[HN Gopher] How to Start a Novel
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How to Start a Novel
Author : see-also
Score : 95 points
Date : 2021-06-06 18:28 UTC (1 days ago)
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| uglygoblin wrote:
| The only one I can immediately recall:
|
| "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger
| followed" - Stephen King's The Gunslinger
| [deleted]
| surfingdino wrote:
| A more useful advice would be on how to finish the damn things.
| omarhaneef wrote:
| Perhaps you have trouble with endings? One way around this is
| to take the big, dramatic opening and make it your ending. Then
| work back from what happened before. Once you have worked your
| way to the beginning, you can write it.
| nxpnsv wrote:
| You get that first sentence right, then you stop. Now you can
| publish your novel with twitter.
| paulpauper wrote:
| good advice. now i need help with the rest of it
| zuzzytel wrote:
| "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in
| its own way." Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.
|
| And here is an advice from Anton Chekhov: "My own experience is
| that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the
| beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our
| lying."
| ainiriand wrote:
| In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
|
| Mindblowing.
| nathell wrote:
| How about ,,When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he
| would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a
| party of special magnificence, there was much talk and
| excitement in Hobbiton"?
|
| Arguably less mindblowing. The first sentence test is useful,
| but there are type-2 errors.
| myth2018 wrote:
| Speaking of openings referring death, I particularly like the one
| on The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas, from Machado de Assis:
|
| _" To the worm who first gnawed on the cold flesh of my corpse,
| I dedicate with fond remembrance these Posthumous Memoirs"_
|
| PS: it's not exactly an opening line, it's a dedication. But I
| think it performs the same function in this case.
| Aerroon wrote:
| Do people really read the first sentence and then stop? If I'm
| going through the effort of opening the book, then I'll read at
| least a little more than the first line.
| sdevonoes wrote:
| I tend to read a few pages before deciding if I want to keep
| reading the book.
| throwaway284534 wrote:
| Semi-related, I don't understand how authors can pour so much
| work into a book and let it be published with a mediocre cover
| and backmatter. The old saying is just the opposite. A bad and
| cliche cover is the real death sentence for a book. And the
| summary on the back, that's almost more important than the first
| chapter! Do authors and publishers really believe that smattering
| reviews on the backside would somehow impress a reader? "I love
| this book" says New York Times. Okay...? What's the pull?
|
| IMO the backside of the book should be written in the style of
| the novel rather than a marketing pitch. Let the reader get a
| glimpse of the story from the main character's perspective in
| their own words.
| FemmeAndroid wrote:
| Unless you're talking about self publishing, most authors don't
| get a strong say in how the book looks. That's up to the
| publishers. And it's my understanding that publishers really do
| believe those pull quotes really do affect sales.
| jeffwass wrote:
| Traditionally-published authors usually have little say in the
| layout of their books. I've heard of cases where authors have
| absolutely hated the cover artwork chosen by the publishing
| houses but were unable to sway opinions.
|
| It's part of the process of going with a traditional publisher.
| They do the marketing for you, as compared to self publishing,
| and therefore you have to accept their 'marketing' decisions,
| including cover design.
| teleforce wrote:
| I'm surprised that the author of the article did not include the
| classic "It was a dark and stormy night" [1]. Granted it's
| probably a bad way to start a novel, but it's a famous and a
| catchy way to start a novel to get the reader's attention.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_was_a_dark_and_stormy_night
| silvester23 wrote:
| While we are on the topic, this sentence has spawned the Bulwer
| Lytton Fiction Contest, in which participants try to come up
| with the most atrocious first sentences to hypothetical novels
| [0].
|
| Although I personally much prefer the Lyttle Lytton Contest [1]
| which is pretty much the same but with tight restrictions on
| the maximum length of the sentences. Highly recommend reading
| through some of the winners over the years, there are some gems
| in there.
|
| [0] https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/winners
|
| [1] http://adamcadre.ac/lyttle.html
| Joker_vD wrote:
| It's kinda amusing that this particular opening line is
| considered terrible in English literary tradition. I would
| argue that it's the rest of the sentence that makes it a
| terrible opening -- it keeps going on about the weather while
| most people presumably would rather start reading about the
| main character and his actions at this point already, -- but
| the line as quoted is perfectly fine on its own.
| kibwen wrote:
| Agreed. "It was a dark and stormy night.", full stop, would
| be a perfectly cromulent opening sentence in its own right.
| It's punchy, fairly evocative, and it has excellent meter.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Well, I don't know many stormy nights that are not dark... I
| am not a writer but usually, the idea is to limit repetition,
| especially in the opening line.
| bayouborne wrote:
| I've been living out in the country for the last year and I
| can say that out here nights do have different qualities
| depending on the phase of the moon, etc.
