Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion
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Why are writers, and readers, in such a rush?
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As a reader, personally, I don't mind a slow build with an established author. It's harder to take from a newb. Before I buy a book I read the preview from amazons look inside feature. If its well written but slow I may pass. Life is short and I only have so much free time. I want to be entertained now. Too much tv maybe. With a new author it's hard to trust that you're in capable hands and there is no guarantee of quality (especially in the indie circuit). Great premise, but it could easily fall flat. If the author hasn't disappointed me before ill take the chance.
Not sure how you equate writing well with a formula. It's the writing which tries to succeed by sticking to a supposed formula for success that I have trouble with.
In a world with a million choices, as a writer, you have to do something to get a reader to open the door to your world. Both approaches work for me as a reader. If I am intrigued by the book blurb I'll let the author set the pace in hopes of a good pay off further on.I agree, in the end, it's the writing, the flow of the story that pulls me along, whether fast or slow and gets me to finish the book. But it could be the best idea in the world but if the writing is overblown, words used incorrectly, the plot wanders.....then the writing has failed and the book is closed and I move on to something else.
I think I have to agree with Gabriel, the book doesn't need to have intense seat gripping, teeth chattering action in the very beginning, as long as it is written well and everything comes together in the end it's a good piece of writing. For example, Stephen King slowly builds suspense until the right moment. The Shining starts out really slow as we are introduced to the characters and what makes them tick. As the story continues many things become apparent, one of which is that we need the slow introduction to set the basis for the characters so what happens to them makes more sense.
I never paid attention to that until recently. When I read a book, I read it for the synopsis, not for the first sentence. Yet the famous "Start with a punch to catch the reader's attention" trend tends to push it in that direction. Personally, if I can't feel anything for the characters, I don't care what happens to them, so it may catch my attention, but will it keep it? The protagonists might be fighting for their lives, but in the end, the catchy way to start might be lost on me because it sums up to one thing: I don't know the characters YET. I can't react to it the same way as if I would already root for them.
That doesn't mean I won't like the book. It just means as others have stated that it will depend on the author's writing skill.
I have put many a book aside because it did not "grab" me. I have been patient through many pages, waiting for the story to materialize, but there was instead page after page of reflection, of philosophy, of character "development" -- and YES, it was BORING.Sorry.
Linda wrote: "Gabriel wrote: "Not sure how you equate writing well with a formula. It's the writing which tries to succeed by sticking to a supposed formula for success that I have trouble with."Because you're..."
Linda, I agree with you that not all books need to begin the same way. My point is that writers don't always have to be afraid of taking the time to let their story develop. For too many newbies, a category of writers which includes myself, there is a fear that readers demand instant gratification or else they will turn their attention away, and this is reflected in their writing style. I realize that readers will often be less patient with of a writer who hasn't yet developed a reputation. That's why my plea for patience was aimed at both writers and readers. This isn't an attempt to shoehorn all books into a single style that I approve of; it is simply a reminder that there is more to a good book than the first few pages, and writers and readers shouldn't become obsessed with their "hooks".
Pressure comes down from publishers and editors to "grab the reader" with the first sentence. Nearly every piece of "how to sell your book" advice comes down to the same thing, and it is, you have to wow the (sometimes jaded) publisher with something right away or they won't publish you. One publisher said that she reads until she finds a sentence she doesn't like. If she makes it past 50 sentences, then she reads for content. But they are looking for a reason not to buy your book, and that desire is changing what's fashionable in writing. An article I read a few days ago was offering the advice that no one wants to know what your character is thinking. They want to know what the character is doing. Then it went on to say Madame Bovary probably wouldn't be published today. That's strictly a function of fashion, not of "what's good" and "what's bad," but the net result is that a lot of good writing is being tweaked to fit the contemporary marketplace.
While that marketplace is still largely owned by big publishers, you will see a lot of hardsell beginnings.
Re the traditional publishers' belief that no one is interested in a character's thoughts- When you make general statements like that, you are always wrong. Many readers aren't interested in the thoughts of characters and would prefer to see nothing but action, but there are many others who don't want to read that sort of book. I am one reader who stops reading if I notice that the characters don't think. Characters who don't reflect on what is happening in their lives have no dimension. They are flat and uninteresting to me. I doubt that I'm the only reader who thinks so.
