This question about first chapters and the pros and cons of writing a prologue came in through my MG and YA webinar that I did for Writer’s Digest last Thursday. But this is pretty much the idea behind every novel prologue question I get, so the wording isn’t especially important:
What are your thoughts on prefaces/prologues? Do they ever work for you? Many people have told me that everyone HATES prefaces/prologues so I cut it. However, my beta readers LOVED the preface. It made them want to keep reading to see what really happens in that moment. What to do? Do prefaces/prologues ever work? Will you pass on a MS because they include a preface/prologue?
Writing a prologue with high tension might seem like a good way to start your story, but are you setting your reader up for Prologue Deflation in chapter one?
Yep, this is the point of a writing a prologue. It usually teases the reader with a high-tension moment from later in the book and it starts the manuscript off with a bang — because, as a writer, you know to do that. Tensions are high. Things are really exciting. This is great!
Writing a Prologue: Crutch for a Boring First Chapter?
Then the real first chapter starts. And the ol’ Prologue Deflation kicks in because the writer is usually dragging the reader into an ordinary beginning which is, let’s face it, kinda boring. Sure, there’s always that story tension that you’ll go back to the exciting prologue stuff later. And that’s what the writer is counting on. But most of the time, this kind of prologue tension feels like a lazy cheat to me, to tell you the truth. A lot of writers resort to writing a prologue because they don’t know how to otherwise make their first chapter exciting.
Failure of Imagination? Lack of Experience?
A novel prologue isn’t an automatic rejection for me but they almost always leave me underwhelmed because the beginning after the prologue is usually a failure of imagination. Most likely the writer didn’t know how to start writing a book, so they throw a fake-out on the fire and hope that it’s enough to carry you through to the good stuff that’s buried later. It’s the equivalent of a writer saying, “Well, I really want to send you the first 50 pages because it doesn’t really get going until Chapter Four.” Why hide the goods? Why resort to tricks and manipulation? Why toy with the reader and cover up your own plot insecurities? I’d rather have a well-crafted, gimmick-free, honest-to-goodness beginning to a novel almost every time.
Sure, prologues start with tension and they’re popular, but they set my expectations low in terms of the writer’s overall craft level, to be perfectly honest. There are definitely exceptions to the rule and some prologues work as a first chapter. Regardless, lots are published. But just know that we’ve seen the novel prologue bait and switch too many times to really have high hopes in most cases.
Whether you’re an experienced writer who’s experiencing a block or a new writer who doesn’t know how to start, I’d love to be your book editor and help you craft the perfect first chapter.
Today is the official publication day for the 2012 edition of the CHILDREN’S WRITER’S AND ILLUSTRATOR’S MARKET, out from Writer’s Digest Books and edited by Chuck Sambuchino.
Inside this handy volume, you will find articles on craft, writing, submitting, and landing an agent, interviews with kidlit glitterati like M.T. Anderson and Meg Cabot, and updated listings for agents, publishers, and magazines that take work from children’s writers and illustrators. If you want to land an agent or find a market for your work this year, this is the book for you.
I highly recommend it. In fact, you will see a familiar face featured on the back cover, and an official blurb from me that reads:
Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market is the most complete, trusted, definitive, and inspiring source of publishing opportunities for children’s writers and illustrators working today.
It’s true. Not only did I lend my mug and stamp of approval to the book, but I have two articles featured inside. One is about writer’s conferences and how to make the best of your investment in them (whether it’s your first or your fiftieth), and the other covers my three favorite craft issues: Voice, Character, and Authority, with lots of juicy annotated examples from my favorite MG and YA books on shelves.
So if you want to read about and see examples of Voice that works — an especially tricky topic that lots of writers struggle with — pick up a copy today! This elegant guide is crammed full of useful information and updated agency, publisher, and magazine listings to make your quest toward publication a no-brainer. Let 2012 be the year you really MARKET your writing!
Because I’m so proud of this year’s book, I am giving away one free copy of the 2012 CHILDREN’S WRITER’S AND ILLUSTRATOR’S MARKET to a writer randomly selected from the comments. Leave a comment below (make sure to include your email address in the comment form, though know that only I will be able to see it and it won’t be published on the site). Deadline for entries is midnight, Tuesday, September 20th. The winner will be announced in Wednesday the 21st’s blog, and then I will ship your copy to you next week. (US residents only, please.)
