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Some Ways to Begin a Book
Reprinted from the February 1992 edition of The Purloined Newsletter |
WITH MOTIVE
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The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. — The Cask of Amontillado, Edgar Allan Poe |
BY INTRODUCING THE PROTRAGONIST AND/OR ANTAGONIST
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To Sherlock Holmes she is always THE woman. — A Scandal in Bohemia, A. Conan Doyle |
WITH THE VICTIM
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The corpse without hands lay in the bottom of a small sailing dinghy drifting just within sight of the Suffolk coast. — Unnatural Causes, P.D. James |
WITH ACTION
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They threw me off the hay truck about noon. — The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain. |
BY SETTING THE TONE
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I wasn't doing any work that day, just catching up on my foot-dangling. — Goldfish, Raymond Chandler |
WITH IMAGE
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He was just a pink dance-ticket to her. A used-up one at that, torn in half. — Deadline at Dawn, William Irish |
| Tips from and for Writers |
From Robert Byler: Talk out your story
The most readable writing has a conversational flow and feeling. Say it aloud, especially when sty-mied by a tough sentence or paragraph, and you will write more speedily and readably. Talk to the wall, to a pet, or — better yet — imagine you are talking to a typical reader …
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From Stephen King: How to Evaluate Criticism:
Show your piece to a number of people — ten, let us say. Listen carefully to what they tell you. Smile and nod a lot. Then review what was said very carefully. If your critics are all telling you the same thing about some facet of your story — a plot twist that doesn't work, a character who rings false, stilted narrative, or a half dozen other possibles — change that facet. It doesn't matter if you really liked that twist or that character; if a lot of people are telling you something is wrong with your piece, it is!
If seven or eight of them are hitting on that same thing, I'd still suggest changing it.
But, if everyone — or even most everyone — is criticizing something different, you can safely disre-gard what all of them say. |
From Marlys Millhiser: Leave out some pieces
A story is a picture puzzle. And it doesn't make sense until all the pieces have been fit together. So begin by losing as many pieces as you can. Palm them. Hide them under the cat. I don't care, but never show the whole picture the puzzle portrays until the end of the story. And If you want to make it really memorable, lose the last piece altogether.
You do this by raising as many questions as you can get away with and never answering one until you've raised another… And getting enough of these nagging little questions going in the minds of your readers makes it more difficult for them to put the book down and go do something else
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