Starting Your Story

Posted on February 16, 2018 by Brian C. Kaufman

Story openings are daunting. Just starting out can freeze a writer. Like a golf swing, there are so many things to bear in mind:

  • Grab the reader.
  • Introduce the POV protagonist.
  • Initiate character and thematic arcs.
  • Start immediately with the inciting incident.
  • Craft a memorable first line.

These bits of advice (grab the reader is more of a demand) can freeze a writer at the keyboard. At the risk of turning a natural chill to perma-frost, let me add one more bit of advice that might help with the rest. Start simple.

Let me explain with an example from music. When I was in my twenties, I played guitar in several rock bands. A friend (who looked like Bob Denver from Gilligan’s Island and played like Eric Clapton) had the same advice for soloing. “Start simple. Play a few licks they’ve heard before you launch off into your crazy shit. If you give them something fun they can wrap their heads around, they’ll stick with you.” (For non-musicians, a lick is a stock pattern or phrase that catches the ear…a hook.)

I offer this reader-friendly advice for your opening prose. Start simple. Don’t use complicated or cluttered sentences. Don’t be abstract. Don’t be overly poetic. Save your adjective and adverb modifiers for later. Let readers get the rhythm of your prose before you yank them down your dark path.

As an editor, I often see story openings that try to impress with complex poetics, only to slip back into the author’s natural voice. That change of voice is a death knell for a submission.

Instead, focus on your characters and plot. This means that in the hierarchy of imperatives, where you start your story is more important than how you start. When you revise, ask yourself the question would-be time travelers ask: What would I change if I knew then what I know now?  Writing a novel? You started months or years ago. Luckily, authors can go back in time, knowing full well how things turned out.

In fact, your story’s opening may just be the last thing you write before finishing the novel. And when you revisit that opening, my advice still holds true. Start simple. Let the story unfold—you have miles of pages to go before the end.

Interested in some inspiration? Visit the following website, which opening lines thought to be the best in the history of literature:                http://americanbookreview.org/100BestLines.asp

Some of these classic lines don’t follow my advice. Can you spot which ones?

 

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Kill Your Adverbs

Posted on January 9, 2018 by Brian C. Kaufman

Stephen King said, “I believe the road to Hell is paved with adverbs.” But the pesky devils sneak into your fiction—pull out any work-in-progress and there they are, lurking.

According to author Beth Ann Erickson, schools are still teaching adverbs as a noble and honorable part of sentence structure. “Just before school finished for the year, my son came home from his sixth-grade class with a homework assignment involving adverbs. I’ve never seen so many ly words in my life!”

Invoking shame (bad adverbs!) will not undo the damage of a good public education. Perhaps an explanation of why adverbs are verboten is in order.

We live in a fast-paced world, and the day of the slow read (which coincided, by the way, with authors who were paid by the word) is over. Readers want to “get to the meat,” and adverbs are filler.

Consider, “He skipped merrily.” How do you skip morosely? Don’t waste your reader’s time adding an adverb to a verb that means the same thing. If you write, “she trudged slowly through the field,” it will force your reader to do the same thing with your prose.

Adverbs can support weak verbs, but if a verb is weak, why subject your reader to it? Lazy writers use easy verbs and then try to pin down meaning with an adverb. Work for the right verb instead.

Adverbs “hedge” the truth. “The man nearly died” makes no sense in terms of either life or death. The observation that “he apparently failed” doesn’t address failure, it addresses appearances of failure. “He probably lied” hides an accusation behind a modifier. Writing is about honesty, and adverbs can shift your prose away from the truth.

Worst of all, adverbs don’t “show,” they “tell.” Active, well-chosen verbs “show.” Which of the following is more active, more immediate? “She smiled crazily,” or “She smiled, her mouth open and wet, her eyes wide, gazing at, or rather, through him.” Instead of noting the white-knuckle grip of a man on the arms of his chair, or observing the way he squeaks the vinyl when he shifts in his seat, adverbs tell us that the man is “sitting nervously.”

Armed now with good reasons, and your desire to create readable fiction, go forth and kill your adverbs. Erase them, delete them.

Quickly, now.

 

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It Wasn’t

Posted on October 12, 2016 by Brian C. Kaufman

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…” ~Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

All respects to Charles Dickens, who wrote great, sprawling novels that have lasted generations. But his use of “it”  in this famous passage drives me crazy. Pronouns stand in for noun phrases, and refer to someone or something mentioned elsewhere in the writing. Any possible confusion is supposed to be mitigated by using the pronoun to represent the most recently mentioned noun. But pronouns muddling is common. For example, if two women are talking, which “she” does the writer mean? A skillful passage will drop names or use action to keep pronouns clear.

But “it,” the indefinite pronoun, takes the confusion to a whole new level. Writers often use phrases like “It couldn’t be worse” to refer to an unspoken situation just described (as being bad) but not named. The pronoun hangs out there with no visible attachment.

Or, “it” may be self-referencing, as in “It was a sunny day.” In unpacking the meaning, we discover that “The sunny day was a sunny day.”

Multiple uses of the indefinite pronoun invariably lead to “its” that refer to different things. And “it” easily pairs with passive, to-be verbs (“it was” is a common offender). Take a moment to revisit the famous Dickens passage and ask the question, “What does it refer to?”

Yet, you’ll see “it” in most published works (including some of mine). The indefinite pronoun is easy to use. I leave “it” alone in dialog—people talk that way—but I find that when replacing “it” in non-dialog prose, I’m forced to come up with clear subjects and active verbs, which improves the writing.

So, cut “it” out.

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