This topic relates to something I've been thinking about lately: highly successful self-published authors, like Hugh Howey.First, my comment on all of this is that I believe it to be a matter of balance in accordance with your subject matter. Of course your story has to "grab" the reader, in fact that's something we've all been taught again and again in elementary, middle, high school & college. That said I think a lot of people misinterpret this to mean action is needed to "grab". When really it might be action, character development or drama.
I agree with others that it's easier to hang on with an established writer you've read before than with an author who's new to you. For me this writer is Nevada Barr with her Anna Pigeon series. This summer I read a new one (I haven't read one in years) and I felt like I was dragging through at least the first quarter of the book but I knew that she was setting the story up and I knew her climax and final conclusion would not disappoint. It just so happened I thought this particular book drug on a bit more than I would have enjoyed.
Where as I am currently reading a novel that I thought sounded promising in the synopsis (point one for author). For me if the writing is good from the beginning I'll be patient for at least the first chapter or two waiting for bits of scraps, snacks to follow through the woods like a dog on the trail of something interesting. If the writing is bad right from the start I will put it down and consider trying to read it again when I feel more patient. This current novel is painstaking for me; I've technically been reading it for months and have to force feed myself doses of it because the story itself fails to deliver interest beyond the very well developed characters and overall heartfelt glimpse into the lives of people who are very different, including people with autism. In fact, my review of it will say that it would have been better off in a much shorter version. The author, I think, develops her characters pretty well but so much so it feels tedious like I'm wandering around in the woods. I read on because I typically don't give up but it's hard to spend so much time when I have no idea when or even if this story will pick up or climax. I'm 70+% through and still wishing these well developed characters were more 3-dimensional in movement.
Thus my emphasis on balance. Of course you have to develop your characters, this gives your action/drama more depth, more feeling, and more opportunity for readers to psychologically be involved. At the same time "movement" in the story is essential to our being able to "experience" the depth of the characters and see them in motion in their lives to imagine the possibility of their reality.
The reason I brought up Hugh Howey to start is this. I'm a recently self-published poet - "That Which Lives Within" - but outside of writing more poetry I've been doing some work on a number of different fiction stories. Why not? Not to say I'm going to publish any or all of them but I want to try my imagination out, express my creativity through multiple channels. Writing fiction definitely takes a great deal of commitment and focus and I'm always having to think passed what's interesting to me, what I think is super cool, and ask myself "But how do I convey this to my reader?" & "Why is this really interesting?" "What makes the story stand out and hold its own?
Since getting into fiction writing I've started reading novels more than I have in a long time in order to study my craft so to speak. It teaches me, I learn from what I like and don'tlike about how the characters are created, displayed and how the story itself moves, after all there's more to a story than the character, more than the action. It has to be a cohesive whole.
I've read the first two parts in Hugh Howey's story "Wool", well I read that omnibus then the second "Shift" and I'm 60+% through the final one "Dust". First of all, the synopsis drew me in. Second, he writes well. And lastly, the story is interesting PERIOD, very interesting.
This makes me think about everyone talking about lucky self-published authors, the rare handful who make it big. Everyone talks about this like it is a lottery when in truth the lottery I think is in traditional publishing. Will you happen to find the right agent who likes your work and happens to send it to the right editor, publisher? Will you happen to get picked off the lot before you decide to give up once and for all? With self-publishing you take this part of the gambling out, instead we gamble with readers.
Hopefully lots of people like my book, talk about it, write reviews, pass it on, etc. It's up to us to put the work in to get it in their hands! But enough of that, my point is that these people who "appear" to be the lucky few aren't so much lucky as they wrote interesting stories. They captured people's attention and wouldn't let go. People loved the stories in their entirety they couldn't help but share their excitement and then this happens for each and every reader that picks the book up. Look at 50 Shades of Grey - not my kind of book - which I heard multiple times was poorly written but people devoured the story.
All in all I think your action is only as important as your character is only as important as your drama, as your character, as your action and all of these are dependent upon, are only as important as
YOUR STORY.