Every once in a while, I talk to a writer who is still represented but is considering breaking up with a literary agent. They are not happy in their relationship, so they are seeing, first, who else is out there, and, second, if there is potential interest in their work. Writers have approached me at conferences with this particular situation, and I occasionally get queries that outline a similar conundrum.
Thinking about breaking up with a literary agent? Cut ties with them before querying new agents.
After just such a query this past week, it dawned on me that I’d never addressed this on the blog. First of all, this isn’t in reference to any particular writer who I’ve counseled on this issue (you know who you are). And it’s not a specific response to that one query. But here, for the record, is what I always tell writers who are struggling with what turns out to be a bad writer/agent relationship.
The Etiquette For Breaking Up With A Literary Agent
It is considered unethical by many agents to seek other representation while still in a relationship with your current agent. It’s like looking for a new romantic partner while still dating or married to your current one. I know there’s fear that you won’t be able to make a living as a writer if you break up with your literary agent, so you’re testing the waters. Still, this behavior is frowned upon. It is only considered correct to start finding another literary agent after you’ve severed your existing representation relationship.
Try These Tips Before Severing Ties
There’s another option for writers who are considering breaking up with a literary agent: communicate. If you’re feeling bad, be honest in an email or phone call. Some of the time, an agent will not know that you have these issues festering. Writers are often intimidated to talk to their own agents, or they don’t want to be seen as “high-maintenance,” so they keep their problems to themselves and suffer in silence. Where’s the point in that? Tell your agent what you’re not getting and what you need to be getting in order for the relationship to function. Making a living as a writer is difficult, and you need your agent solidly in your corner in order to make it work.
In some cases, the agent will say, “Wow! I never knew you felt that way. Here’s what we can do to make things better.” In other cases, the agent might be feeling their enthusiasm wane as well (this is not said to make you paranoid, but it does indeed happen in the business) and will either be honest with you about the poor fit of the relationship, or they will keep doing whatever dysfunctional behavior in order to avoid confrontation (we can be like writers in this regard). If your issue is that your agent isn’t being responsive, for example, they can own up to the past and set a better course for the future…or they can continue ignoring you.
Sometimes You Need To Make A Change
If it’s the latter, or if they vow to change but don’t follow through, you are probably better off breaking up with your literary agent. It’s scary, I know, because an agent is an important part of being able to make a living as a writer. Still, the situation isn’t likely to improve. If you’ve done your due diligence and voiced your concern and it’s still not getting resolved, I’m afraid you have your answer, unless there is a real reason on the agent’s side that is temporarily impacting their job performance (illness, etc.).
It’s daunting to face the idea of being unrepresented again and possibly jeopardizing your ability to make a living as a writer. But you need a better fit for you, and making an agent change is a proactive thing you can do for your career. This move happens all the time.
Keep It Above Board
But don’t query or court agents before you either try to fix your current relationship or leave it. It reflects poorly on you (even if we sign you, we will always wonder…are they querying others behind our backs?), and the agent you contact might, if they end up offering representation, get a reputation as a “poacher,” someone who steals clients from other agents. Your reputation is currency in the publishing world, and you’ll find it that much harder to make a living as a writer if it’s tarnished.
As for me, I often find myself counseling writers who are thinking about breaking up with a literary agent, but I have to draw the line before looking at any material. My verdict is: no walking papers, no query. For our sake, for your agent’s sake, and for your own, make sure your dealings are all above board. As with any relationship, you don’t want to blur those lines.
Did you find this practical advice useful? I am happy to be your manuscript editor and consultant for writing and publishing advice that’s specific to your work.
Writing fiction a reader cares about is a huge question many writers have. This post will be a short one but it strikes at, I think, the very heart of being a good writer. What is your number one objective as a writer?
To make your reader feel.
Whenever I speak about how to write a query letter at conferences, I always have one request: Make me care. This is the same idea. I want to feel my interest piqued with the query. I want to feel something, even if it’s just a stirring of feeling or concern or nervousness or longing. Most queries fail to elicit even one feeling (other than boredom).
Being a good writer means you craft fiction that will make a reader care and feel.
