Why you don't get published.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Q & A 47 Boring Beginning
I've got a serious problem with my manuscript. The first few chapters are apparently less-than-captivating. It's getting so that whenever I'm asked to send in the first X pages or chapters, I curl up into the fetal position. At this very second there are three agents waiting for this material but I dread sending it because I know what will happen. They will read these pages and reject it very quickly. I think I have a good story (like every writer) but it's a slow starter. Here's a hypothetical to explain the problem. Let's say my story is about a visit to Grandmother's house by a person who, unbeknownst to Granny, isn't really her grandson. Once they get there, lots of interesting things happen and the story moves pretty well. The problem is, by the time I've taken care of some backstory and explained who junior really is and what he is up to, then gotten him to his destination, I've reached the limit of x pages and the agent is bored to tears. I already chopped out three chapters worth of tedium to prepare for the trip, checking the tires, paying tolls, etc. (this is still hypothetical, of course). I still don't get to the good stuff early enough (or maybe the story blows, but I never get far enough with any agent to find out). Should I jump right into the heart of the story and try to work in the backstory wherever I can? Doesn't the reader need to know ASAP who junior really is and why he is doing this?
First of all, Evil Editor appreciates your changing from your boring plot to the far more exciting visit to Granny's, so that his minions would not be subjected to the same prolixity you impose upon agents.
Did you know the secrets of The Crying Game, The Usual Suspects, The Sixth Sense before the characters those secrets were being kept from knew them? You're tricking the reader only if the reader is the only one who's not in on it. If Granny doesn't know the truth, why should the reader? Just tell the story from Granny's point of view, at least until the secret's out.
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18 comments:
That's the situation now. And according to the author, the beginning is boring.
Why not start with the exciting bit and fill in the backstory later?
Let's say you're wed to having the story told from the grandson's POV. If that's the case, you should still make a stab at starting the story from the moment he walks into Granny's house. Just give it a go; you may be surprised at how quickly you can work in the information that's truly essential. As for the 10 pages of information that you slaved so hard to create but is NOT truly essential... you may have to let that go.
It's fairly easy to work in a "If the old woman knew who he really was, she never would have let him inside," or some such tip-off, early on--even in the first paragraph. You're keeping info from the reader, but you're not totally cheating him, because he knows things aren't what they appear. You can keep working in the facts as you go, and it will be much more entertaining than reading big chunks of backstory, because we'll know that this info has an impact on what's happening right now between these two characters.
And, let's face it: a trip to Grandma's house really needs some subtle tension to give it spice. Otherwise it's all just tea and cookies. :-)
Good luck with your book!
Start your book where the action starts. Period. Don't info-dump on us at the beginning. Give the reader the benefit of the doubt that through good backstory placement and dialogue, we figure it out what we need to know.
It's good you recognize the flaws now and have the chance to fix them. That means you're learning as you go, you know what needs to be changed and are willing to do it. These are good things. Grasp onto that then whack the crap out of that first chapter til you have some action making is flip those pages.
You could give the characters some other interesting situation to deal with before dropping the bomb. Think Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho - you already have a lot of subplot pretending to be the main plot right up until the psycho shows up.
I feel your pain, fellow front-loader. My last manuscript ended up starting with Chapter Five. For shorts, I usually lob off the top 500 words, put it to my crit group, then lob off 500 more.
As you can see, it's all mathmatical, multiply or divide by five. Or is it subtract? I always sucked at math.
Hm... well, I managed to lobotomize a character in the prologue. Consequently, the action seems to slide downhill in the next few chapters.
I'm going to assume that this story is written in third person limited, as in, "He walked into Granny's house. God, she looked so much hairier than usual."
If it is, I would start right where the action starts, and stay right in his head. Don't explain why he is there or what happened or any backstory until he naturally needs to mention it or thinks about it. The tension will be created by the reader naturally being curious about what's going on.
