Empty Space: Some thoughts on openings in novels
I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.
(Peter Brook)
Everything you need to know about openings is present in this quote by theater director Peter Brook. The essence of storytelling lives in this moment: one (metaphorically or perhaps literally) walks, another watches. This happens every time we open a book and start reading.
The director and actor make choices just as the writer does. How does the man walk? Is he triumphant? Frightened? Weary? In love? How is in-love-ness conveyed? Why? And why have you made that choice and not another one?
Openings are part of the overall plot arc, the overall narrative. The opening carries within it the ending, it can foreshadow, reflect, parallel, hint at, paint the mood of, contrast with, or lay the groundwork for the ending.
I'm not a believer in the One True Path. I am not going to tell you there are hard and fast rules that govern openings. If you can make it work, then it's working, whether it is the rule or the exception. But I do have thoughts on the issue of openings in fiction.
Here are three things I consider when I am searching for the right place to begin.
Mirrored from I Make Up Worlds.