How to Make a Reader Care
The manuscript itself, however, has to do much more than just make a reader care (though that’s an excellent starting point, and it will set you apart from most writers). When your character — who is the focal point of our feelings and our gateway into the story — feels hurt, the reader should ache. When they fall in love, the reader should feel her heart quicken. When they think all is lost, the reader should reach for the Ben & Jerry’s. That’s when you know you’re on your way to being a good writer.
If you’re not writing fiction that manipulates your reader’s emotions and takes your audience on a journey of feelings, thoughts, and realizations, what’s the point?
How do you make your readers feel emotion? You do it through crafting a character with feelings and goals, and also by knowing your own feelings. At the VCFA Alumni Mini-Residency I attended this July in Vermont, COUNTDOWN author and master writer Deborah Wiles said the following:
Allow your character’s heart to break. How? Know thyself. Feel what you feel. Allow yourself your heartache. Share it with your character. Heal together.
What Does a Reader Care About?
As you’re writing fiction and your character encounters a thrilling roller coast of emotional ups and downs, of victories and disappointments, you must always be thinking of their emotions. How are they reacting to this event? How are they interpreting it? What is the emotional context? Where do they think they go from here? Use your character’s interiority.
More importantly, use your own emotions and thoughts as guides for what your character is going through. That will lend your writing truth, and it’s a key part of being a good writer. Pour your heart out a little bit. Always think of the character’s emotions (usually a version of your own) and the emotions you want to evoke in the reader when you’re writing about feelings.
Readers expect to pick up a book and be transported and transformed, not only to another world or time or unique point of view, but to emotional places own hearts, minds, and lives.
Writing Fiction That Elicits Emotions
Last week, I watched The Notebook for the first time, just because it was so wildly popular and I wanted to see how it was put together. (I didn’t much care for it but that’s beside the point.) Has anyone ever recommended this particular movie to you? If you’re a woman and you have girlfriends that are crazy about it, what did they say to convince you to watch?
I bet it wasn’t, “You’ll really love the dialogue” or, “You should see how the filmmakers introduce the complication of the rich fiancé.” It could just be my own experience here, but the only thing anyone ever told me about The Notebook (and this came from about ten different people) is:
“It will make you cry your face off.”*
Readers couldn’t care less about the craft and framework behind a tale when emotions are in the mix. (When you’re writing fiction, you have to care very much about it, but that’s another story.)
Emotions and Writing Good Fiction
Emotion is going to be your reader’s biggest takeaway…and their biggest expectation when they’re considering reading a book. And if you’re writing fiction effectively — if you write a book that’s not only cathartic for your character and your reader but for you, too — you will definitely give your readers a journey they won’t forget.
Today’s question — “Should you reveal the plot twist in a query?” — is inspired by a question from reader J.P.:
I’ve assumed that it’s okay to have “spoilers” in the plot summary of my query letter. Am I wrong? My book is a mystery. Do agents like to have mystery books’ punch lines revealed before they read the book, or do they like to find out the answer for themselves? Should I put the answer to my mystery manuscript into my query?
Don’t hide your twist ending when you’re querying.
Should You Reveal the Plot Twist in a Query?
It’s totally fine to reveal the twist ending in a query or synopsis. Sometimes a query won’t deal with the entire plot and you can save your revelations for a synopsis (if requested or if sending one– more on how to write a novel synopsis). But, either way, reveal your twists and turns. Withholding exciting plot points isn’t going to make the agent or editor crave to read it and find out…we most often don’t have the time to read every single manuscript through to its conclusion, no matter how delicious the mystery pitched to us in the query.
There’s a big bonus if you reveal the twist ending in a query or synopsis. If you indeed have some show-stopping plot twists, I want to know about them as soon as possible. True surprise is one of the most desirable emotions that you can make your readers feel. If your novel is packed with surprises, if the mystery is unpredictable and twisty, give us a sense of that, tell us exactly what happens, and I will be that much more eager to read the manuscript (advice on successful queries here).
Some writers think they have an amazing and unique idea (and some genuinely do) and therefore they don’t want to reveal the ending in a query, but every idea is about execution. No matter how great your plot, I still need to see it come together. So revealing a plot twist isn’t the end of the world…it will at least give me a teaser of the book itself. (For more info on describing plot in a query letter, follow the link.)
