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21.06: Begin and the Beginning · Writing Excuses

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons and friends.
• 0:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patrion.com slash writing excuses.
• 0:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Season 21, episode 6.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: This is Writing Excuses.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Begin at the beginning.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: Tools not rules for writers by writers.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Mary Rabinette.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about.
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Erin.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: And this week we're going to talk about beginnings.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: This is one of my very favorite topics.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I've said that like three episodes in a row.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I do love talking about beginnings.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, I overindex on them, you know, I think in part it's because of my job as an agent when I'm looking at queries and I'm looking at samples.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm always looking at beginnings of stories and trying to make a judgment call on them.
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I have read thousands upon thousands of beginnings of books and had to make judgment calls about, is this working or not?
• 1:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I think the really, really important, I think readers are also reading beginnings of stories and making a decision of, do I buy this book?
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do I keep reading this book, right?
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so many times, that's where you lose somebody, right?
• 1:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because it's not for good reasons, which is, oh, this book is in for me.
• 1:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not the reader for this.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: I thought this is going to be something else, and it's not the cover.
• 1:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I assume made into something from the cover that isn't true, right?
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: But a lot of times, it's people who would enjoy the rest of your book, but bounced off of it because it didn't quite do what the beginning needs to be doing.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a very difficult section because your readers come in cold.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: They know nothing about what's happening.
• 1:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: They don't know your characters, your stakes, your world, and you need to communicate an enormous amount of information to them very quickly.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: without losing them because of a lack of action or two complex pros or whatever it is.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: So this episode is kind of going to give you an overview.
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then we're going to have some follow-up episodes where we're going to kind of drill into a lot of these things.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: But generally, when I'm thinking about beginnings, I think about grounding the reader.
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think about setting their expectations for the kind of ride that they're going to be on.
• 2:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think about the pace of the tone of the overall thing.
• 2:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: So sometimes I'm going to do something that's called an action-driven opening.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes I'm going to do something that's
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think about sort of what questions I want to set up that are going to like how am I going to pull the reader through the story sometimes we call this a hook sometimes we call this a frame there's a bunch of different words for it.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: But like what is it that makes the reader say oh I care about this.
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  [SPEAKER_02]: I recently did an event in which we read the beginnings of people's works.
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  [SPEAKER_02]: And so what happened is there was a panel, and we read the first few pages.
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  [SPEAKER_02]: I was one of the readers.
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  [SPEAKER_02]: We actually couldn't see the panel.
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  [SPEAKER_02]: And when three of them raise their hand saying, I would stop reading here.
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  [SPEAKER_02]: We stopped.
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  [SPEAKER_02]: And so it was really an interesting way.
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  [SPEAKER_02]: And we read them completely, like, no prep at all.
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  [SPEAKER_02]: And it was an interesting way to see what was catching people's attention, and to me it was like something that felt unique, something that people hadn't necessarily heard of before with interesting details.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I found that pieces that had really interesting details, especially if it was like one key detail that felt unique and felt like something that you could really understand, grab people's interests and kept them going through the whole beginning, whereas other ones did
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've been the reader for this kind of event and I've also learned that there's a way you can set up this experience at home with friends, which is you can create, you can create kind of a slush pile experience.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: We do something with my short story cohort where we take the first
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we chunk all of the first 13 lines that we have written in a period of time into a single document, and then we go through and read it as if we're reading through a slash pile.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: And Mark, which ones catch us and why?
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  [SPEAKER_01]: We don't mark which ones we hate, we don't do any of that.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: It's, it's just, it's just a, I love this.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things that will happen for the writer is that often everyone will gravitate towards one and the writer is like, that's really fascinating because I know that this other one that no one has picked.
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: is way more interesting deeper into the story, and so then they can look at it and compare like, what am I doing in this one that everyone is gravitating towards?
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's the thing that you can do with your writing friends, you can create your own slush pile, you can even create a slush pile, but just grabbing the first 13 lines out of
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  [SPEAKER_01]: existing material that's not even yours to create this experience of like what is it that consistently catches me and it's it's you'll find that it is different with each of them but that a lot of it is that there is something in it that makes you and this is so amorphous but there's something in it that makes you lean in.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think that thing is control.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: The thing I think about the most when I'm looking at the opening pages of a book is is the author in control of this story or the in control of their prose.
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think about this in terms of we've returned to this metaphor a few times this season, but ML Muntar's idea of a book as an act of hospitality.
