Enough about me

I know it’s been all book launches and Objects in Mirror and rah! rah! rah! around here. And with good reason because, you know, if you take all that time to write a book, and kill yourself to get it published, you’d be a fool not to promote it.

And, I promise you, there will be more book / book launch stuff. But for now - for this post – we are going to get back to thoughts on writing.

So, a few weeks ago, I discussed backstory and then promised to later talk about starting in the right place, as a related topic. I then got distracted and I can only imagine how many people have been sitting, waiting desperately to find out what I have to say about starting in the right place.

Well, it’s pretty simple. Lots of times, the place you start isn’t really the proper beginning of your story.

It seems writers can be like swimmers getting into a pool they suspect isn’t that warm. Often we want to ease. So, instead of starting with something relevant to the story actually happening, we talk about the story, or we talk about the characters or we talk about the thing that’s about to happen.

This is why some writing experts will tell you, no matter what, go back and chop your first chapter. “I promise, it will only make your story stronger,” they say.

I’m sure many of you cringe at this thought. Especially because, chances are, you have revised and agonized and wordsmithed that first chapter more than any other piece of writing in your work.

So, I’m not necessarily of this exact school of thought. I don’t think we should all, willy-nilly just chop our first chapters and move on.

But I do suggest you consider it.

I believe asking yourself whether each scene / chapter / portion of your book earns its place is a very valuable exercise, and I believe the first chapter is a notorious weak spot. Not only the first chapter either. Also the first sentence in a paragraph or the first part of a sentence. Just today, I re-read a paragraph I had just written and realized the first half of the first sentence – up to the comma – could go without changing the meaning, or leaving the reader confused. If that’s true, it really hasn’t earned its place in your writing and you’re not starting in the right place.

In my last post, I said backstory and starting in the right place are connected. How? Well, I think if you find yourself using quite a bit of backstory, it might be because you haven’t started your story in the right place.

EXAMPLE TIME. Over the last year I’ve read two books by quite a successful writer. The first one was, well, the first one. The second one was a continuation of the story of the first, starting 13(ish) years later. I didn’t enjoy the second book nearly as much as the first and I think one of the reasons is, it was almost entirely backstory. OK, more italics here – I think the writer started her second story in the wrong place.

My impression was that originally, to make the story work a certain way, she wanted the characters to be at the ages they were 13 years later. So – boom – she started the book 13 years on. But then – big problem – there was all this stuff that had happened in between that she wanted to tell us about. So it was back we go, delving into the past, having things explained, over and over again. She even told stuff that had happened before the first of these two books was written. It was almost like she hadn’t thought of it when she was writing the first book but, hey, adding this stuff explained a lot about the characters and their motivations so why not throw it in now – I mean, since we’re traveling into the past and all…

I would say only about one-third of the book took place in the actual time it was meant to be set in – with the rest happening many, many years before – and, for this book, that just didn’t work.

Like all “rules”, there are times when this might work. There are famous books where almost the entire story is, technically, “backstory”, but those have to be written the right way to still provide immediacy to the reader.

In this case, there was no immediacy during the flashbacks. And so, my argument is, the writer should have thought about which part of these characters’ lives she wanted us to know about, and we should have been able to go along with them on their journey. She could have taken us through the ages with them. Pulled us forward to that magic age where she wanted to make this major incident happen.

Think hard about where you want to start – where you want to bring your reader into your story – and start there.

I’m getting better at this mostly thanks to Kathy Stinson who, when editing OIM, would send me back notes saying “I’m not sure why we’re in past tense here.” Then I’d look at the passage in question and think “I’m not sure either.” And then I’d have to figure out – was this information needed? If so, should I start somewhere different – like at the beginning – and let the reader come through it with me? The answer was almost always “yes”.

In many ways, this is a gift I’m giving you. Because, really, this is a simpler way to write. It’s more straightforward. You have to perform fewer linguistic gymnastics. And, for the most part, I believe the reader will like it better too.

So, there, my writing present to you!