You don't make money writing by getting lucky, you make money writing by writing an interesting story/content and getting it into the hands of the people who agree. If I make loads off my work I wouldn't have gotten lucky, I will have written well and delivered my writing to the homes where they belong.
Thanks.
eLPy
author of "That Which Lives Within"
www.littlefacepublications@live.com
Whatever you may think of the rules, there is but one 'rule' which goes for all books, fiction or non-fiction: 'Engage the reader'. All other rules are mere opinions.Personally [warning: opinion], I think backstory should be dealt out in small increments, preferably by hinting and leaving the detailing to the imagination of the reader.
I recently one-starred a thriller where at the beginning of the book the 'Human Resources Folder' is used to provide background for the protagonist. Still there are many readers who are not bothered by blatant exposition and lazy writing.
As to the quoted novels:
Casino Royale starts out with James Bond getting up from a gambling table.
Live and Let Die starts with Bond arriving by airplane and musing about the dreary procedures of getting through customs.
Neither are action-packed, but the 'voice' is what makes the beginnings interesting.
If you read the beginning of Peccadillo: A Katla Novel, I start with an accountant driving to work while growing irritated at tourists who step in front of his car to take pictures of Amsterdam gable houses, but you get a feel for his character when something unexpected happens.
All that matters to engage readers is to hint that something interesting is about to happen. If you manage that, readers will remain engaged.
Jen wrote: "As a reader, personally, I don't mind a slow build with an established author. It's harder to take from a newb. Before I buy a book I read the preview from amazons look inside feature. If its well ..."Jen, I think you hit it exactly. An established author, with an established following, may have the luxury of time to get into the action. As I reader, I'll stick with Ian McEwan for more pages because I KNOW he can write. With a new author, too much telling up front often feels like I'm reading backstory of a draft that isn't quite ready.
You have to also keep in mind your target audience. It is idle to hope that 6-year-olds will sit still for a chapter's worth of scene setting and back story, but you have more leeway with your adult readers; the pacing demands of the genres (mystery and SF especially) are very different from those of high-brow lit-fic.
The question I ask is how long should a reader wait for the action. I was reading a book by a best selling author whom I like and in this latest book I reached page 200 and all I got was set up and threats. I got no action. I was bored and put the book down.
Funny thing about this was people had told me this was not the author's best book, but since i liked the author i tried it anyway and was disappointed.
Richard Brawer
www.silklegacy.com
Funny thing about this was people had told me this was not the author's best book, but since i liked the author i tried it anyway and was disappointed.
Richard Brawer
www.silklegacy.com
It depends a bit on the book and the style of writing I think. As long as there's a good hook at the beginning, it seems to me that if a novel doesn't build to something big by about 20%-25% of the way in, you might not carry on with it. That's my experience anyway.
Linda wrote: "Richard wrote: "The question I ask is how long should a reader wait for the action...."As long as she wants.
Seriously, every reader of every book is going to be different. Even the same read..."
Exactly, Linda. There is absolutely no way to predict how someone will react to your book. Write what you want to write, how you want to write it.
Linda wrote: "Richard wrote: "The question I ask is how long should a reader wait for the action...."As long as she wants.
Seriously, every reader of every book is going to be different. Even the same read..."
So write the story you came to write. Some folks will give it five stars for the richness and depth of the world, and some will give it one star for being tl;dr. Can't please everyone, and any attempt to do so will result in disaster for your story.
If you're really lucky, you'll get someone who hates your book so much she puts it on her "not if you poked my eye out" shelf with Mein Kampf without even reading either one. :-P
I don't think it is simply a question of action. I think it is about creating interest in the first few pages or even the first line. "It was the best of times - it was the worst of times" creates the question "what does that mean?" I believe it is also a matter of genre. A zombie story needs to get to the zombies, a murder mystery needs to open with the crime, but a romance can begin with the character and her conflict.. Write the entire book and then come back to those critical first few pages and revise.
