyond ineffective to absolutely terrible, and these prologues push readers away from their book, sometimes gently, but sometimes with a hard shove.

Martin identifies the backstory infodump, the “exciting” flashback or flashforward, the bait-and-switch, the setting-the-stage prologue, the endless prologue. I think we know pretty well what she means by all that. Oh, this is a good point:

What can make prologues so maddening is that many of these techniques can actually work very well, used proficiently and according to genre expectations … Using a prologue effectively and well means being aware of what makes them work—and what makes them fail. It’s understanding how to make them essential, intrinsic, and give them a powerful hook and forward momentum; as well as how to meet current reader, genre, and market expectations.

I think this is true, in the sense that practically anything can work if it’s done well and almost anything will fail if it’s handled badly. But, all the above misses the sorts of things I was thinking about when I was thinking, UGH PROLOGUES the other day.

Here’s what I was thinking:

a) I do not want to start in the pov of a despicable person. I am not interested in villain points of view and generally skim them even when I encounter them in the middle of a novel. The obvious problem with opening the novel in the bad-guy pov is that the reader has no incentive whatsoever to turn pages. If the reader doesn’t like to be pulled into the point of view of a terrible person, she’ll shut the book right there. It doesn’t matter that Chapter One moves into a different, better pov.

The best — the very best — that you can hope for is that the reader will skim ahead to chapter one and see if the pov there looks better, therefore missing whatever you thought was so important that it needed to be in a prologue. I will personally not be very inclined to skip ahead unless (say) someone here gave the book a glowing recommendation. As a rule, I’ll just assume that if the author thinks starting in a villain pov is an enticing hook, they aren’t writing for me.

Antagonists, by the way, are fine. Many antagonists are not horrible people. I’m fine with opening in their pov. I can’t remember a specific case when that happened, but I wouldn’t be intrinsically repelled by that.

b) Related: I do not want to start in the middle of a truly horrible situation. I don’t care how the pov character got into that horrible situation. I don’t want to follow him through it. I have in mind, of course, the torture scene that begins A Marvellous Light. That wasn’t called a prologue, but it was a prologue. I saw that some of you said yes, this book has a murder mystery structure. That’s undoubtedly why the author felt this was an okay way to start the book. But for me, it’s really difficult to get past that chapter.

For once, it would have probably been better to call that a prologue rather than chapter one. Often advice suggests the opposite. The advantage to calling this sort of scene a prologue is that the reader will expect to switch pov soon, and in this case, honestly, the sooner the better. Also, calling this sort of opening a prologue invites the reader to skip it. Of course, that suggests the question: Is that prologue necessary to the reader? And the answer is, generally, NO. No, the reader does not need to know anything in the prologue. That information will gradually be revealed during the course of the story. So in that case, why put the prologue there at all? But who knows, MAYBE in A Marvellous Light, the information in the torture scene is actually crucial.

I will add, it’s fine to start in a horrible situation IF that scene involves a rapid rescue. That’s an excellent way to open a novel. I’m thinking of Martha Wells’ The Wheel of the Infinite, which isn’t the same, but still, this is the kind of opening that leaped to mind as a great alternative to a torture-and-death-of-the-protagonist scene. Oh, she did something similar in The Cloud Roads, come to think of it. I mean, she didn’t start with Moon chained to a stake and fighting off dangerous animals, but she sure got there in a hurry, and then boom! Stone snatches him out of trouble and there’s the real beginning of the story. Neither of these books has a prologue, of course, I’m just saying that these openings begin with someone in a tough situation and take off with the rescue scene.

Moving on:

c) When the author uses the prologue to establish the cast of characters or anything about the backstory, this of course always threatens to turn into the dreaded history-lesson prologue. This isn’t repulsive in the same way as starting in an awful person’s pov, but it’s boring boring boring, and this is true even if the history of the world is actually fascinating. In her post, Martin declares that all these types of prologues can in theory work. I have my doubts about this history lesson. If I want to read the book, I may grit my teeth through this kind of prologue, but I hate it and I don’t think anybody can make me not hate it.