If there is too much action going on in the Granny chapters to do that, then make something happen in those earlier chapters. Give him something to really want. Like getting to grandmas. Or not having to go to grandmas. Make going to grandmas a huge ordeal for him. If he cares, the reader will care. Just weave in the info, like it is incidental.
Or you could lie about the genre and say it's Literary.
Problem solved.
If you deliver bits and pieces of back story, woven in with the meat of the plot, you can actually make the back story some of the excitement that moves the book along. Try dropping a tantalizing hint here and there, without explaining everything straight out. (Jane gave a nice example of what I mean.) If you do it well, the reader will want to read more just to find out what the rest of the details are.
It's a delicate balance. You don't want to "cheat," but you don't want to blurt out everything you know, either. Pick up some of your favorite books--if you like paranormal fiction, or sf/f, these make great examples--and see how other authors manage to weave in the details without stopping the momentum of the story. In sf/f, the reader is being introduced to a whole new world, with whole new rules, and yet most authors introduce all that information gradually while exciting stuff is happening.
Just a few tips that work for me (well, I think they do...).
Backstory should inform the story, it shouldn't be the story (repeat to self while banging head on keyboard as needed).
Start the story when its events become inevitable, and not a moment before.
Never lie to the reader. Use misdirection instead.
The viewpoint character cannot notice what they have not noticed (okay, that's just general advice, not actually applicable here).
My beginning has a similar setup, but I tried to keep the backstory to a minimum during the first chapter.
What does the reader know when my heroine shows up at the hero's door in the opening scene? I cover in one short paragraph of narration via deep POV the following facts:
1. She's watched and waited for the opportunity to get inside the hero's inner circle for five years, and today is the day.
2. Though she's smiling, she secretly thinks he's pond scum (not exactly the words she uses, but this is a family blog).
3. She isn't who she says she is.
The reader doesn't know why she's watched him, why she hates him, why she's lying or who she really is. And I'm deep in her POV. There is a way to be inside someone's head without telling the reader everything. Use that technique to your advantage rather than giving page after page of backstory upfront. There's nothing wrong with letting the reader wonder for a little while. Backstory is most effective and has greater impact when sprinkled in a little at a time.
Less IS more.
I think I have the same problem with my first novel. I love the characters and the story and my critique partners rave about the climax, but the beginning proceeds leisurely. There was a reason when I wrote it (I wanted to capture the feel of the setting).
One of my critiquers said "I'm wanting something to happen about now" somewhere around page 40--when I thought I had enough happening already. And the comments I get from agents are things like "interesting premise, but the first chapters don't work for me" and stuff like that. Yuck.
My solution? Live and learn. On to the next novel, where I'm working harder on start-up concerns.
Sometime in the future, I'll go back and fix the beginning of this novel, I hope. For now, it lingers gently on the page.
You guys are great, I'm out of the fetal position and the wheels are turning! I'll keep you posted...
Thanks especially to you, Evil, for posting my pathetic note...
I agree with shesawriter. Let the reader know your character's thoughts (I just can't wait to get my hands on the old hag's jewels!) and show the discrepancy between these and his behaviour and speech: "Grandma! How great to see you after all 40 years, yes, I know I had black hair and blue eyes as a kid but you know, people do change!"
That will build suspense, even as you drop in bits of backstory here and there. Good luck!
I think brenda nailed it (along with some others here). I'm just a reader and if I am bored with the first ten pages I'm done with it.
Good one anony #2. -JTC
jjhalloween said: Rewrite the interesting chapters so they read like they could be the first chapters, send them to the agent to get them hooked, and ...
And leave well enough alone at that point. If you can rewrite later chapters to sound like opening chapters, then they should be the opening chapters. No going back to rewrite it the way it was before. If agents were bored by it, so will readers be.
Remember that you, as the writer, need to know a lot more about the backstory than the reader does. Usually, you can cut most of that stuff or weave it in as you tell the story. :)
Linda
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