You don't make money writing by getting lucky, you make money writing by writing an interesting story/content and getting it into the hands of the people who agree. If I make loads off my work I wouldn't have gotten lucky, I will have written well and delivered my writing to the homes where they belong.I agree AND disagree. You make money by writing an interesting story/content BUT you still need to be lucky for it to land in the right hands. We all know that the best marketing is 'word of mouth', but they'll need to read it first, and sometimes, that in itself needs some kind of luck.
Action is the simplest and most dramatic means of grabbing attention. It's going to be the favorite hook, especially of newer writers who are still mastering the skills.You don't absolutely need it. You can, for instance, open like Robin McKinley's Beauty, with a narrator's voice so engaging that you just want to read her talking on. But that, and other hook techniques, require more skill.
Remember the old adage: competent writing requires that you read all the way to the end to determine if it was good; poor writing only takes one page to decide if it should be tossed aside immediately. To me, debate about action or character is a moot matter of mere technique--the writing can still be bad in either case, and you can still identify that fairly swiftly. Specific technique won't save a bad book. Its bad in other ways the author usually doesn't even recognize in the first place. How can you explain to an author that a book about demons romancing teenage girls--is flat-out bad--simply on its face?
Any vampire book, PNR book, fantasy cycle..I frankly won't care how good the writing is. The marketplace is currently glutted with a small few very strange and immature genres: trends with no literary tradition behind them. No way to judge quality; no reason to bother trying. For me, nothing is going to overcome the nausea induced by the fact that the author chose to 'write another vampire book' and I would find myself bewildered at even having it in my hands in the first place.
Even claims of '#1 downloaded titles from Amazon' are unconvincing. To me this says you somehow caught the attention of the undiscriminating teen readers who simply read all the titles of a particular type of work in order to satisfy their fast rate-of-read; and yours is simply 'the latest'. The insatiable consumption of series-cycle books by adolescents 'addicted to BDSM', (for example) I find disturbing and not the least bit indicative of a successful author whom I would regard as competent. There's a ceiling for quality in all such writing. An experienced reader is usually aware of this, whereas a guileless 'book consumer' might not care.
When I do come across e-prose I see authors breaking all sorts of rules. The plots are hammy, talky, predictable, tedious, laborsome, bombastic..there's no one technical error; its a whole mindset which is their error. Its the whole culture which produces that mindset, which I question. The books are 'write-by-numbers' in every way possible; these writers have dollar-signs sizzling in their eyes; they've jumped into writing like jumping into get-rich-quick schemes.
Consequently, it doesn't seem to me as if they will succeed very well with their publishing careers. Not sure what to recommend to them. Its sad, because they have such high enthusiasm for their books..I'd be excited too if I wrote a novel. But if you set out to write just another work self-similar to a hundred thousand others in theme, aim, content, or style..my advice is don't even worry about your writing. Worry about the soundness of these rash ambitions in the first place.
p.s. Thought-provoking exchange of ideas from the OP. I thank him for starting this thread (err, how about some paragraph breaks in that wall-of-text though, pal? eh?)
Whew.Whether its a vampire circus, the Russian Revolution or a small town romance set in Vermont.
Engage the reader.
You are lead by your desires to read what you will. OF course you won't read a sports novel: Not your cup of tea (or Gatorade). You are going to go for Turgenyev or Reynolds Price or Barbara Kingsolver (as a random selection of authors). These are the people that satisfy your craving for a good book.
Because the vampire circus book is juvenile, brash, quickly (and possibly badly) done---it is beneath contempt. What a waste of energy.
But---not if you are young and looking for something that sings to YOUR soul. The creepy, the odd, the beyond-normal.
Madame Bovary won't do---but a vampire circus, a demon-loving cheerleader (grins). These fill the bill.
Its easy to dismiss what I like to think of as "quick" fiction, something you read speedily and probably pretty much forget easily. Perhaps a guilty pleasure. But it fills a need. Maybe not YOUR need. But someone likes it.
And in this day and age of instant gratification, if it gets teenagers to slow down a bit and indulge in reading; I say go for it.
You never know where that vampire werewolf tennis match might lead.
I read Jane Eyre (tedious) and Nancy Drew mysteries (couldn't get enough of them)and loved The Yearling...when I was under twelve. ALL of those made me what I am today....and hopefully will be the soil for my own books to sprout from, good, bad or indifferent.