I spent five years as a literary agent, and I saw tens of thousands of queries. Hire me be your query letter editor, and I’ll help you avoid common traps and rise above the slush.
Howdy, readers! Summer has been a bit slow on the blog. Do not fear. After Labor Day, starting next Wednesday, September 7th, the posts will once again be full steam ahead. In the meantime, I’ve been meaning to open the blog up to another critique connection post since early summer, and here it is.
Before I do, let me tell you about the latest Writer’s Digest webinar I’m doing. In July, I offered a picture book craft intensive, focusing very specifically on writing for the youngest readers. It was my first “specialized” webinar and it was an overwhelming success. (Thank you so much to everyone who listened to that one! I’m digging into critiques for it right now!) On September 15th at 1 p.m. Eastern, I am offering a Middle Grade and Young Adult Craft Intensive webinar.
This 90-minute webinar will focus exclusively into the craft of writing fiction for the middle grade and young adult audience. I’ll talk about the marketplace, strategies to really make your novel stand out in the slush, character, plotting, tension, description, setting, voice, submissions, queries, and much more. It’s the first time I’ll be focusing exclusively on MG and YA, so even if you’ve taken one of my webinars before, you will be getting brand new content. You can sign up by clicking here.
The bonus of my webinars, as many of you already know, is that they include a critique from me for every registered student. For this one, I will read and critique the first 500 words of your MG or YA novel (one project per student, please). Instructions for submitting will come when you register for the webinar.
If you’re having scheduling issues with the time or date, don’t worry. By signing up, you will receive a recording of the webinar (emailed about one week after the original webinar date), you will have the same chance to ask questions as the other students, and you will still get your critique. So sign up even if the time or date doesn’t work for you!
This brings us to Critique Connection. I’ve done these posts in the past and leave the comments open so that you can connect with potential critique partners. Here’s what you need to post:
Your genre (ie: fantasy, paranormal, realistic, historical, etc.)
Your audience (ie: picture book, MG, YA, etc.)
A little about your manuscript (practice your one-line “elevator pitch”)
What you want out of the experience (a critique of your XX,000-word mss., someone to read your first 3 chapters, help with your query letter, etc.)
Your email address for potential partners to contact you (I’d type it in the following format: mary at kidlit dot com so that you avoid spam bots.)
Only post a comment for this entry if you are looking for a critique partner. I will leave it up until after Labor Day to get the most exposure for it. And while you’re thinking of getting critique, do sign up for my webinar!
Often, when I see writing voice from a newer writer or one who has just come out of a fiction class, I flag that it’s time to “kill your darlings.” Usually it’s a result of overwriting. Basically, overwriting is a sense that the prose (and the writer behind it) is trying too hard to get their point across or impress the reader. It’s a chronic inability to kill your darlings. Sometimes I wonder if people who overwrite are trying to live up to some idea of “fiction writer” that exists in their heads … a scribe who uses $10 words and milks every image and otherwise packs every sentence until it’s dragging and bloated. They want to make sure we get they’re a real writer. Sometimes this process is at the front of their mind, sometimes it happens without them realizing.
Dramatic scenes, high emotion, and moody setting are main traps for overwrought writing.
There are two types of overwriting that I see the most often.
Overwriting in Images
Lots of overwrought writing lives in the images. Writers often see perfect images in prose — images that work well — and they try their hand at creating something comparable, not knowing that the key to most perfect images is a) simplicity and b) isolation. Or they hear that images are supposed to be an objective correlative (a parallel for emotion). Maybe they know to load images with meaning, so they do their best to create multiple layers with each description (more tips on writing descriptions here). Or they hear that words are supposed to be mimetic of the action they’re describing, so they really bring out the active verbs. These are all fine instincts and great fiction craft tips, but they could easily go awry. For example:
Cold starlight shattered across the inky black-velvet expanse of the searching night. The frozen air sliced the last of the warmth from Cassandra’s lungs as she choked in a sputtering breath.
Wow! Lot’s of tension there. Each verb is razor-sharp and engineered to convey drama: “shattered,” “sliced,” and “choked.” The stars and the night sky are hostile (“cold” and “searching”). Cassandra is obviously in a dark and unfriendly world.
