Set up Your Story in the First Paragraphs

by Jodie Renner, editor, author, speaker    

I receive several first chapters (and synopses) every week as submissions for possibleediting, and I always read the first page. Some are clear and compelling and make me want to read more. But too often, two main problems emerge: Either the author spends too much time revving his engine with description or backstory before we even care (boring); or we’re plunged right into the story but have no idea where we are or what’s going on (confusing). 

There are three cardinal rules of successful novelists: 

1. Don’t bore your reader!

2. Don’t confuse your reader!   

3. Don’t annoy your reader!

I’ve discussed the negative effects of starting off too slowly, with too much description and/or backstory, in other articles (see the links at the end of this article). Today, I’ll focus on the other problem that can turn readers off — fuzzy beginnings. Sometimes I feel confused and frustrated, wondering who this character is — and is it the main character, or someone else? Also, where the heck is she? And what’s she doing, exactly? It’s frustrating not being able to form a mental picture of who it is and what’s going on, right from the start.

Your first paragraph and first page are absolutely critical! Not only do they need to hook your reader in quickly, set the tone for the rest of the book, and “show your stuff” in regards to your writing style, but the reader needs to be able to visualize your opening scene, the who, the where and the when, so they can relax and start enjoying the story. If they're confused, they’re going to start getting frustrated and could well put down your book. Readers want to be able to get into the story right away, not have to spend the first several pages — or more — trying to figure out what’s going on.

So try to work in the basics of the 4 W’s below in your first page — preferably within the first two or three paragraphs. Give the readers a quick snapshot of who, what, where and when, without going in to a great deal of detail yet. Give them just enough to get oriented so they’re not totally confused and can start enjoying the story.

Who? Whose story is it? Your protagonist should appear in the first paragraph; better yet, in the first sentence — in his/her point of view, of course! Don’t start out with someone else, then introduce your main character in chapter two, or even later in chapter one. Readers will have started emotionally investing in someone else who may be a minor character, then be disappointed and annoyed when they find out they’re not the person they’re supposed to be caring about!

What? What’s going on? What is he/she doing, exactly? Can the reader visualize the situation? If not, add a few details.

Where? Where is he/she? Overall setting — country, state/province, city/town; and if inside, inside where? An office building? A log cabin? At home? Which room? It can be really annoying for a reader to start reading dialogue and have no idea where the speakers are.

When? Is this story taking place in the present? The past? How far in the past? What season? What month? In the morning? Afternoon? Evening? Middle of the night?

Also, your first page is a kind of promise to your readers. Readers want to get a feel quickly for your writing style and the genre or your handling of the genre, so be sure that your first page reflects the overall tone, style, and voice of the novel, and even hints at aspects like the level of violence they can expect, etc. Then keep your promise by delivering for the rest of the novel!

Just as I was about to post this short article based on my own experiences reading, judging and editing fiction, I received the latest issue of Writer’s Digest magazine (March 2012), and serendipitously, noticed Steven James’ article, “5 Story Mistakes Even Good Writers Make.” In a sidebar, James discusses writing an effective first sentence, paragraph and page. His fifth point expresses my focus for this article.

Evaluate Your Hook:
With each story you start, always remember that an effective hook needs to do seven things:

1. Grab the readers’ attention

2. Introduce a character readers care about.

3. Set the story’s mood.

4. Establish the storyteller’s voice.

5. Orient readers to the world of the protagonist (and enable them to picture it).

6. Lock in the genre.

7. End in a way that is both surprising and satisfying.

See also, "Act First, Explain Later" on The Thrill Begins blogspot, and "Those Crucial First Five Pages" here at Crime Fiction Collective, both on writing an effective opening to your novel.

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Captivate Your Readers, Fire up Your Fiction, and Writing a Killer Thriller, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, Quick Clicks: Spelling List and Quick Clicks: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity, incl. Childhood Regained – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, www.JodieRennerEditing.com, her blog, http://jodierennerediting.blogspot.com/, and on Facebook and Twitter. 