The closest someone has come may be in one of the later Foreigner books, when CJ Cherryh starts of with … not sure … a long long long letter or written account that relates the important events of the preceding books. This is highly skippable if you are familiar with those events. But it’s not as direly boring as most history lessons, at least not if you love this series.

Come to think of it, Cherryh also opens the entire series with a backstory prologue, which may or may not have been called Chapter One, but is very definitely a prologue. While this was arguably unnecessary, you’d have to actually have an argument about it because it certainly comes close to being necessary. The setup for this series is important and happened a long time ago, and while Bren might sit around drinking tea and thinking about that backstory, maybe the prologue was a better idea. It was certainly more efficient. Also, if you remember (or take a look at that prologue now), you’ll see that it is a self-contained story in itself, not a textbooky history lesson. That’s how to do a backstory prologue.

d) I think this is what Martin meant by an exciting flashback or flashforward prologue, but regardless, I mean the kind where the prologue throws the reader into a battle scene. Martin says that she thinks writers may tend to do this when they think their actual first chapter may be boring. If so, this is not the solution, obviously. It’s almost funny that a battle scene with tons of action and blood can be, usually is, as boring boring boring as a history textbook. But if the reader has no idea what’s going on, who’s involved, what they’re fighting for, what the stakes are, who the good guys are, none of that, then there’s nothing to care about.

I’m not sure any battle scene prologue has ever worked for me. I am sure that these days, I will just close a book if I see this kind of prologue. Maybe that means I’m missing an effective opening of this kind. If so, tough.

e) Mysterious prologues. This is the kind of prologue that I never before specifically noticed until I wrote the post the other day and included the opening of NPCs by Hayes. I said, I dislike prologues where mysterious unnamed people are doing mysterious things for mysterious reasons. I stand by that, and again, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a prologue of this surprisingly common type that actually worked for me.

I want to add, any time an author starts with “A man” or “A girl” or any unnamed character, I do think they should pause and consider whether that’s working. Because the odds are decent that it’s not working. Of course sometimes that can be all right. But the odds are fair that it’s not all right, that if you start with “a girl,” you’re shoving readers away from your book just when you most need to pull them in. Giving the protagonist’s name helps make the protagonist a real person. Saying “A young man” doesn’t. Worse, that may strike the reader as coy or contrived — which it is, generally — and that’s going to make the reader wonder what you, the author, are trying to get away with and whether the technique is working. You don’t want the reader wondering about you as the author. You want them drawn into the story. Therefore, give them a story. That means a real protagonist doing something understandable for understandable reasons, not a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma.

AND, I guess I should finish this post by saying, I’ve written two books with prologues, Winter and Broken Earth. . I don’t intrinsically hate all prologues. I just hate a lot of prologues. I’m fine with prologues that are (a) really brief, (b) really clever, or (c) offer an engaging short story that is related to the real story. I guess I should look around for prologues that I like and do a specific post on those!

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Recent Recommendations

Okay, this took awhile, but I have finally pulled together all of the recommendations you all made in the comments of this recent post here. There were nine, so I threw in one more book that’s up at the top of my TBR pile. I should have thought of it for the other post, but didn’t, so I’m including it here, partly to bring the number up to ten, but partly because I genuinely want to read this one soon. Maybe even this year! Wow, I can’t believe it’s practically December!

So: here are the openings plus comments. Thank you all for your suggestions, lots of these look good! I didn’t specifically aim to put my favorite at the end, but that’s where it wound up. You can read through the set and see if you’d also pick out that one, or whether one of the others happens to hit your buttons.

1. A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske

This has been recommended to me multiple times and I’m certainly interested, so let’s take a look:

Reginald Gatling’s doom found him beneath an oak tree, on the last Sunday of a fast-fading summer.

He sat breathing rapidly and with needle-stabs at each breath, propped against the oak. His legs were unfelt and unmoving like lumps of wax that had somehow been affixed to the rest of him. Resting his hands on the numb bulk of them made him want to vomit, so he clutched weakly at grass instead. The tree’s rough bark found skin through one of the tears in his bloodstained shirt. The tears were his own fault; he hadn’t started to run in time, and so the best route of escape had appeared to be through a tangle of bramble-hedge that edged the lake here in St. James’s Park. The brambles had torn his clothes.