I enjoy the process and I am entertained by my results.
This is why I write
Arabella wrote: "You are lead by your desires to read what you will. ..."If there's one thing which is clear from Goodreads/Amazon, its that most people aren't being led by their *own* well-reasoned, well-thought-out desires. They're being steered and prodded into 'pens' of this-of-that purchasing habit.
Arabella wrote: "You never know where that vampire werewolf tennis match might lead. ..."
Really? One really never knows this? No way to foretell whats at the end of any vampire romance book? H'mmm.
Extending this logic..do we none of us know how McDonald's food is made? Do we not know how those paintings of seashores hanging over the beds in cheap motels are made? I think we know very well.
Arabella wrote: "But---not if you are young and looking for something that sings to YOUR soul. ..."
Let us give young readers the full scope of possible reading choices then and not just the ones which enable commercial parasites to feed off their search for resonance.
Some people are so rude and its easy to judge a writer when you yourself are not one.Its one thing to judge a book and quiet another when one judges an author and basically says their art is generic...using logic like that one could say Michaelangelo's religious paints were generic aswell, sense that was the Muse of so many artists of the time.
Please, spare me the psuedo intellectual bull$hit
Ha! Listen, precious author..you've really got no stance to label anyone a 'pseudo-intellectual' (so sneeringly) when you can't even write a paragraph without 3-5 major word-errors jumping out at us. I keep spotting more every time I glance back over your complaint. Not even going to mention the zany gibberish you just spewed about Michelangelo, because I doubt you even understood what your own point was, much less debate about it. Sheeesh! No one was 'rude' up to now, but if you want rude, I will dish up more rude than you can handle.
You give what you get. You're the one who used an expletive and an accusation. Telling people they are 'pseudo intellectual' is a path you don't often want to go down, this is what I would simply like to advise you. Politely, but firmly. You aired your opinion and it was fine, we heard you--but don't start attacking. This thread offers a lot of good advice on writing, but its a fact that genres suffer from 'formula'. No one was singling you out. If the truth makes you uncomfortable, write your way out of your genre and into some other, more original endeavor. Don't blame us.
I do want to say this because I am new here. I use the goodreads app. When I type reviews, there will be spelling and grammatical errors because when typing on a touch screen phone with auto correct, can be difficult and it does limit my ability to sometimes be clear in what I am trying to say. For instance my auto correct will correct something when I had it right to begin with and I wont know it until I have already posted. I just wanted to say this because I do get alot of criticism for some of my posts
No one here has done that to me, but I just wanted to inform everyone of this issue because sometimes my posts can be confusing and sound ignorant when in fact if I were on a computer the posts would I do want to say this because I am new here. I use the goodreads app. When I type reviews, there will be spelling and grammatical errors because when typing on a touch screen phone with auto correct, can be difficult and it does limit my ability to sometimes be clear in what I am trying to say. For instance my auto correct will correct something when I had it right to begin with and I wont know it until I have already posted.
I just wanted to say this because I do get alot of criticism for some of my posts
No one here has done that to me, but I just wanted to inform everyone of this issue because sometimes my posts can be confusing and sound ignorant when in fact if I were on a computer the posts would be better executed. :) sorry for any inconvenience I have or will cause. be better executed. :) sorry for any inconvenience I have or will cause.
I was probably out of line because I hadn't read every post of this thread.So, my apologies if I misunderstood everything that has been said or discussed.
Vanessa wrote: "I do want to say this because I am new here. I use the goodreads app. When I type reviews, there will be spelling and grammatical errors because when typing on a touch screen phone with auto corre..."I'm mentally filing this post under "reasons not to use the Goodreads app"...
Well the reading choices ARE out there. Sometimes as I mentioned above Jane Eyre just doesn't satisfy when a Nancy Drew mystery will.It IS all about choice. But it sounds as if you are saying if they make the wrong choice and go for brash and fast then they are intellectually weak and beneath contempt.
Sad you see it that way.
I think of the library: all those choices and when I was starting out I would take home picture books as well as novels because sometimes I just wanted to look.