Some Dialogue Don’ts

by Jodie Renner, editor & author, @JodieRennerEd 

Real-life conversation is no excuse for confusing, irritating, distracting, or boring dialogue coming out of your fiction characters’ mouths. First off, these days you don’t want to frustrate or annoy your readers by trying to reproduce regional dialects exactly as they sound. Also, I’d be cautious about using the very latest slang expressions, which could backfire on you and end up dating your story within a year or two. That would not be cool! (Pun intended.) And overloading dialogue with in-your-face profanities can lose you readers. And finally, please, please, for all of us, leave out all the boring yadda-yadda blah-blah filler stuff!

Don’t mangle characters’ speech

Don’t make the mistake of trying to reproduce regional speech patterns phonetically. As Jack Bickham says, “There was a time, not so long ago, when fiction writers strove for authenticity in some of their stories by attempting to imitate regional and ethnic dialects and pronunciations by purposely misspelling words in their dialogue. Today such practices have fallen into disfavor.”

Why? Because it’s distracting and irritating. Not only that, it runs the risk of obscuring your intended meaning. All of which will result in taking your reader out of your story – the exact opposite effect you’re going for. Also, you could easily end up offending people from that region if you depict their everyday casual language as a kind of inferior, laughable sublanguage.

Here’s an example of what I mean, from an older story about slaves and the Civil War. The passage was narrated by a slave:

  “So dey jump on dey horses and gallop ‘way. An’ we ain’t see’d dem since. Dey friends say dey be kilt in one o’ de firs’ battles o’ de war. Dat be good lesson fo’ we, shure ‘nuf! Black folk ain’t gonna go off ta fight in a war. Life be tuff enuf here wid’ Massa an’ his whip, widout uder buckra be shootin’ at de menfolk an’ killin’ ‘em dead.”

And it went on like that for pages! Ouch!

So these days, phonetic spelling, misspelling words to show different pronunciations, the overuse of apostrophes to indicate missing letters (unpronounced sounds), and other deviations from standard North American speech are frowned upon by most editors, agents, and discerning readers, and may earn a rejection for your otherwise compelling story.

An occasional elision (dropped sound, indicated by an apostrophe) and plenty of regular contractions, with the odd regional word or expression thrown in, is usually enough to get your regional flavor across to your readers.

Don’t try to keep up with the very latest slang expressions

Many new authors try to appeal to their audience by using the latest slang expressions, especially in YA fiction. This is usually a mistake. The language is changing so fast, especially fad expressions, that what’s trendy or “in” today may be already dated by the time your short story or novel sees the light of day. The moral? Be careful with using cutting-edge street talk or just-coined slang expressions. It’s usually best to stick to slang expressions that have been around for at least a few years.

Don’t overdo the profanities

Another area where beginning writers mess up is in replicating every F-word in real life on their page, leaving many readers wincing. Profanities and obscenities can often slide by in real life, depending on the situation, but they usually jump out at us on the printed page, so use them judiciously, to get the general flavor, rather than on every line.

As Jack Bickham says, “Dirty talk often looks dirtier on the page than it actually is.” So save the worst of your swear words for those story situations where a strong curse word is really needed to convey the emotion.

Also, consider your genre. Readers of cozy mysteries, for example, are mostly women aged 60 and up, so best to use less graphic language in those stories. The odd “Damn!” or “Crap!” or "friggin/frickin'" will usually suffice.

Don’t reproduce actual conversations verbatim

By this I mean all the uhs and ums and ers and you knows and How are you? I’m fine, and you? Not to mention introducing people, chitchat about the weather, and other empty social niceties that lead up to (or follow) the real meat of the conversation. That’s a sure-fire recipe for putting your readers to sleep! And they won’t be eager to pick up your book again when they wake up. As Ingermanson and Economy say, “Dialogue is war!” You need tension on every page, including in your dialogue. So if it doesn’t drive the story forward, add conflict or tension, or contribute to character development, take it out.

So, oddball spelling, attempts at reproducing regional dialects phonetically, and heavy use of profanities all risk offending someone, whether it’s a member of a minority or someone who doesn’t like swearing. And the latest slang expressions may soon appear outdated and ridiculous. And really, empty blah blah is boring, isn’t it? So be wary of reproducing characters’ dialogue exactly as it sounds in real life—it could backfire on you.

What do you think? As a reader, how do you feel about the attempted reproduction of regional dialects in fiction? As a writer, how do you show the accent and expressions of a specific region? And how do you research expressions for a region you’ve never lived in or visited? Also how do you feel about stories peppered with obscenities? Are you okay with it, or do you find yourself wincing inwardly?

