Page 98

From Writer Unboxed:

I’m writing this post in a public library. It isn’t a research library, the awesome university kind where you might go to dig up fabulous story details. It’s a humble branch library. The patrons are either kids from the nearby high school or their moms. The adult fiction shelves are not deeply stocked with classic novels but rather with plastic-jacketed titles from recent decades, the kind of stuff that regular people want to read.

It’d say that 70% of the fiction titles on the shelves are mysteries and thrillers. We’ll come back to that.

First, a nod to my fellow WU contributor Ray Rhamey. His monthly Flog a Pro posts are popular, and with good reason: They highlight first pages and ask us to judge them, yes or no, would you turn to the second page or not? Brilliant.

Ray knows a lot about first pages. His website has a checklist of things that a first page should accomplish. There are two primary areas. With respect to character, something should go wrong or challenge the character; the character should desire something; the character should take action. With respect to setting, the reader should be oriented, what’s happening should be happening “now” not “then”, set up isn’t needed.

The final element is a story question. Got all that and you get a gold star. I like Ray’s checklist; it is a good, basic starting point for beginnings, which bring us right away into the story action and are how the vast majority of manuscripts begin. Ray is the first to say that his checklist is only a guideline and that’s wise. There are many ways to open a novel besides kickstarting the action. There are atmosphere openings and voice openings (sometimes called the letter to the reader) among a variety of other approaches.

Whatever the opening strategy, in my observation effective openings offer us the following:

• Commanding voice. Skillful language, sonority and cadence lull us into the semi-dream state in which story begins to seem real. I’ve written about that previously HERE.
• Character presence. Whether first person or third, close or distant, we are anchored in a character and strongly sense who that character is. Furthermore, we have a reason to care about, identify with or hope for that character.
• Intrigue. This is commonly understood as story question, the puzzle unsolved, the mini-mystery that doesn’t yet have an answer. Intrigue, though, can be anything anomalous, odd, out of the ordinary, curious or leading. The crude application of intrigue is seen in thriller hook lines, but there are many other ways get us interested.
• Story expectation. The type of story experience we’ll have is signaled through tone, sensibility and word choice. I’ve written previously about promise words HERE.
• Necessary knowledge. This is emphatically NOT set up. Set up is the unneeded explanation of how the story circumstances came about. It assumes that the reader is a dummy, unable to understand or accept why a story is happening. Necessary knowledge, on the other hand, tells us something specific about person, place or story that is different enough as to be critical to the verisimilitude of the story we’re going to read, or at least is unique detail or unusual perspective that, paradoxically, contributes to the illusion of reality.
• Mood. Our frame of mind is set. Stories can be broken down into two fundamental categories, invoking in us either fear or hope. Gloom sends us one way. Delight sends us another. As with the underlying musical score in a movie, we’re emotionally prepared.
• Story world. We find ourselves in a place which is not only particular—a place which we can imagine in the mind’s eye—but a place in which we sense that things are going to happen. Big things. Significant things. Meaningful things.

However, my post today is not about openings. I’m fairly confident that the opening of your WIP is going to bring us some, if not much, of what I’ve identified above. My post today, rather, is about page 98.

When we are that deep into your novel, is page 98 still bringing us stuff which engages, intrigues, informs, sways, and suggests to us that there is more to come? Is there still a strong feeling of character, sensibility, and promise? Do we find ourselves in a particular mood or frame of mind?

Or to put it simply, is page 98 as good as page 1? To find out how—or even whether—that can happen, let’s go back to the library.

Link to the rest at Writer Unboxed