The blood was from what had come after.

Okay, so, wow, not enjoying this opening at all. I may not be as deeply committed now as last year to avoiding everything grim, dark, tense, or edgy, but still, ugh, we are starting in the pov of (a) a guy who’s going to be tortured to death in the next few pages, or if not, then at best (b) a guy who’s in real trouble one way or another. Top Ten List of things I don’t want to read about: someone being tortured. Let me just skim ahead … okay, the entire first chapter is this torture scene. Tell us where it is, Reggie. The only good thing here is that in chapter two, we start over in a new pov, hopefully with a protagonist who isn’t going to be tortured and murdered.

That means chapter one is basically a prologue, even though it’s not called a prologue. I will just comment that if you introduce a pov protagonist and kill him at the end of the first chapter, a lot of readers will be seriously put off – unless you’re writing a murder mystery. This is not something to do lightly.

I’m one of the readers who is very thoroughly put off by this technique (except in a murder mystery, where I’m braced for it.) The sole reason I’d consider going on with this is the glowing recommendation from commenters here. Wait, no, there is another reason: now that I’ve skimmed through chapter one, hopefully I’m done with the torture scenes and everything else will be downhill from that.

Let’s move on.

2) The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley

Most people have trouble recalling their first memory, because they have to stretch for it, like trying to touch their toes; but Joe didn’t. This was because it was a memory formed a week after his forty-third birthday.

He stepped down off the train. That was it, the very first thing he remembered, but the second was something less straightforward. It was the slow, eerie feeling that everything was doing just what it should be, minding its own business, but at the same time, it was all wrong.

It was early in the morning, and cursedly cold. Vapour hissed on the black engine right above him. Because the platform was only a couple of inches above the racks, the double pistons of the wheels were level with his waist. He was so close he could hear the water boiling above the furnace. He stepped well away, feeling tight with the certainty it was about to lurch forward.

Oh, yeah, I like that a lot better. A LOT. I mean, not that it’s a high bar, but still. That is a very clever first paragraph. I mean, the concept there is super clever to start with, and then I like the confidence of the writing. A semicolon in front of “but” – that could be a writer who doesn’t know anything about standard punctuation, but that’s not the feel at all. The feel is, as I say, confident. I appreciate that semicolon. I like the extra little check that gives the rhythm of the sentence. This is like Nicola Griffith opening The Blue Place with a fragment rather than a complete sentence. I remember reading that for the first time and thinking, Oh, yeah, this author knows how to use the language. I get the same feeling here. Oh, on the next page, look at this line:

Because it was only just light outside, the round lamps of the station gave everything a pale glow, and case long, hazy shadows; even the steam had a shadow, a shy devil trying to decide whether to be solid or not.

Joe had no idea what he was doing there.

I love that shy devil! Mind you, I don’t know if I feel like reading this right now. This is probably going to be a book I want to read slowly, savoring the language, and I’m not sure I’m up for that. I may prefer novels I can read easily, so they don’t distract me too much from Tasmakat. Not sure, though. I really like this a lot. I didn’t read the description before I picked up the sample. What’s this novel about? Let’s check now:

…A genre-bending, time-twisting alternative history that asks whether it’s worth changing the past to save the future, even if it costs you everyone you’ve ever loved.

Wow, that’s quite grim. Interesting, but grim.

… The search for M will drive Joe from French-ruled London to rebel-owned Scotland and finally onto the battle ships of a lost empire’s Royal Navy. Swept out to sea with a hardened British sea captain named Kite, who might now more about Joe’s past than he’s willing to let on, Joe will remake history, and himself.

Very intriguing! But, truly, it might be a little much for me right now. Those of you who are into alternate history … Hi, Craig! … if you read this, you should absolutely let me know what you think.

3) NPCs by Drew Hayes

I’m guessing this is about one million times less challenging than the above, but let’s take a look.