You never know where those useless books will take you....
Curiosity...without preconceived notions can take you to some wonderful places.
And yes, even on the backs of vampire werewolf tennis matches.....
Happy Halloween!
My teachers always said that the important thing was to read. It didn't matter what you read, as long as you read.
Yeah, they always said that to me as well. They weren't too keen on my teenage diet of Pratchett and Doctor Who novels though...
On the other hand in my senior comp class I was reading Bored of the rings and laughing out loud and the teacher just said "oh, ignore Sue. She's just crazy!"I kept reading!
Yea Andrew, the app has many many flaws.
To answer Gabriel's first post, I wrote my first two books without ever getting advice...closed my ears to everything else and just wrote. Edited with a helpful uncle and then put them on the market. The comments varied and I ended up with average of 4.5stars on Amazon, mostly 5star reviews. BUT...I did get points knocked off here and there for the slow pace. Several 5star reviewers also commented on the over-elaborate descriptions which slowed the stories a tad.So now, writing my third and fourth, I am caught between a rock and a hard place: people want fast pace, yet they also want my complex plotlines...but I miss writing the elaborate descriptions....you can't win really.
As a reader, I like fast pace in detective and legal thrillers etc but in fantasy (which is the genre in which I write) I prefer as much description as possible so that I can slowly absorb the worlds I am in.
My pet hate is over-long sex scenes, especially if there is more than one of them in a book. That's when I skip pages.
I believe it's a combination. The best books in my view provide a good character buildup while also providing some action. In my book, ZION'S WEB http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DX4RFZS, for example, my first chapter provides a great deal of information about my heroin who has just escaped from a polygamist compound, but still ends with someone getting killed. Similarly, chapter two, which introduces my male lead, does the same thing for him but ends with a car chase. So I think its possible to incorporate the necessary background for your characters while still providing the action necessary to keep the readers turning pages.
Andrew wrote: I'm mentally filing this post under "reasons not to use the Goodreads app"...Haha, I guess I can be happy I have no "smart" phone, that would duplicate my paragraphs when posting. All my errors are my own!
Andrew wrote: "Yeah, they always said that to me as well. They weren't too keen on my teenage diet of Pratchett and Doctor Who novels though..."I haven't read Doctor Who novels, but Terry is a genius! Anyone saying you should read something "better" has probably never read his books. OK, so it would be nice to read something more 'difficult' occasionally, but his use of the language is nonpareil.
on the original issue: It is possible to eat your cake and keep it, in this case. I would again point to the Third Policeman, which starts with the "Not everyone knows how I killed ..." and the description of the murder, THEN goes into backstory. For the reader it is too late (well, I am kidding, the backstory is also fun) as the beginning not only offers action but a question: Not everyone knows - but someone does? Who? It also serves the purpose of foreshadowing, which helps to keep the reader engaged. You know all this is coming to a grisly end, but how? As far as I remember, Crime and Punishment starts fairly soon with the murder, then starts to explain the motives. It is not a trick of cheap genre writers only. (Then again Brothers Karamazov starts with about 1000 pages of backstory, and the plot only starts in part 2.) Backstory can also be dull, which is why the term "infodump" was coined in the first place. Sure, start with it, if it is engaging. Referring to various books like Madame Bovary (or, as I did, Dostoyevski's books) is not especially helpful if you plan for people to read the book now, and not a hundred years ago; yes, most of these books would not be published today, as they would seem to be aping a past style of writing. Various isms have come and gone since, new techniques have been developed, and yes, people's expectations of what they get when they open a book have changed - if that is for the worse or better, there is little the writer can do to change everyone's tastes at once. Pyramids would not be built today, it does not mean we do not admire them now.
As a reader, I don't mind some slow building. However, as a writer, every single bit of advice starts with: "You MUST grab your reader in the first paragraph" or like you said, lose the reader.I think the first part needs to be interesting, for sure. I've been accused of moving too fast and not developing enough. But this is what I have been told/taught to do. Now I'm seeing it doesn't always work that way. Sure, I tried it with my first book but I can say I won't be doing it with the second. Hopefully I can find the right balance as time goes on and the learning continues, to find that "just right" pace.
