Life just ain’t fair. You work your heart out on a story,
spend months writing, revising, and rewriting some 50,00 words or more. Then you
send your precious darling off with high hopes and what happens? An agent or
editor may not read more than the first sentence. If you’re lucky or your
writing shows promise, maybe they’ll finish the paragraph or even first page.
What’s up with that? Alane Ferguson taught a WIFYR workshop
a few years back. She said agents and editors are busy people and hundreds of manuscripts cross their desks each year. They’re not looking at
story but need to quickly assess writing potential. Agent John Cusick receives
5,000 queries a year. In a few short sentences, you have to stand out from the
crowd. One way to do that is with a powerful first line.
The local SCBWI chapter sponsored an evening event at the Salt Lake City library once with speaker Clint Johnson. In his presentation, titled “Great Beginnings,” he said he tries to hook the reader on the first line. If they are intrigued, maybe they’ll read on through the 1st paragraph, then the 1st page, and on and on.
Johnson went further. He said there are three things
imperative to a story’s opening. You should present conflict, pose questions, and reveal
character. Conflict is the driving element of the story. We naturally want to
see conflict resolved so it is a reason to read on. Pose questions, or better
yet, write so that readers pose their own questions and thus want to read
further for answers. The main character’s POV is the door into the story.
Johnson said to try to hit all three in the first line.
Similarly, John Cusick said he wants the entire book in the
first line or paragraph.
Then comes the question of where to start the story. Gone
are the days of the soft break-in of character or setting. Readers today (and
publishers) want action from the get-go. We’re told to never begin at the
beginning, but start at the middle. Avoid too much backstory or info dumping.
I rewrote the start of my NaNo story and shared it with my critique
group. They get hungry and I have to feed them every once in a while. I spent a
few hours perfecting that first chapter. My first line was good, but they
didn’t like where I started. They want me to do it again.