• 5:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: right, and I think of that in terms of when you walk into someone's house, you can feel if this was a space designed with intention, if it's clean and orderly and set up for a good experience for you, right, when you walk into someone's house and it's chaotic, there's stuff all over the place, there's no clear place for you to sit, there's no, you know, you don't know how to get water or you don't know how to be comfortable here.
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: it puts you in a more, and puts you on your back foot, right?
• 6:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so when you walk into a storing, you want to feel that this is a roller coaster ride, and that roller coaster is well bit built, and I'm not going to fall off of it, right?
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think finding ways to communicate that
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  [SPEAKER_00]: in the opening pages of your in-good hands, I got you, is incredibly important.
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think a lot of people think, it's important to start with action.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have to start an immediate rest.
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: It has to be thrilling and exciting.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes, for me, the strongest openings are ones that are very, very quiet.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: The ones that are just describing something for a long time, but they're doing it in a way that is demonstrating in micro.
• 6:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: you're gonna like my pros.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have control over the pacing.
• 6:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna build tension and you're gonna be interested in even though nothing is happening yet.
• 7:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's kind of like going into a house like for a party like you can come in the middle of a party and it definitely things will be going on It'll be interesting, but if you don't know anyone there you can sometimes feel like very like I don't understand I just want to stand on the corner the wall I don't know why this person is dancing with that person or what's happening But if you come to a house before the party is begun you get a chance to like take in like oh, this is the place Here's the person here's the host now.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have like a little bit of a sense of it
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's why details to me, like, stuck out as one of the things that worked really well in the openings that I was reading because like in a house, if you have too many nicknakes, like it's just like it's hard to focus.
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Same way if you have like too many details.
• 7:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you're trying to describe a scene and it's like, this amazing detail that amazing detail.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, wow, I can't focus.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: But if you're controlled and you're like, let me take your eye to this one really important thing that resonates with the story and is really going to catch your attention, like having that one really great art wall in your house.
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is something that says, I am understand how to move you through this space, move you through this story and give you something that's going to be worth seeing, worth reading.
• 8:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: because even you show up in the middle of the party, if there's a clear idea, oh, snacks are here, drink station is here, music is there, and that's clearly legible, or the host comes over and says, hey, let me take you around, then you can have a great time in the middle of the party.
• 8:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can show up in media rest if you're being well taken care of.
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: But the same token if you arrived too early, there's that incredibly awkward thing where you stand around while the host is getting things ready.
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's when those are the books that you read where the the the the effort they've just started it too soon.
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, they are still doing the throat clearing, which often you need to do while you are writing, and there's nothing wrong with doing that in draft.
• 8:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like do not think that your first draft has to have the perfect opening line the first time round.
• 9:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Very few of mine do I have to tell you that.
• 9:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's funny.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: I almost suggested changing the title of the episode, but my proposal would have made no sense, which is the beginning as a terrible place to start.
• 9:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because sometimes I run this, this is very, very common mistake is that the writer is starting the story for where the character's story starts, which is like waking up, going to school, you know, before the Insigning Incident has happened.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: And so a lot of times what I'll say is, hey, jump forward, start where something interesting is happening.
• 9:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'll start at the beginning, start at the interesting.
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the challenge of that is exactly what we're talking about of you don't have any context and it's all pretty chaotic.
• 9:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think there's a lot of techniques to help ease the reader in.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've talked about high level of how you want the reader to feel and when we come back from the break, I wanna start talking about some of the techniques that we use to make sure that feels good to them.
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, welcome back, you know, in the first half of this, we've been talking about how do you make your reader feel comfortable in the story.
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do you, how do you communicate authority and control as they're reading the opening lines of your work?
• 10:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's start talking about the techniques that are useful here.
• 10:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do you play with getting enough information into those opening pages that they accomplish all the goals that you set out, Mary Rominet and the reader feels well grounded in the story and has a sense of the shape of what's to come.
• 10:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: And we will get into this like a lot more when we get to the grounding the reader episode, but at high level, I think about the reader wants to know kind of where they are and where can include a win.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: They want to know what they're supposed to care about, whether that's a person or an idea, and they want to know, you know, sort of what is happening.
• 10:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: which can sometimes in an action-driven story being like literally what is the character doing, but in a voice-driven opening that can like Hitchhiker's guide as an example of this, that they want to know, you know, like what is the deal with the watches and the digital watches and whether a pretty neat idea.