| bluGill wrote:
| I have seen several storms during the daytime which were
| not dark. Living in the north I've also seen nights that
| were not dark at all.
| wdb wrote:
| Yes, but I think here they refer to not daylight. That's
| how I always read it :D
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Please notice that the line is not "It was a stormy and
| dark night". Or is "On a bright sunny morning, in downtown
| New York" also a bad opening?
| plaidfuji wrote:
| Pulling some random books off my shelf that I think fit with this
| author's idea of a "good" opener:
|
| Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
|
| > The trial was irretrievably over; everything that could be said
| had been said, but he had never doubted that he would lose.
|
| Slaughterhouse-five
|
| > All this happened, more or less.
|
| The House of God
|
| > Except for her sunglasses, Berry is naked.
|
| Everything is Illuminated:
|
| > It was March 18, 1971, when Trachim B's double-axle wagon
| either did or did not pin him against the bottom of the Brod
| River.
| keiferski wrote:
| To me, Joseph Conrad will always be the best writer of openings.
| At times, they can be a bit _too_ descriptive, but if you take
| your time, the atmosphere-building is worth it. He also
| frequently uses a layering technique, where the narrator reports
| someone or something else that contains the actual story. _Heart
| of Darkness_ famously does this. I 'll take this approach over an
| attention-grabbing line any day.
|
| Here's one of my favorites, from _Karain: A Memory_ :
|
| _We knew him in those unprotected days when we were content to
| hold in our hands our lives and our property. None of us, I
| believe, has any property now, and I hear that many, negligently,
| have lost their lives; but I am sure that the few who survive are
| not yet so dim-eyed as to miss in the befogged respectability of
| their newspapers the intelligence of various native risings in
| the Eastern Archipelago. Sunshine gleams between the lines of
| those short paragraphs--sunshine and the glitter of the sea. A
| strange name wakes up memories; the printed words scent the smoky
| atmosphere of to-day faintly, with the subtle and penetrating
| perfume as of land breezes breathing through the starlight of
| bygone nights; a signal fire gleams like a jewel on the high brow
| of a sombre cliff; great trees, the advanced sentries of immense
| forests, stand watchful and still over sleeping stretches of open
| water; a line of white surf thunders on an empty beach, the
| shallow water foams on the reefs; and green islets scattered
| through the calm of noonday lie upon the level of a polished sea,
| like a handful of emeralds on a buckler of steel._
|
| Edit: if you listen to the audiobook, you can really hear the
| beauty of his language. Especially the intro.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp9GT76NPaE
| ycombinete wrote:
| If you're a fan of Conrad's, and of audiobooks, I certainly
| hope you've listened to Kenneth Brannagh's reading of _Heart of
| Darkenss_. It is excellent.
| keiferski wrote:
| I haven't, actually, thanks for the suggestion!
| SamBam wrote:
| My extended family owns an old country house with loads of
| fiction books, a fair bit of it genre fiction from the 50s and
| 60s.
|
| We have a great game that we play when we go up there with
| friends, a bit like the _Dictionary game_ / _Balderdash_.
| Everyone peruses the shelves a picks out a promising book. Then,
| one round at a time, someone gives the title of their book, reads
| the back, and maybe reads a few choice paragraphs from the middle
| or end, giving everyone a sense of the book.
|
| Then everyone writes down an opening line on a slip of paper. The
| book-holder writes down the real first line. The slips are
| shuffled and the book-holder reads each of them, preferably
| dramatically. Everyone votes on the real one.
|
| Writing first sentences is such a delightful exercise. And of
| course with genre fiction everyone has the license to go
| completely over the top. With the right group of people it's
| utterly hilarious, and it's amazing how frequently someone writes
| a sentence that seems better than the original.
|
| (A random one I recall: a pot-boiled detective noir novel,
| involving a murder victim named Sunday: " _If Sunday had known on
| Monday that on Tuesday she 'd be dead, she would have made
| several different choices._")
| somewhatoff wrote:
| This is a wonderful game! If you don't have access to a country
| house library, then there is a card-based version:
|
| https://oxfordgames.co.uk/shop/ex-libris/
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Neat game. I have a board game, whose name escapes me at the
| moment. Instead of books, players receive cards, and tell
| stories about the cards, the player whose turn it is tells a
| story about their card, and then others hand them a card that
| they think matches the story, and then everyone has to guess
| whose card is the player's. If everyone guesses, player gets no
| points and everyone else 2. If no-one guess, player gets no
| points either. But if at least 1 person guesses, players gets 2
| points, and thoseguessed correctly and who produced cards that
| other people guessed can get points too.
| fraXis wrote:
| This sounds fun! Can you please reply with the name of the
| game?
| [deleted]
| shantnutiwari wrote:
| A lot of writing advice focusses on writing the perfect first
| line/page/chapter, because that's all editors/agents will read.