But imagine if every sentence was like this. Or every image worked this hard. It would get downright exhausting to read. Which brings me to the next sign of overwriting…
Hitting the Reader Over the Head
Simplicity is the natural opposite of overwriting (I’m Team Simplicity, or maybe Team Kill Your Darlings, if anyone is wondering). Just as overwrought description is common in overwriting, it often goes hand in hand with its sister troll: hitting the reader over the head. In the example above, the world was hostile and cold. We got it. Redundancy is another way that a writer can hit their reader over the head.
This often happens when the writer thinks of not just one perfect image (their imagination is mightier than that!) but two or even three. Instead of opting for simplicity and choosing the one perfect image to convey what they mean, they go ahead and cram all three in. Let’s go back to poor Cassandra:
She grasped her cloak like a drowning woman grabbing a slippery lifeline. Her fingers scratched for the moth-worn fabric but it pulled apart like gossamer spiderweb. A tattered seam split down Cassandra’s side as she hugged the coat to herself, the noise like ice crumbling from a glacier, and the gape let in a stab of steel-cold night.
Simplicity in Writing Voice
We get it! It’s still cold and now her jacket’s a broken mess. This writer (me) really wanted the reader to get Cassandra’s desperation, so they introduced us to the image of a drowning woman. Next, I really wanted you to get that the coat is insubstantial … cue spiderweb metaphor. Then, just for fun, I loved the noise of ice separating from the glacier and I wanted to toss it on the heap (plus, this reinforces that — news flash — it’s really cold out there…genius!).
One of these images would’ve been fine. Two is pushing it. Three, and then all the extra cold imagery heaped on top? That’s overwrought writing. Pick one image and make it do the work instead of piling on every single thing you can think of. If you’ll notice, overwriting stops action. We’ve had five sentences and only two (more like one and a half) pieces of information: it’s cold, and Cassandra’s jacket isn’t great, which relates back to the cold. A lot of room to kill your darlings here.
Developing Your Writing Voice
Writers often get bored with the simple. A great example is the word “said.” To show off their chops (and their online thesaurus), they whip out all kinds of fancy “said” synonyms: “chortled,” “shrieked,” “argued.” Well, this is an amateur error because “said” blends in and it simply works. It doesn’t stop the action while the reader notices what a clever word you’re using, it keeps things flowing. Writers often think they’re saying something too simple, so they decide to jazz it up by going out of their way to say it differently.
This is where overwriting always swoops in. I understand it completely. Writers are chomping at the bit to write, to make up a new image, to really get their point across. But sometimes the simplest way of saying something — a way that’s still artful and expressive but also restrained — is the best. When you’re trying to show off in the prose, you lose sight of your real purpose: to tell a tale. When you’re trying to be understood through multiple images and repetition, you’re not giving your reader enough credit. Overwriting is all about trying too hard. Simplicity is all about letting the craft and the story speak for themselves. Face the facts and kill your darlings.
Voice can be extremely tricky when learning to write fiction. Hire me to do developmental editing on your writing voice.
Are you excited to write books that teach life lessons? Read on! I’ve been thinking a lot about picture books because I recently taught a Writer’s Digest webinar craft intensive all about them (more advice about writing picture books here). Now that I’m digging into the critiques for the webinar, I wanted to reinforce a point that I made about books that teach life lessons.
I don’t want books that teach life lessons! Entertain me!
The Problem With Books That Teach Life Lessons
Overt picture book lessons make agents and editors squirm. Books that teach life lessons come to the page with an agenda, and that kind of moralizing in picture books rarely turns out well. Now, don’t get me wrong…the best picture books all contain big, universal ideas. They all aim to leave the reader with an emotional experience or a realization.
The difference between masterful picture books and those written by writers who maybe haven’t honed their craft quite yet, though, is that the masterful picture books get their point across without preaching overtly.
An Example of Preaching and Moralizing
For example, if you want to write a picture book about a stubborn girl named Tally who learns that sometimes compromise is good, too (because what parent wouldn’t like to teach their kids this lesson?), you would never write:
And then Tally learned that she could let her sisters choose the movie once in a while, and it would still be a lot more fun!