Oh, look here, there’s a Mysterious Prologue. This is not a type of prologue I have ranted about in the past, but while we’re here, I will say that, like killing the first pov character introduced, I do think this is something to handle with care, probably by backing away slowly. A prologue where some mysterious unnamed person is doing mysterious things for mysterious reasons doesn’t make me curious. It makes me want to shut the book. I’m certain I’m not alone in that response. A prologue that offers a short, self-contained story will often invite the reader in. If the pov character dies at the end of the short story, that’s much (much) less inviting, but it’s still better than a Mysterious Prologue. This kind of prologue very specifically avoids offering the reader anything to get a grip on, and that is difficult to do well. I don’t want to say impossible because who knows, but I’m skipping ahead to chapter one. Here’s how the story actually starts:

“Your party finally makes it into town sometime past midnight. The streets are vacant, save for the occasional guard making rounds, and the only light seems to be emanating from the local tavern.” Russell took care describing the sleepy hamlet of Maplebark, determined to get all the details just right.

“About freaking time,” Mitch grumbled. “That took forever.”

“I told you, I want to do more realism in our games. That includes dealing with physical travel time,” Russell said, letting out a heavy sigh.

“Whatever; I say we hit the tavern. Boys?” Mitch asked.

Okay, this is a (fairly rare imo) example of a book that works well opening with dialogue. This is actually dialogue that serves to set the scene! Usually opening with this much dialogue implies a white-room opening, which is not great. In this case, that’s not a problem. We all know this scene, right? A handful of friends around a table, probably with dice, certainly with books open, maybe maps, whatever. Could be a kitchen or living room or whatever, doesn’t matter, it’s enough of a scene to go on with.

The description of this book is inviting:

In the town of Maplebark, four NPCs settle in for a night of actively ignoring the adventurers drinking in the tavern when things go quickly and fatally awry. Once the dust settles, these four find themselves faced with an impossible choice: pretend to be adventurers undertaking a task of near-certain death or see their town and loved ones destroyed …

I doubt the actual sentence-level writing is all that and a bag of chips. “Letting out a heavy sigh” is a pretty heavy-handed dialogue tag, for example. On the other hand, it does look like fun. I could definitely see myself picking this one up because I’m in the mood for something that isn’t too serious or demanding.

Let’s see, what’s next …

4) Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The only thing I’ve ever read of Tchaikovsky’s was that novella, Elder Race, which I read because it was a Hugo nominee. I loved it and voted for it and I’m sorry it didn’t win, and also that made me perk up when Elaine T suggested this title. Here’s how this one starts:

There were no windows in the Brin 2 facility – rotation meant that “outside” was always “down,” underfoot, out of mind. The wall screens told a pleasant fiction, a composite view of the world below that ignored their constant spin, showing the planet as hanging stationary-still off in space: the green marble to match the blue marble of home, twenty light years away. Earth had been green, in her day, though her colours had faded since. Perhaps never as green as this beautifully crafted world though, where even the oceans glittered emerald with the phytoplankton maintaining the oxygen balance within its atmosphere. How delicate and many-sided was the task of building a living monument that would remain stable for geological ages to come.

This is the polar opposite of #3 above! This is starting with pure description, no dialogue and also no story. When do we get to story? The story generally starts when we introduce a character. When does that happen? In the second paragraph. Here it is:

It had no officially confirmed name beyond its astronomical designation, although there awas a strong vote for “Simiana” amongst some of the less imaginative crewmembers. Doctor Avrana Kern now looked out upon it and thought only of Kern’s World. Her project, her dream, her planet. The first of many, she decided.

This is the future. This is where mankind takes its next great step. This is where we become gods.

I can’t say I like Doctor Avrana Kern very much right off the bat. She sounds … hmm. Not just ambitious. I have no problem with ambition, depending on how that’s handled. I don’t mind vanity, even, always depending on how it’s handled. Kern sounds self-centered and hubristic. That, I’m not so fond of.

What’s this story about?

The epic story of humanity’s battle for survival on a terraformed world. … All is not right in this new Eden. … New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind’s worst nightmare. Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive.

