Beginnings and Guest Posts

First off. My friend Sydney is going to be doing a guest post for my blog in the near-ish future the 13th or the 14th of October to be exact. You should subscribe to her blog: Let's Be Adventurers. She's got some good stuff there. I certainly enjoy reading it. You probably will, too.

So be expecting that sometime in the next handful of days or so. Known her, I'm willing to bet there's going to be a poem involved.

So, beginnings. What makes 'em good? Quite a few things actually. A beginning needs to accomplish several things to qualify as 'good'.

1. Hook you into the story.
2. Entertain.
3. Set the tone/pace.

I just started on the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Book one, The Gunslinger opens with this line:

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."

One way to hook the reader is by raising questions. Who is the man in black? Who is the gunslinger? Why is the gunslinger following him, why is the man in black fleeing? If you're trying to raise questions, make the first sentence as loaded as possible. The first line of dialogue in my book Traveler's Chronicles: Book One is:

"Ahoy, human!"

Raises a few questions, that's for sure. Questions make the reader want to keep reading or the watcher to keep watching. And there's your explanation for why you put up with season five of Lost.

The beginning should entertain. Even if there is no action going on, such as a man in black fleeing across a desert, something should happen the the reader's mind can grasp, the imagination can use. Sometimes this will come from the very first line, as in my book.

"All was quiet. The wintry air settled itself upon a mantle of snow that glistened under the starry sky. The stone wall of nighttime silence on the Illaria-Asiderkrauk border was pierced by a hailing."

A description which can capture the imagination of the reader, but isn't too terribly long, is a great way to get them interested, to make the first scene more vivid. Stephen King's descriptions that follow the first line of The Gunslinger certainly do that.

"The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing to the sky for what looked like eternity in all directions."

If that doesn't get something vivid in your head, you might be dead. Or left-brained.

Sorry, I tease.

Onwards, Traveler. Another important job of a good beginning is to set the tone and/or pace. I have not read that far into The Gunslinger at the time of writing this, but I can use another book I have read all the way through to exemplify what I am talking about. Ever read The Hunger Games? The beginning sets the tone pretty well.

"When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold."

The sentences that follow, follow in the same tone. Stark. To the point. Very quickly, a bleak picture of the local world is set up, as is the quick but intimate pacing of the novel.

Hook 'em. Entertain 'em. Let 'em know how your story will flow.

Do these three things, and your beginning might just be good.