You may have a lesson in mind, but it has to be uncovered by the reader in the context of a) a character’s experience, and b) a larger story. If you find yourself coming out and saying the lesson, you are hitting it too much on the nose and it’s very likely that your story is skewing didactic.
Basically, you’re working too hard and being too obvious. The best books that teach life lessons are subtle, and they inspire the reader to come to their own conclusions without hitting them over the head.
How to Tell If Your Picture Book Is Didactic
Here’s a simple litmus test that I’ve been asking writers to apply to theirbooks that teach life lessons:
If you remove the lesson at the end, does the story stand alone?
For example, if Tally’s entire picture book is about how she won’t compromise and she won’t compromise and finally, is surprised when her first compromise works out well, then the plot serves the lesson. It doesn’t stand alone. If we took out the moral of the story, we would take away the plot because each event has been in direct service to the obvious ending. (More on picture book plots.)
How to Impart a Picture Book Moral Without Preaching
The best picture books are good stories (a very basic definition of “story”: a memorable character faces and overcomes conflict, is changed by the experience), first and foremost. The big picture idea and any picture book lessons are then delicately layered over and under the plot.
But if we take the lesson away and your plot crumbles, you’ve been leaning too heavily on only using your book to prove a point. Find your character. Find your conflict. Go back to the drawing board and stop attacking your moral so directly.
(There are, of course, obvious exceptions. Books that teach life lessons are a hit with some institutional publishers, and people need them for teaching aides, etc. Also, you are free to teach if you are writing non-fiction, obviously. Here I’m just talking about story-driven picture books for the trade market.)
Are you worried that your picture book isn’t hitting the right note? Hire me as your picture book editor and I will help you stay on message while telling a great story.
This question about email query letter formatting and best practices for an email submission comes from Helen:
My question concerns a query letter sent via email submission. When an editor, publisher or agent requests email submissions with the manuscript cut and pasted into the body of the e-mail, Is there a way to keep the proper submission format? I have experimented with techniques and looked in help, but have not found a way to keep the formatting once I hit the send button.
Preparing your email query letter? Don’t let email submission formatting woes keep you up all night…
The Only Email Query Letter Formatting Secret You’ll Ever Need
It is almost fruitless to stress about email query letter formatting. No matter what you do on your end, the editor or agent’s email client might just tinker with things on the receiving side. (If that isn’t enough to keep you up at night!) Do the best you can and remember the universal truth: we’ve most likely seen much, much worse in the email submission game.
There’s a lot of anxiety about the query letter and typos and formatting (like, a LOT of anxiety). Those are important and you should pay careful attention to what you’re doing, but, in the grand scheme of things, the writing is the star of any submission package and that’s what I’m paying the most attention to.
There are definitely considerations to email query letter format. Focus there. Otherwise, a great tip is this: Copy and paste everything from Word (or whatever) into an email and send it to yourself. Then copy and paste future email query letter versions from that email. Pasting from email into email tends to be a lot less wonky than pasting from Word (or another application) into email. This way, if your email submission test message contains any suspect formatting, you can see it and fix it before you submit more widely. (More on sending query letters to agents.)
If you’re looking to burn off some nervous energy, worry about the manuscript. It’s of paramount importance and the rest of this stuff slides like water off a duck’s back after we start reading. Just do your best with query, personalization, and formatting.
Hire me as your query letter editor and we’ll nail your pitch. Trust me, the content is much more important here than the format.
Your story opening line is what pulls the reader in. Here are some of my favorite first lines from PB, MG and YA books. Some of these you’ve heard me read live. Others are recent releases or old favorites. Without any further ado, here’s an analysis of a novel’s opening line from published works and why they work so well.
Your story opening line has the power to draw your reader in. Are you making the most of it?
Story Opening Line: Picture Book
On the outside Bernadette was mostly monsterly.
This super cute beginning to MOSTLY MONSTERLY by Tammi Sauer, illo. Scott Magoon (Paula Wiseman Books, 2010) sets up the expectation that Bernadette (a monster) doesn’t quite fit in. There’s the old internal conflict established: I don’t match people’s expectations for me.
Little Mabel blew a bubble, and it caused a lot of trouble.
So begins BUBBLE TROUBLE by Margaret Mahy, illo. Polly Dunbar (Clarion Books, 2008). And, no, you don’t have to work the book’s title into your first line, though both of these examples have. This is a very simple statement of conflict that, in picture books, at least, works very, very well to launch us into the story.