Kind of grim-ish. If you’ve read it, what did you think?

5) Mistborn by (obviously) Brandon Sanderson

This one also starts with a prologue. This time the prologue is a story in itself. Wait, reading ahead a bit, it’s more like two stories. The first pov character is a seriously unpleasant slave master, and what is it with these prologues today? Opening in the pov of a horrible person is the opposite of inviting! A torture scene, a mysterious unnamed person who is mysterious, and now a slave master! Ugh. No wonder everyone hates prologues. Probably the only kind of bad prologue left is the History Lesson prologue, and maybe we’ll get one of those somewhere among the rest of these openings.

I will add, this prologue shifts pov to a man of the slave race or caste or whatever. That’s much better. But the prologue goes on and on, so I’ll treat it as chapter one.

Ash fell from the sky.

Lord Tresting frowned, glancing up at the ruddy midday sun as his servants scuttled forward, opening a parasol over Tresting and his distinguished guest. Ashfalls weren’t that uncommon in the Final Empire, but Treting had hoped to avoid getting soot stains on his fine new suit coat and red vest, which had just arrived via canal boat from Luthadel itself. Fortunately, there wasn’t much wind; the parasol would likely be effective.

We’re in this guy’s pov for several pages. He is not a nice person. The world is not a great world, at least not if you’re a slave. The prologue is mostly building the world. Nothing about this opening particularly draws me in. The first pov actively pushes me away, but the second is okay. I guess eventually I’ll skim forward and read part of chapter one and see whether I want to go on from there.

6) Ghostlight by Rabia Gale

This is the one recommended here, but with a warning that the third book ends on a cliffhanger. That’s certainly good to know. I don’t mind trying the first book if it stands along pretty well, but I’m not keen on reading all three books if the third ends on a cliffhanger.

Let’s see how this book starts …

Trevelya Sheld knew Arabella Trent was trouble the moment he laid eyes on her that spring morning.

He was a trifle foxed, staggering home from the Plush Purple Peacock through streets filled with a pale golden haze. A happy fog occupied most, but not all, of his head. He could never quite turn off the watchful part that was currently keeping him from embracing a sreet lamp and attempting to waltz with it. Trey couldn’t quite understand why, but he was sure he’d be grateful for it later.

In the meantime, he had to navigate the early morning rush, a task that was more than usually difficult today.

Carts laden with milk and eggs trundled past him, pulled by dray horses who showed their pegasus heritage in vestigial wings and feathered hoofs. …

I was kind of thinking, Well, whatever. Drunk guys don’t appeal to me, as a rule, so I was rolling my eyes a bit. Then I got to the vestigial pegasus wings and boom! I was instantly charmed. Definitely going to turn the page here. This is the kind of detail where I’m also jealous. Why didn’t *I* ever think of giving horses vestigial pegasus wings? What a missed opportunity!

7) Dark Wizard by Jeffe Kennedy

Gabriel Phel crested the last ridge of the notorious Knifeblade Mountains that guarded Elal lands on nearly three sides and faced the final barrier. The path through the mountains had been narrow, crooked, with blind endings and unexpected pitfalls.

Not unlike his life, Gabriel thought with grimly sardonic humor.

He halted his gelding, Vale, several lengths short of the border, sensing the repulsion spell that prevented the uninvited from crossing. It was a highly refined enchantment – he’d expect nothing less of the powerful Elal wizards – one that barred only humans, but allowed animals and weather to cross freely. Gabriel dismounted so he and Vale could both rest a moment before the last leg of the journey, while the Elal border guardians confirmed his identity. Lord Elal was famously insular and fanatical about guarding what was his. And, as the most powerful wizard in the Convocation, Lord Elal had a great deal to call his.

Not great, but not bad. Right now this looks like a perfectly standard fantasy novel. There is nothing wrong with that, of course, if it’s well done. Hmm. Okay, this is a fantasy romance, I think. From the description:

If [Gabriel] can obtain a familiar to amplify his magic, a highborn daughter he can marry … he’ll be that much closer to saving his family. With her by his side, he can ascend to such a position of power in the Convocation that he can destroy it forever.