|
| And so I find many books have great openings, but get boring in
| 2nd chapter.
|
| So if Im in a store, I always start browsing a book after the 1st
| chapter-- that gives me a better idea of what the book will be
| like.
|
| And this advice-- open a book with a "killer" opening isnt always
| true. When I was doing a writing course with Dean Smith, he had
| us analyse the openings of our favourite book. For me, at that
| time, was Jurassic Park.
|
| If you havent read the book, the first chapter is leisurely and
| slow, talking about a minor character who feels bored at her job
| as an island doctor. But that chapter is masterfully written, as
| the very last line hints that there is trouble in paradise, and
| sets up the main story.
|
| Compared with the movie, which starts in the middle of action,
| but the scene is dark and confusing, and I always skip it on
| repeat viewings.
| yoz-y wrote:
| A parallel with software would be shareware games. Often the
| first free chapter was the best the game would ever get. John
| Romero advocated for "finishing the first level last", in order
| to make it best.
|
| Music also felt like this for me (in games), e.g.: the opening
| themes to Doom, Tyrian, Raptor are very memorable.
| shantnutiwari wrote:
| What I loved about Half-life demo-- it was a completely new
| level not in the original game--but it still had all the main
| things that made the game fun (aliens, marines, puzzles etc).
|
| For music -- I guess you do need a killer opening, as people
| will change the channel (or click away) (unless you are
| already very famous).
| kibwen wrote:
| This kind of demo that has "a little bit of everything" is
| known as a "vertical slice":
| https://www.whatgamesare.com/vertical-slice.html
| kibwen wrote:
| Shigeru Miyamoto also confesses to making the first level
| last, in this interview with Dragon Quest's Yuji Horii from
| 1989: https://www.glitterberri.com/developer-
| interviews/miyamoto-h...
| piokoch wrote:
| I think the author over blows the significance of the first
| sentence in a novel. It never happened to me to abandon a book
| because I didn't like first sentence.
|
| Having said that, surprising opening is a thing. For instance the
| greatest Polish patriotic epic poem starts with: "O Lithuania, my
| country, thou Art like good health;". Which nowadays is kind of
| unexpected...
| bluGill wrote:
| I agree, I find the first page is about the right length to get
| right. (first page is generally half a page). The first
| sentence needs to set a scene, and so it can't give enough
| information about the future action or if I will even care
| about the people. If you are a bad author I'll know in the
| first few paragraphs, but never after one sentence.
| xbar wrote:
| It was a dark and stormy night.
| julienchastang wrote:
| "This is the forest primeval." Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie by
| Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
| chrisan wrote:
| If anyone is interested in Fantasy/Sci Fi, Brandon Sanderson has
| some lectures at BYU on writing
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6HOdHEeosc
|
| This guy not only has amazing stories and characters, but he is
| able to crank them out soooo fast.
| jjgreen wrote:
| "Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the
| Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive
| shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman
| is about to speak French."
|
| -- P.G. Wodehouse, The Luck of the Bodkins
| V-2 wrote:
| There was this character of an aspiring, wanna-be writer in
| "Plague" (by A. Camus), named Joseph Grand, who obsesses over the
| first sentence of his novel. He'd keep on rewriting it
| infinitely, never getting beyond it. "Perfection spells p-a-r-a-
| l-y-s-i-s", as the man said (Churchill, if I'm not mistaken).
|
| For what it's worth, I considered quoting Plague's first sentence
| here (if it were somehow fitting or interesting), and as I
| googled it up, I found an article devoted to this very subject:
| https://theconversation.com/first-sentences-establish-a-cont...
|
| I didn't find Plague's opener to be particularly inspiring after
| all, but there are a few other examples.
| jeffwass wrote:
| Trying to think of a catchy or clever novel opener can be a major
| discouragement from just getting the pen to the paper and
| formulating that first paragraph.
|
| It can be much easier to start your writing a bit further in,
| where you have a rough idea of a scene, and letting the
| characters and the action work themselves.
|
| In fact, this is a good way to create bridges through tricky
| parts, where you know the current scene, the scene after the next
| one but no idea how it got there. Instead of struggling with the
| blank page for too long, skip the unknown scene and keep writing.
| And later on you'll likely have a good plan for filling in the
| bridge.
|
| It's much easier to go back and fill in the gaps when you've
| figured out the 'voice' of your novel, and have a good
| understanding of the characters and their quirks.
|
| You may also realise you can cut so many of the gratuitous scenes
| that were useful in your mind for connecting A to B in terms of
| worldbuilding and plot progression, but are extraneous to the
| reader.
| Tycho wrote:
| The idea that an author would just sit down and write a novel
| starting from the first line seems alien. Like a film not
| getting made because the director obsesses over the opening
| shot. Seems like a detail that should fall into place only once
| much of the groundwork has been laid.