On her birthday, Eva was given a very special present.
This is from MAGIC BOX by Katie Cleminson (Hyperion, 2009). It’s a whimsical PB tale and the first line isn’t a statement of conflict as much as it is a call to adventure (see my choice from FROM THE MIXED UP FILES… below for a MG example). The question raised here, of course, is: What was in the box?
Story Opening Line: Middle Grade
Once upon a time, fairy tales were awesome.
From A TALE DARK AND GRIMM by Adam Gidwitz (Dutton, 2010). This is a book of twisted fairy tales where the author basically runs amok with the story of Hansel and Gretel. The whole thesis of the book is expressed in the opening line: “They were awesome, sure, but then they got lame, so here’s a truly awesome retelling.” It also plays with the familiar “once upon a time” and introduces the voice (“awesome” is a certain term spoken by a certain type of person…me, for example).
I was raised in a gaunt house with a garden; my earliest recollections are of floating lights in the apple-trees.
Since you were probably expecting me to quote from the M.T. Anderson canon with FEED (the first line of which most of us children’s publishing professionals have memorized), I decided to change it up a bit with THE ASTONISHING LIFE OF OCTAVIAN NOTHING, TRAITOR TO THE NATION, VOLUME 1 (Candlewick, 2006). There’s some lovely writing here, and a ghostly image of lights in the trees that recurs. We can also sense, right away, Octavian’s loneliness. The house is “gaunt,” which doesn’t seem very nourishing to a child, and his first memories aren’t people, they’re faraway twinkles in the treetops. A haunting first line.
Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away.
This is from the old favorite, FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER by E.L. Konigsburg (Aladdin, 1967). It plunges us into a) action and b) the narrator’s matter-of fact voice right away. We know that Claudia is running away, but also that she’s craving an adventure that’s much more epic than just, say, what I used to do when I mock ran away as a kid (went down the street to Kepler’s bookstore). Lots of action and momentum here. (And boy does Claudia ever pull off her goal of adventure!)
There is no lake at Camp Green Lake.
Louis Sachar and his Newbery-winning HOLES (Random House, 1998) hit us with trademark humor right away. No matter what happens from here, we know that we’re in for a zany ride. But rather than just being funny, this first line introduces us to the kind of contrarian narrator who would point out such a delicious detail, too.
Ms. McMartin was definitely dead.
This is from THE BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE by Jacqueline West (Dial, 2010) and it plunges us into action right away, too. Who is this woman? How did she die? Did the characters have anything to do with it? It doesn’t really hint at the fantasy nature of the novel and doesn’t really pass the vague test (follow the link for more tips on what makes a good novel first line), but I like this book and it starts with a bang!
Story Opening Line: Young Adult
In these dungeons the darkness was complete, but Katsa had a map in her mind.
This is, of course, from GRACELING by Kristin Cashore (Harcourt, 2008). What is Katsa doing in prison? What did she do to get there? Better yet, it seems like she has a plan to get out. And how come she knows the dungeon layout so well? This plunges us into action and excels at raising the stakes immediately. Pay attention to all the questions each of these novel opening lines have been raising. They’re intense and urgent.
They took me in my nightgown.
This is from the beautiful BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY by Ruta Sepetys (Philomel, 2011), about a girl deported with her family to Siberia during WWII. Not only does it give us action, but it also conveys a crucial mood for the events: helplessness. By emphasizing that it was night, that she was in her nightgown and vulnerable, we really lock in on an emotional connection right away.
The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don’t got nothing much to say.
Ha! I love this first line from THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO by Patrick Ness (Candlewick, 2008). And Manchee (the dog) is one of my favorite characters in anything I’ve read in the past ten years. This line introduces the core relationship of the story, the dialect, and the odd fact that, in this world, at least, dogs talk (in terms of world-building, this lets us know there’s a fantasy element). The humor can’t be beat, either.
There you have it: an analysis of a story opening line, grabbed at random from my shelves. Enjoy and discuss! Tell me some of your published favorites in the comments.
When you hire me as your children’s book editor, I’ll give you feedback on all aspects of your story: from the overall plot to the nitty-gritty of your story opening line.