Lady Veronica Elal, captive in her tower, has only one way out. To her bitter disappointment, she will never be a wizard. Instead … Nic is doomed to be a familiar like her mother.

If you click through and read the whole description, I think you’ll see that it’s not terribly well written. He wants to destroy the Convocation? Okay, well, that kind of comes out of nowhere, since the first part of the description strongly implies he wants to elevate his family’s position within the Convocation. The marriage-of-convenience is a romance trope I like, but this isn’t quite that: it looks like the marriage is entirely involuntary on Veronica’s part. Still, I suspect, from reading the full description, that they become allies pretty quickly. I’ll turn the page.

8) Ascending by Meg Pechenick

Phoebe Oliver said, “Divided by Stars.” God, I used to love that show. What was the opening line again? ‘The Vardeshi have a saying …’”

I said, “ ‘A story has a thousand beginnings, but only one ending.’ “

Phoebe slapped the glass patio table. “That’s it. I knew it had something to do with beginnings.”

“What was his name – the blond one?” Aria Lewiston asked. “Sirrus? So hot.”

“Sirran.” Phoebe corrected her.

Reflexively I glanced at Tenley Fuller, who could be counted upon to skewer any hint of fangirl ardor with withering contempt. She didn’t seem to be listening. She was looking at her phone. Her drink, I saw, was virtually untouched.

“They probably don’t even say that,” Aria said.

Surprised, I said, “No, they do.”

Dr. Sawyer paused in the act of topping off my drink to fix me with an intent look. Suddenly self-conscious, I went on, “I thought everyone knew that. It’s in the first contact footage.”

This is an interesting, unusual opening. It’s both a crowd scene AND very dialogue-heavy. Very difficult to pull off well. I’m impressed, because it’s working for me. The suggestions we’re given about the nameless narrator, about who she might be and what she might be like, are intriguing.

I would certainly turn the page, and if this winds up being a book that draws me in fast, I’ll have to make a note of it as an example of a dialogue-heavy opening that does its job. Also, I know the narrator is a linguist and I like that.

9) This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

I had forgotten about this one, but I happened to remember that I’ve been wanting to read it. This isn’t the first time I’ve looked at the opening, which I like a lot. Let me look at it again:

When Red wins, she stands alone.

Blood slicks her hair. She breathes out steam in the last night of this dying world.

That was fun, she thinks, but the thought sours in the framing. It was clean, at least. Climb up time’s threads into the past and make sure no one survives this battle to muddle the futures her Agency’s arranged – the futures in which her Agency rules, in which Red herself is possible. She’s come to knot this strand of history and sear it until it melts.

Grim, of course, but nevertheless. The writing is beautiful, the reviews are stellar, I believe a lot of you here have said that you loved this book, and I am moving it up to the top of the TBR pile.

10) When the King Comes Home by Caroline Stevermer

Okay, of course Stevemer was one of the two authors who wrote Sorcery and Cecilia, so that’s a good sign right there. And I did like College of Magics. Let’s see how this one starts …

I was born on the coldest day of the year. When the midwife handed me to my father, he said, “Hail the newcomer! Hardy the traveler who ventures forth on such a day.”

After four sons, my family was pleased to have a daughter at last. My father persuaded my mother that I should be named Hail, to commemorate the welcome I’d been given. My name is a greeting, dignified and sober, not a form of bad weather.

My family is in the wool trade and are as hardworking as they are prosperous. My earliest memory is of chasing my brothers through the wool market, a maze of bundles and bales, a mob of people haggling. …

I’m stopping right there. The opening paragraphs are so delightful that there’s no need to describe the bales of wool or the town; I’m already sold. This one shot right up to the top for me in, what, six sentences.

This looks fun, it’s obviously well-written, I don’t think it looks too challenging, and also nobody is getting tortured to death or planning to oppress his slaves in the opening scene, so that’s certainly a plus. This is just a very appealing opening in every way. First person can be harder for me to like than third, but not this time. For me personally right now, this is the one that bounces right to the tippy-top, and thank you to Kristi for recommending it.

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