• 11:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Going back to the, a jotted something down while Aaron was talking
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  [SPEAKER_01]: about arriving at a party and how you know that someone is in control.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because I'm like, yeah, I want a sense of control that the author is in control, but like, what is that?
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think the things that we're looking at our intention, the order, you know,
• 11:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: that it isn't just a chaotic thing.
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes if you have everything everywhere all at once, but that doesn't start catacly.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Chaos comes in that, taste, a sense of the author's taste, and then a good host comes with an offering.
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think, if you kind of think about those things, it's like, what is your intention with this opening?
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: What order are you going to present the information in so that they build a picture in their head?
• 12:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: What is the tone, the taste that you're trying to demonstrate?
• 12:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: What is the thing that you're offering that entices them to come farther in?
• 12:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: The thing I think about a lot is a really useful thing to do is to create a microcosm of the greater story.
• 12:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: tiny little micro taster of, you know, the Douglas Adams thing you're talking about, in terms of that opening, the reason it works is it's him being like, hey, you like this, get ready for a lot more, right?
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes just giving a little taste sample of what's going to come is the most useful thing you can do.
• 12:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: My favorite opening of all time is, um,
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: uh... the heart to give hellhouse and it starts with this like abstract idea goes into a long description of a house just very normal description of a house and then ends on an incredibly creepy line right and so
• 13:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: what that is is an absolute outline of the book we're about to read of kind of abstract gets into talking about a house for a long time and then gets real weird, right?
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think sometimes setting the reader up and putting them through the pieces of your story in a filtered way in a microcosm way is a great way to be like, do you like this?
• 13:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to like this book.
• 13:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I also think like, I agree with that.
• 13:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I also think like making a promise and then keeping it really quickly is a great way to show that you, you know, you understand what's going on or asking a question and answering yes.
• 13:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because like early on, the readers like, I don't know if I can trust you to keep your promises or answer the questions and as the story goes on, you can actually space out.
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, a promise from it being fulfilled or a question from it being answered because you've already established that you're doing that so you're showing that like I said this is what it was going to be and this is what it's going to be ever friend who calls that welcome snacks like when somebody comes to a party there immediately like here's a little thing here's just a bite you can have right here's like a little like I don't know like a sweet popcorn dish or like you know a chip in a dip you know any me just like immediately on walking you just get a little mouthful of something you're like hmm that was nice okay let's go you know
• 14:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And part of what that does in a party setting, we're also party planners here, is that it says, I thought of you.
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: When someone has a snack for you when you enter, they say, like, I actually, before you arrived, thought of something that would make you more comfortable and happy in this moment.
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I made a promise, I'm going to be your host, and I have immediately fulfilled it by doing something that I wouldn't do if this wasn't a party.
• 14:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so that is the quick thing that you can put in the story.
• 14:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: which reminds me of a thing I was talking with a friend who had just gone over to someone's home and it was the first time this person had hosted anyone.
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the friend arrives and she's there for an awkward amount of time and then the person is like, oh, I probably should have had snacks.
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I should have the snacks.
• 15:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do we have snacks?
• 15:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: I might have snacks.
• 15:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that is often my first
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: where you arrive and there's like nothing really happening and then at some point the author is like oh something's supposed to happen and then there's like an explosion out of nowhere and you don't understand why it's happening or anything like what is going on and you feel a little unsafe and uncomfortable.
• 15:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And one thing I want to point out is, I think you can be forgiving of your friend when it's your friend.
• 15:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that happens.
• 15:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And go over to your buddy's house, you're like, oh man, you know, Chuck is always like this.
• 15:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean, doesn't know how to plan a party.
• 15:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: But when you are asking someone to pay $20 and give up time away from their family away from TV and video games and going to the general, whatever it is,
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then Dan is saying come to my professional event.
• 16:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: You don't want the fire festival of books.
• 16:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't want to be serving someone, you know, white bread with a slice of ham on it and being like, welcome to my luxury festival, right?
• 16:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: You need to be giving them.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, we're saying the earned is just losing it over there.
• 16:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you don't want it to be firefaced if you want it to be the white lotus, right?
• 16:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: You want to be like, here's the beautiful experience.
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Also, someone's going to murder murder.
• 16:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, I think, I think thinking about, I mean, we really went all in on this hospitality in a metaphor, but I think it's really, really, really useful.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's when thinking about openings of how do you take care of readers as they're coming into your story?