| bluGill wrote:
| Serial fiction has always been a thing. Most novels 150 years
| ago were written for magazines. Only in the past century did
| the write a novel as a complete book really take off. Even
| then though, authors often wrote trilogies where you wrote a
| third at a time. (publishers like this because people hooked
| on the first book at the library or discount store would buy
| the second and third at full price when it came out). Now in
| the web world a lot of great authors have figured out that
| patron and doing a chapter a week (or some schedule) is the
| most profitable way to write.
| samkater wrote:
| Related to your point, George C Scott apparently didn't want
| to film the opening scene of "Patton" because he thought the
| movie wouldn't live up to the scene. It really gets at the
| heart of what the whole movie is about and I can't imagine it
| without that opening. Apparently they filmed it at the end of
| filming.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patton_(film) (The opening
| scene under "production" - sorry on a mobile device)
| weeblewobble wrote:
| reminded me of this great piece of writing advice from Simpsons
| writer John Swartzwelder:
|
| " I do have a trick that makes things easier for me. Since
| writing is very hard and rewriting is comparatively easy and
| rather fun, I always write my scripts all the way through as
| fast as I can, the first day, if possible, putting in crap
| jokes and pattern dialogue--"Homer, I don't want you to do
| that." "Then I won't do it." Then the next day, when I get up,
| the script's been written. It's lousy, but it's a script. The
| hard part is done. It's like a crappy little elf has snuck into
| my office and badly done all my work for me, and then left with
| a tip of his crappy hat. All I have to do from that point on is
| fix it. So I've taken a very hard job, writing, and turned it
| into an easy one, rewriting, overnight. I advise all writers to
| do their scripts and other writing this way. And be sure to
| send me a small royalty every time you do it."
| huachimingo wrote:
| Ray Bradbury did this with Farenheit 451. He did a small demo
| with all the key aspects and then made the novel.
|
| You can do a lot of these small "demos" or short stories and
| save them for a future novel. Or instead write them together
| and make an anthology, like the Poe stories.
|
| We need more anthologies.
| flybrand wrote:
| Vonnegut does this a lot too - toying with an idea over and
| over again until he feels it is fully explored.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| > If that opening sentence tries too hard, or holds no special
| friction, the book slips from its holder's hands - back onto the
| table, or the shelf, ready to be replaced with a magazine, or a
| snack, or a screaming child.
|
| I'd love to know a first line amazing enough that one would
| ignore their own child?
| philtar wrote:
| "Ignore this sentence and your child will die."
| lelanthran wrote:
| > "Ignore this sentence and your child will die."
|
| The little-known proposal for a followup song from the Manic
| Street Preachers.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I think the writer may also be a little crazy, because a
| magazine or a snack can be considered as recreational
| activities that you can replace a book with, but it takes a
| special kind of person to consider a screaming child as
| recreational.
| FlyingSnake wrote:
| _Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel
| Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his
| father took him to discover ice_
|
| Gabriel Garcia Marquez's opening line from One Hundred years of
| Solitude was enough for me to pick up the book. Personally, I
| feel that this is one of the best openings of any book I've read.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Maybe it is from all the years I have spent trying to trim my
| overly verbose writing, but "was to remember" grates on me as a
| needlessly inflated way of saying "remembered."
| playdead wrote:
| I'm unsure if you've read this novel, but the translation
| "was to remember" actually works well here, and was probably
| a deliberate choice. The cycles of time are a major theme in
| the story.
| [deleted]
| coliveira wrote:
| It seems to escape English writers (at least at college
| level) that different ways of writing have different meanings
| and connotations, which may be necessary in some situations.
| Another example is the passive voice that is derided in
| college circles as if there was no good way to use it (yes,
| there are many).
| zikzak wrote:
| I agree but the author might be implying that this was not
| the first thought and that creates dramatic tension. What
| triggered the memory? Was he recalling it on purpose to
| inform his next move? Was he forced to remember because the
| leader of the firing squad also figured in the memory but he
| didn't realize it at first?
| bprieto wrote:
| The Spanish original is "habia de recordar", and "was to
| remember" is a good translation. It's meaning is different
| from just "remembered", as it implies a causality. It wasn't
| a random remembrance that just happened, it was some memory
| that was brought by the proximity of death.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Interesting - I didn't realize it was a translated work. I
| would have inferred causality with "remembered" due to the
| sentence structure.
|
| My comment was intended to decry the loss of my more
| literate and verbose pre-corporate self.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| I love this opening and it's one I think about more than I
| should. I recently read his _Chronicle of a Death Foretold_ and
| it's opening felt drawn from this one.
|
| Toni Morrison's _Beloved_ opening is breathtaking as well.
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