I wonder if the OP is confusing action with conflict. No, you don't have to open a book with a huge action scene, but something has to happen. And "grabbing the reader" doesn't mean you have to have a car chase.I read a lot of samples by indie authors. That's usually as far as I get, because if it opens like it was written by a fourteen year old then I'm just not interested in reading any further. And that doesn't mean poorly written - it means blandly written. Nine times out of ten, a bland opening paragraph will be followed by an info-dump, a paragraph or two of what happened to get the character to this point in the story. This is poor writing. A story should start at THE START, not the day/week/month AFTER the start. I want to know what's happening NOW, not what happened yesterday to make this character feel sad or angry or suicidal.
A lot of it is in the first line. Someone else mentioned Hugh Howey, and he's a good example - his first line just rocks. Yet there's no big action scene, its a man walking up a set of stairs. Why's it so intriguing then? Because of all the implication, the conflict you can sense from both inside and out.
Another one that always springs to mind is the opening of Iain Banks's The Crow Road. It starts at a funeral. Go and read the first paragraph and tell me that doesn't make you want to read the story. And an exceptional story it is, btw.
So, to say a book needs to start with an action scene is a long way off the truth. It needs to start with some form of conflict, and it needs to be done well. But fight scenes, car chases? Nope.
I think that grabbing someone's attention doesn't need to mean having things blow up on page one. It just means that something in the first few pages has to stand out to the reader. That could take the form of an action sequence. But it could just as easily be a heart breaking, sombre scene of a woman crying alone in a dark room that makes you wonder "why is she so sad?" or maybe, a rather pithy dialogue exchange. Stories that don't move along as quickly can be great, as long as they are presented in an entertaining fashion. The problem IMHO is that a good portion of authors just don't have a very unique and engaging style. Many presume that their story and characters are enough to carry them. In some cases this is true, but usually not. To be successful you should have both style and substance. Substance without style is dry and boring, like reading a newspaper clipping on a topic you don't care about. Style without substance is like polishing a turd, when you're done, it's still a turd.
Tension and release. Then, more tension and more release. Just get your Yin-yang established. That's what lures me in. Command your language, but don't command me.
I certainly agree with the spirit of what the OP was pointing out. I would rather start out with some background, particularly in a complex story where certain concepts are needed to be understood before anything else will resonate. There is nothing more irritating to me than to be in the middle of a book that is barely making sense and then to have the author throw in a "oh, by the way, the reason this is important is…"I see that happening a lot more often than I see people starting off with "boring" background.
Now, does this mean I want the Encyclopedia Britannica in the prologue? No. But I think most people who are at all serious about writing know that.
I seem to be drawn into a story more by an opening that has wit and/or intelligence and/or something intriguing than by action. For example, I love the first sentence of Paul Dale's 'The Dark Lord's Handbook':
In the eternal war between Good and Evil, things were not going so well for team Evil.
There, in a single opening sentence, you have humour (which probably means there's more humour to come), an intriguing question (in what way were things not going well?) and a pleasing inversion of the normal viewpoint (apparently we're rooting for Evil in this one, folks). I read it and knew I was in for a good, fun read. What more can you ask?
In the eternal war between Good and Evil, things were not going so well for team Evil.
There, in a single opening sentence, you have humour (which probably means there's more humour to come), an intriguing question (in what way were things not going well?) and a pleasing inversion of the normal viewpoint (apparently we're rooting for Evil in this one, folks). I read it and knew I was in for a good, fun read. What more can you ask?
Denise wrote: "I certainly agree with the spirit of what the OP was pointing out. I would rather start out with some background, particularly in a complex story where certain concepts are needed to be understood ..."Even in such a case, the background story shouldn't read like a human resources file. I know plenty of people who can bring a backstory to life, but I also know many who cannot resist the dreaded info dump.
I think that a casual reader will always have higher expectations from the first page of a new book. If you are a heavy reader... the more you read, the less you care about the first page. (unless the beginning is a complete disaster)And since we are talking about this, can I get some feedback about the text below?
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Part I: Some Crazy Days
I
Boston, North End
Thursday, 6:54 p.m.
