The opening of your novel is a promise
A post by Donald Maass at Writer Unboxed: Promise Words
A fairly common topic when thinking about writing! But it’s true, the opening of your novel always constitutes a promise to your readers. What does Donald Maass — I’m sure many of you know he’s a famous agent and also an author himself — what does he have to say about this?
Have you ever read a few lines of a novel and put it straight back onto the bookstore shelf? It’s not your thing. But wait…how do you know? You could be wrong. Nevertheless, there are certain words on that opening page that send signals that light you up, turn you off or, if nothing else, cause you to judge a tale’s nature and relative appeal. Certain words tell you what to expect. Those words are what I call a novel’s promise words.
Maass does exactly what I would do: looks at actual novels rather than offering advice out of context.
Here’s a list of promise words from one opening: Grief…solitary…islands…graves…alone…avoid…waving from a distance…hurrying away…ghosts exist…the ghost of myself…
What kind of story do you expect, Maass asks.
What kind of novel do you think that is going to be? A rom-com? Hardly. A ghost story? A sad story? A memory piece? What kind of protagonist will we meet? The life of the party? Um, no. The words suggest it will be a main character who is grieving, solitary, alone. … Do you agree? The impression that you’ve already formed sets your expectations for the novel. You know what kind of experience you’re in for. It’s either an experience that you want for your weekend reading or one that you’re going to return to the bookstore shelf. All on the basis of a few words.
Three more examples at the linked post. Each time, Maass gives the “promise words” and then, later, provides the full opening. This is a good, clever way to illustrate his point! Great idea, good post, definitely click through if you’re interested in this topic. Here’s the full opening of the one above:
The first list of promise words is from Greg Iles’s Mississippi Blood (2017), the third of his Natchez Burning trilogy, concerning the (now) mayor of Natchez, Penn Cage, who has a family in peril, a father on trial, and a dark history with a violent splinter group of the KKK called the Double Eagles. Here’s the full opening:
Grief is the most solitary emotion; it makes islands of us all.
I’ve spent a lot of time visiting graves over the past few weeks. Sometimes with Annie, but mostly alone. The people who see me there give me a wide berth. I’m not sure why. For thirty miles around, almost everyone knows me, Penn Cage, the mayor of Natchez, Mississippi. When they avoid me—waving from a distance, if at all, then hurrying on their way—I sometimes wonder if I have taken on the mantle of death. Jewel Washington, the county coroner and a true friend, pulled me aside in City Hall last week and told me I look like living proof that ghosts exist. Maybe they do. Since Caitlin died, I have felt nothing more than the ghost of myself.
Perhaps that’s why I spend so much time visiting graves.
I agree that the words Maass pulled out constitute an accurate hint about the opening and about what kind of story this is likely to be.
Peril. Tragedy. Enchantment. Delight. Most of the openings I’ve cited could have been written plainly. Just the plot, ma’am. But they’re not written that way. The words are carefully, or at least intuitively, chosen to create a specific effect: promise. I’m going to tell you a story. It’s about death. Or life. You will feel fear. Or hope. Or both.
Promise words aren’t a hook, a story question, narrative voice, not exactly, nor any other thing that might be present on a first page. Promise words are an invocation. They fix our minds and hearts for a story, the specific story that will follow. They create in us expectation. We’re living the story already. It’s writing itself in our imaginations. The story, even now, is becoming ours.
Good post!
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