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“But remember, there’s a huge difference between ‘trying hard’ (which you want to do) and ‘trying to make it perfect from the first word on’ (which is impossible and just might shut you down). The goal [with first drafts] isn’t beautiful writing; it’s to come as close as you can to identifying the underlying story you’re trying to tell.”
~ Lisa Cron in WIRED FOR STORY
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I am terribly introspective most days, but there are moments–plenty–when my attention span runs short. Too much coffee, too many things to do, too short on time for all that “doing,” I have to force myself to slow down.
Take a breath.
Focus.
I don’t want to make myself focus, though, when it comes to reading. I want to dive into story. It’s true that a good book is worth the wait through a slow opening or a few introductory chapters. But a great story, as Lisa Cron says in her book Wired for Story, is marked by a compelling hook from the very beginning:
[W]hat draws us into a story and keeps us there is the firing of our dopamine neurons, signaling that intriguing information is on its way. This means that whether it’s an actual event unfolding, or we meet the protagonist in the midst of an internal quandary, or there’s merely a hint that something’s slightly “off,” on the first page, there has to be a ball already in play. Not the preamble to the ball. The ball itself. . . . and it has to have our complete attention.
Now, I’m not an action-packed kind of reader. If you look through my author interviews, you’ll see I prefer a slow build, a quiet novel. Still, a slow building story doesn’t mean slow-to-intrigue; first lines in these quiet stories can be just as intriguing as in a plot-driven novel. Here are a few of my favorite first lines from past and recent reads:
“It was bitter cold, the air electric with all that had not happened yet.” ~ from A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick.
Have you read this book? Oooh, really good stuff (okay, worst book review ever–“really good stuff”–but suffice it to say this is one of my “I want to write like that some day” books).
“Mama left her red satin shoes in the middle of the road.”
~ from Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman (you can read my interview with Beth HERE).Another one of my all-time favorites from the first line through the first scene and beyond.
“Daily, men descended into the earth, going where no man belonged, taking more than men deserved, their faces wracked with indifference, their hands dirtied with soot from the depths of the mountain.” ~ from American Copper by Shann Ray.
I received an advanced copy of this book, and I knew immediately from this line that I would absolutely love it. Everything about this story is woven into that first line: industry and power, the harm a man may cause, and the scars he leaves behind.
We’ll talk a more about Lisa Cron’s book and story structure in my upcoming online class, Principles & Prompts. Join us if you can. And, consider picking up Wired for Story or one of the three novels mentioned above. American Copper doesn’t come out until November 2015, but it’s definitely a book to claim for your shelves.
What’s your sign of a good story?
As humans, we are natural storytellers. For me, certain images and smells strike me hard: tapping a memory, pulling me back into time, and demanding that I form those memories into something I can share.
Lisa Cron (WIRED FOR STORY) explains that urge well in this interview on Start Your Novel, “Storytelling is the most powerful tool for change and insight in the world. We’re wired for story. . . . story is what shapes our sense of self, how we see the world, and what actions we therefore take.”
As writers, we work hard to craft our stories into rich pieces of art to which others will relate, or–in the least–enjoy.
We study techniques, memorize rules.
We practice, practice, practice.
We want to get it right.
But, everything in writing is subjective. Even the rules, so necessary in many ways, are questionable. I love this article by Anjali Sachdeva in Creative Nonfiction, where Sachdeva challenges some of the common rules of writing:
Rules. Writing teachers love to sling them around, and writers love to cling to them. Maybe it’s because creative writing is such a slippery and chameleonic undertaking that we’d like to believe there are some dependable guidelines we can trust. But while writing rules can be good starting points for avoiding common mistakes, they all have their exceptions.
[“Show, don’t tell”], without a doubt, [is] the most over-invoked piece of writing advice of all time. . . . In its most basic sense it means “describe and give details, rather than just stating what happened.” . . . Like any writing “rule,” “show, don’t tell” has its exceptions, but the truth is that these exceptions are almost as common as the instances in which a writer should be “showing.” Most pieces of writing involve constant alternation between summary or exposition and “in-scene” writing (where all that great description, figurative language, and detail comes into play). When we focus too much on “showing” instead of “telling” we risk overloading our prose with unnecessary descriptors, or devoting excessive page space to something that would be better dealt with in a few sentences of summary.
“Show, don’t tell” strengthens our writing and, when done well, gives our readers an (almost) tangible way to experience the story. However, sometimes this great technique can “overload the prose,” as Sachdeva says, and overwhelm a reader, negating our attempts at successful storytelling.
Max Garland’s essay, “Sin” (also on Creative Nonfiction) certainly packs a small space with powerful images, but there are times throughout where the author turns to telling and pulls the reader along in a way that the images do not:
Once, for instance, I lit a field on fire. It started with a haystack, and I don’t remember from where I stole the matches. I do remember the smell of striking several and watching the straw catch and then putting it out, and then again and again, and although I thought I’d doused the thing, somehow the whole stack went up, and my grandfather was jerking the garden hose toward the field, and I was watching the flames from some shadow somewhere, and simultaneously constructing an alibi, and still watching it burn, beautiful as the lie I was crafting. It was like that.
Take a look at the rest of Anjali Sachdeva’s article and read Garland’s essay in full. Are there times when telling, not showing, will make the difference in your work?
The way my mother told it….
(This prompt comes from Patricia McNair’s Journal Resolution ~ A Daily Prompt project.)