Someone had forgotten to switch off the crooked traffic signal serving St James Avenue in North End – an old settlement in Boston, wherefrom the New World never bothered to leave.
Reaching the street corner, Grant Dumaine saw a patient, elegant gentleman, some sort of a perfect citizen – the type who bows down to the traffic lights even when the street is closed-off for rehabilitation. He had no reason to wait, so he crossed on the red light, stepping not only over the white crosswalk, but also over the outraged looks sent from across the road. Since it wasn't for the first time he felt himself fall under scrutiny as if he was running around stark naked, he took a few more steps before his gaze landed on the somewhat dusty glass of a display window.
The dark hair around the temples, the gray-blue eyes, the upturned nose, the slightly flattened lips, all of them were telling him that he was looking at the same obscure telecommunications engineer who returned, just like every Thursday evening, from Haystack Observatory in Westford.
Goodreads Authors/Readers
Books mentioned in this topic
Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast (other topics)Peccadillo: A Katla Novel (other topics)
I say this because I have read a number of books this past year by independent authors who, l like me, are trying to carve out a small niche for themselves in this crowded marketplace. So many of them seem to follow too literally the adage that a story has to “grab” the reader within its first few pages or the reader will turn elsewhere. So, without any attempt at context or character development, they rush headlong into scenes of action or terror, hoping the strength of such an opening scene will interest the reader enough that he or she will buy the book.
Often, though, once these writers start a book in this manner, they can’t, or won’t, ever bother trying to make their characters in any way real or more than two-dimensional cut-outs. It’s as if the momentum of the story precludes any need to make the reader actually care about the people he or she is reading about. All that matters is that cars crash, murders are committed and young girls’ lives are imperilled by the supernatural flavour of the week.
The problem with the above-mentioned adage, as anyone who has read extensively can attest, is that it’s simply NOT TRUE. The first scene of a book doesn’t have to reach out and grab the reader by the throat. Sometimes, even for thrillers, or horror novels, or spy novels, it is important to catch the readers’ imagination, to seduce them, to make them wonder “who are these people that all sorts of terrible things are going to happen to?”
A James Bond movie can begin with a mind-blowing car chase, or some sort of impossible stunt, because everybody going into the movie already knows who James Bond is. His character has already been developed over decades’ worth of films, so nobody is going to say to themselves, “but just who is this handsome hero and why is he always in danger?”
However in the very first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, written for an audience who had no idea who this eventually iconic character was, Ian Fleming takes the time he needs to establish who Bond is, what he’s doing at the casino, how he got this assignment, why they are after Le Chiffre. And, again, this is NOT boring.
And by the way, this applies to epic-length books as well as shorter thrillers. Casino Royale, despite taking the time to set up the characters and the context, comes in at less than 150 pages! So what I’m talking about can be done well without dragging on endlessly. Maybe this is a challenge in itself.
Writers, both old and new, need to have the confidence in themselves, in their ability to write well, to create interesting characters, to imagine fascinating worlds, so that they don’t worry that a potential reader will put their book down if “nothing happens” in the first few pages. Lots of stuff “happens” in those early pages of Casino Royale, even though there are no gunfights, and no glamourous women are seduced. Just like lots of stuff “happens” in the opening pages of Sweet Tooth.
Writers who don’t take the time to create a realistic world and three-dimensional characters, are short-changing both the story as well as the reader. They are offering cotton candy when a more substantial, and more memorable, meal could have been served. It is as if they are too afraid of being left behind, too much in a hurry to serve food when it isn’t fully cooked. As for readers who rush for the cotton candy, afraid to sit down and take the time to enjoy a three-course meal, they are also doing a disservice to themselves, as well as to the many great stories out there.
I think if every novel was written in the same style of a headlong-rush into the fray, then this is all readers would know and expect. However I suspect that if a reader comes across a book that takes its time in developing its story, but is well-written, and tantalizes with the promise of a fascinating fictional world to explore, then the reader will take the time to sit down, tuck in and commit him or herself to the time it takes to read a novel of quality. All it takes is for writers to take the time and make the effort to write what they will know in their hearts will be a better book.