• 16:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 16:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the other thing that I will say about this is that from a writing perspective, from a craft perspective, you 100% don't need to get this right on the first try.
• 16:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you almost certainly want every now and then you'll get lucky.
• 17:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I've had times where I'm lucky and the opening is the like last through the through the whole thing.
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: more often than not, I will get into the middle of the book and then reach the end of the book and realize this is what that book is actually about and have to go back and write a new first chapter.
• 17:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or with a short story, have to reframe the the first couple of
• 17:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes, first couple of pages, sometimes it's just a paragraph, sometimes it's for a whole scene at the beginning of it.
• 17:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it is, it changes.
• 17:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, coming up in later in two episodes, two episodes from now, we're going to be looking at one of my stories with her serpent locks.
• 17:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that opening line is not the opening line that I started with.
• 17:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's an opening line that did not happen until my editor read it and said we need this here, and I was like, and I've resisted it.
• 17:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was really, it was like very, it was a very annoyed, but very correct, very, very correct.
• 18:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of, so when you're writing from a craft perspective, think about this as party planning with time travel.
• 18:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 18:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: you get to plan the party and then you get to have the party and then you get to time travel back and say okay these are the snacks we actually need these are the things that we you know this is who's coming it turns out this allergy exists and we need to take that snack away and make sure that the AC is running
• 18:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: because someone is coming with a fire thing that they're going to do outside and then everyone's going to come back inside to me really hot.
• 18:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you like you can do all of that and then throw the party again and everyone is comfortable.
• 18:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's the same people coming, but they just have a different experience because of the way you frame it at the beginning.
• 18:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think you can also learn that you wrote a beginning to the story that you're not actually trying to write.
• 18:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
• 18:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you could be like, I'm going to, like, in the party planning, and now as you're like, I'm going to throw a rager, the rager to end all ragers with a string quartet and wine and cheese.
• 19:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, is that a rager, like, if what you want in your party is like, I actually want people to have really quite intimate conversations with each other, the entire party, like, even though in your head, you,
• 19:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, you're actually interested in this like gentle like cocktail party and that's okay because I think sometimes we get ideas in our head of what we want to be as writers and we start writing a beginning using that and then in the middle we realize this is not the story that I really want to tell and it's okay to abandon that and leave that beginning for some other time or some other version of you.
• 19:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And with that idea, it's also important to note that sometimes we get ideas from seeing other people's parties, but those parties don't necessarily fit into our house, into our taste or into our budget.
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: When I see people go from novels to short stories, they are trying to write an opening with a novel budget, which is a lot more words.
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they just don't have that big of a budget and their apartment is also a studio apartment.
• 20:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not a mansion if you have to make
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I think another reason to not write your beginning first or not worry about your beginning being exactly right when you start is that openings of novels are heightened right the written in a slightly different way than the rest of the book because your language is going to be a little bit more dense you can be doing more than you can ease out of this like really high octane high information density and like
• 20:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: often in your opening lines, you're going to be a little more showy than you will be later in the book in terms of prose style because you're trying to like really hit people with like here's a bang or opening line here's like I can write you know what I mean is one thing you're trying to communicate in that early section and so trying to sustain that over the course of the novel is would be a huge mistake because it would be exhausting for your reader and for you
• 21:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: to come back and be like, okay, how do I craft something that feels heightened and feels like a special entry to the story, but doesn't have to be sustained throughout.
• 21:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that kind of gives you the space to do that little microcosm thing that we were talking about.
• 21:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's going to bring us to our homework.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And for the homework, what I'd like to ask you to do is to make an artificial
• 21:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is a great exercise that you can do.
• 21:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be talking about tools and we're going to give you an opportunity through the rest of this beginning to play with those tools in the homework.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: But for right now, just take a look.
• 21:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just analyze existing tools and see what works for you and what makes you lean in, what makes you feel welcome at the party.
• 21:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: This has been writing excuses.
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're out of excuses.
• 21:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now go right.
• 21:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Writing excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends.
• 21:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Your hosts for this episode were a Mary Robinette Kowall, Dom.
• 22:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: One song, and Aaron Roberts.
• 22:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: This episode was engineered by Marshall Card Jr., mastered by Alex Jackson, and produced by Emma Reynolds.
• 22:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: For more information, visit writing excuses.com.