Resources:

Jack M. Bickham, The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes      
Randy Ingermanson and Peter Economy, Writing Fiction for Dummies
and Jodie’s editing experience

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Captivate Your Readers, Fire up Your Fiction, and Writing a Killer Thriller, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, Quick Clicks: Spelling List and Quick Clicks: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity, incl. Childhood Regained – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, www.JodieRennerEditing.com, her blog, http://jodierennerediting.blogspot.com/, and on Facebook and Twitter. 

Heightening the Suspense, Part III

by Jodie Renner, editor & author                 

In Part I of this series, I discussed the definition, elements and stages of suspense in fiction. In Part II, I listed some general, "big-picture" techniques for creating and heightening suspense in your novel. Here, in part III, you'll find some

Specific Techniques to Ratchet up the Suspense:

-      Use the setting to create anxiety and suspense. This is the equivalent of ominous music, harsh lighting, strange camera angles, or nasty weather in a scary movie. This applies to both indoor and outdoor settings, of course. Also, appeal to all senses, not just the visual… breaking glass, a dripping faucet, footsteps on the stairs, a crash in the basement, rumbling of thunder, a sudden cold draft, an animal brushing the skin in the dark, a freezing cold, blinding blizzard, a putrid smell coming from the basement…

-      Create a tense mood, with fast pacing: Thrillers and other suspense fiction generally need an ominous mood, tight writing, and breathless pacing throughout most of the novel, with “breathers” in between the tensest scenes.

-      Use compelling, vivid sensory imagery. “Show, don’t tell.” Invoke all five senses to take us right there with the protagonist, vividly experiencing and reacting to whoever/whatever is challenging or threatening her.

-      Raise the stakes. As the author of a thriller or other crime fiction, keep asking yourself, “How can I make things worse for the protagonist?” As the challenges get more difficult and the difficulties more insurmountable, we worry more and more about whether he can beat the ever-increasing odds against him, and suspense grows. And as a bonus, “Increasing pressure leads to increasing insight into the character.” (Wm. Bernhardt)

-      Add a ticking clock. Adding time pressure is another excellent way to increase suspense. Lee Child is a master at this, a great example being his thriller 61 Hours. Or how about those great MacGyver shows, where he had to devise ways to defuse the bomb before it exploded and killed all kinds of innocent people? Or the TV series, 24, with agent Jack Bauer?

-      Create obstacles and complications. The hero’s plans get thwarted; his gun jams or falls into a river during a scuffle; he’s stuck in traffic on a bridge; he’s kicked off the case; her car breaks down; her cell phone battery dies just when she needs it most; the power goes out, leaving the room in total darkness; a truck blocks the only way out of the alley… You get the picture. Think Jack Reacher, Lucy Kincaid, Elvis Cole or Stephanie Plum in any number of escapades. The character has to use inner resources to find a way around these obstacles or out of this dilemma.

-      Incapacitate your hero. Your heroine is given a drug that makes her dizzy and hallucinating; your hero breaks his leg and can’t escape or give chase; she’s bound and gagged; he’s blinded by sand in his eyes…

-      Create a critical turning point. Which way did the bad guys go? Should she open that door or not? Who to believe? Go up the stairs or down? Answer the phone or let it ring?

-      Make the ordinary seem ominous. Zoom in on an otherwise benign object, like that half-empty glass on the previously spotless kitchen counter or the fresh mud on those boots in the hallway, and imbue it with extra meaning. Who was here? When? Why?

-      Plant something out of place in a scene. Or even something just slightly off, just enough to create a niggling doubt in the mind of the reader. An address book with pages torn out, a whimpering dog, a phone off the hook, an open window, wet footprints on the entranceway floor, an overturned lamp, a half-eaten breakfast in an empty house, etc.

     

But of course, you can’t keep up tension nonstop, as it’s tiring for readers and will eventually numb them. You need to intersperse tense, nail-biting scenes with more leisurely, relaxed scenes that provide a bit of reprieve before the next sensory onslaught begins. 

Copyright Jodie Renner 2011

Resources:

Hallie Ephron, The Everything Guide to Writing Your First Novel
Jack M. Bickham, The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes

Jessica Page Morrell, Thanks, But This Isn’t For Us

Jodie Renner, a freelance fiction editor specializing in thrillers and other fast-paced fiction, has published two books to date in her series, An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: WRITING A KILLER THRILLER and STYLE THAT SIZZLES & PACING FOR POWER (Silver Medalist in the FAPA Book Awards, 2013). Both titles are available in e-book and paperback. For more info, please visit Jodie’s author website or editor website, or find her on Facebook or Twitter.  
 

 

Show, Don't Tell

by Jodie Renner

“Show, don’t tell” is the most common mantra among advisors to fiction writers. It’s about bringing the scene alive and putting the reader right there, inside your characters, experiencing her fear along with her, feeling the sweat on his brow and his adrenaline racing, your pulse quickening right along with theirs, muscles tensed, ready to leap into action.

            A common mistake among aspiring fiction writers is to describe or narrate (tell) events as if they took place at some point in the past, instead of putting the reader right in the middle of the action and showing the events as they occur, in real time, along with the characters’ reactions, feelings, and actual words (direct dialogue).

To clarify what is meant by “show, don’t tell,” think of it this way: Which would you rather do, go see a great movie in a theatre with a big screen and surround sound (“show”), or hear about the movie from someone else afterward (“tell”)? That’s the difference we’re talking about here.

            According to Ingermanson and Economy, “Showing means presenting the story to the reader using sensory information. The reader wants to see the story, hear it, smell it, feel it, and taste it, all the while experiencing the thoughts and feelings of a living, breathing character. Telling means summarizing the story for the reader in a way that skips past the sensory information and goes straight to the facts.”

Janet Evanovich considers “show, don’t tell” to be one of the most important principles of fiction: “Instead of stating a situation flat out, you want to let the reader discover what you're trying to say by watching a character in action and by listening to his dialogue. Showing brings your characters to life.”

As Jack Bickham says, “Not only does moment-by-moment development make the scene seem most lifelike, it’s in a scene [with dialogue and action and reaction] where your reader gets most of his excitement. If you summarize, your reader will feel cheated – short-changed of what he reads for – without quite knowing why.”

            Shelly Thacker points out, “Readers of popular fiction don’t want to experience the events of your novel at a distance; they want to FEEL what’s happening. They want to laugh, cry, hope, worry.” Shelly advises, “Strive for more dialogue than narrative. … Narrative tends to slow things down and usually leads to telling instead of showing…. Showing with action and dialogue creates vivid characters and a fast pace; telling only bogs down your story.”

Also, the bulk of the scene needs to be about a conflict of some kind between characters. No conflict = no scene. According to Jack Bickham, the conflict part of the scene “draws readers out through a moment-by-moment drama, extending the scene suspense with pleasurable agony.”

Of course, you can’t show everything, or your book would be way too long, and it would tire your readers out – or worse, end up boring them. According to James Scott Bell, “Sometimes a writer tells as a shortcut, to move quickly to the meaty part of the story or scene. Showing is essentially about making scenes vivid. If you try to do it constantly, the parts that are supposed to stand out won’t, and your readers will get exhausted.”

The rule, says Bell, is “the more intense the moment, the more showing you do.” That’s the difference between scene and summary. You don’t want to describe every move your characters make at down times, or when going from one place to the other. That’s where you summarize or “tell,” to get them to the next important scene quickly, without a lot of boring detail. 

           The main thing to keep in mind is to never to tell the reader, after the fact (or have a character telling another character), about a critical scene. Instead, dramatize it in the here and now, with dialogue, action, and lots of sensory details to bring it to life for the reader.

Resources: Revision and Self-Editing by James Scott Bell; The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (And How To Avoid Them) by Jack M. Bickham; Writing Fiction for Dummies, by Randy Ingermanson and Peter Economy; “10 Tips for a Top-Notch Novel” by Shelly Thacker (www.ShellyThacker.com).

Jodie Renner, a freelance fiction editor specializing in thrillers and other fast-paced fiction, has published two books to date in her series, An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: WRITING A KILLER THRILLER and STYLE THAT SIZZLES & PACING FOR POWER (Silver Medalist in the FAPA Book Awards, 2013). Both titles are available in e-book and paperback. For more info, please visit Jodie’s author website or editor website, or find her on Facebook or Twitter.