Inspired by a writing contest, I've been spending time this week trying to decide where to begin my current novel—a project I've been working on (off and on) for the last four years. This isn't the first time I've attempted to write a "beginning" for this novel, although you might think so from my current state of panic and confusion ;-)
Do I begin with dialogue? Sounds like that might be a good option. Or maybe I should try to set the mood, to begin with a lush description of a particular setting, one with special significance for my characters? On the other hand, I might introduce a character instead, maybe begin by painting a physical portrait of my protagonist (or maybe his mother, his love interest, or his malicious older brother, the novel's antagonist). Should I enter the story in the middle of an argument? Or, maybe with a question posed by my narrator? Do I invite the reader in with a strong sensory impression? How about presenting a character need, instead? Or maybe a motive? What about an action? Or should I just combine all of these things together into one long scene?
It seems there are endless possibilities—at least a thousand good alternatives and hundreds of potential doorways into each unique story. Though there may be more than one "right" beginning for this story, in the end, I suppose, I can only choose one. The idea is to incite the reader's curiosity and draw him into my novel, to write a beginning that will somehow get him to stick with me, to want to read the next page, and the next. That said, I'd better pick a beginning that works :-)
Many good writers and creative writing professors have written books and articles about how to begin a story (a novel, a memoir, or creative nonfiction). Some of my favorites: David Lodge in his book, The Art of Fiction; Sol Stein, in Stein on Writing; Nancy Kress, in Beginnings, Middles, and Ends; and many others. My favorite lesson, (one I find myself returning to again and again), comes from Josip Novakovich, award-winning author and professor of English at Penn State University. In his book: Fiction Writer's Workshop (1995) he discusses fourteen different ways an author might choose to begin a piece of fiction. As a teaser to get you to read the book, I'm listing the ways, including the examples Novakovich gives from literature. What you don't see here is the author's specific and detailed analysis, giving the advantages and disadvantages of each different way of opening your novel, short story, or memoir. From his chapter on "Beginnings and Endings":
1. Open with Setting: F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night:
On the pleasant shore of the French Riviera, about halfway between Marseilles and the Italian border, stands a large, proud, rose-colored hotel. Deferential palms cool its flushed façade, and before it stretches a short dazzling beach. Lately it has become a summer resort of notable and fashionable people…."
2. Open with an Idea: Charles Dickens' Hard Times:
"Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them…."
3. Open with a Strong Sensation: Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters:
1956. The air-conditioned darkness of the Avenue Theater smells of flowery pomade, sugary chocolates, cigarette smoke, and sweat.
4. Open with a Need or Motive: Katherine Mansfield's "Marriage a la Mode":
On his way to the station William remembered with a fresh pang of disappointment that he was taking nothing down to the kiddies. Poor little chaps! It was hard lines on them. Their first words always were as they ran to greet him, "What have you got for me, daddy?" and he had nothing.
5. Open with an Action: Irwin Shaw's "The Eighty-Yard Run":
The pass was high and wide and he jumped for it, feeling it slap flatly against his hands, as he shook his hips to throw off the halfback who was diving at him.
6. Open with Sex: Tama Janowitz's Slaves of New York:
After I became a prostitute, I had to deal with penises of every imaginable shape and size. Some large, others quite shriveled and pendulous of testicle.
7. Open with a Symbolic Object: Jean Stafford's "A Country Love Story":
An antique sleigh stood in the yard, snow after snow banked up against its eroded runners.
8. Open with a Character Portrait: Charles D'Ambrosio's "Her Real Name":
The girl's scalp looked as though it had been singed by fire—strands of thatchy red hair snaked away from her face, then settled against her skin, pasted there by sweat and sunscreen and the blown grit and dust of travel.
9. Open with a Question: Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons:
"Well, Peter, any sign of them yet?" This was the question addressed on the 20th of May, 1859, to his servant—a young and lusty fellow with whitish down on his chin and with small dim eyes—by a gentleman of just forty years of age, in a dusty overcoat and check trousers, as he emerged hatless on the low steps of a posting-station on the X highway.
10. Open with a Scene: Alexander Pushkin's "The Queen of Spades":
Card-playing was going on in the quarters of Narumov, an officer in the Guards.
11. Open with Travel: Reidar Joensson's My Life as a Dog:
The snowflakes had a hypnotic effect on me. I was getting more and more drowsy, but I needed to keep my eyes open. What if I missed my station and got off at the wrong one, rushed out into the white arctic tundra, totally dazed, only to be met by wolves who were ready to tear me to pieces! Now, that would be unforgivable and unworthy of a true Trapper.
12. Open with a Character's Thoughts: Saul Bellow's Herzog:
If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog.
13. Prediction: Richard Yates' The Easter Parade:
Neither of the Grimes sisters would have a happy life, and looking back it always seemed that the trouble began with their parents' divorce.
14. Open with an Anecdote: Anton Chekhov's "In the Ravine":
The village of Ukleyevo lay in the ravine, so that only the belfry and the chimneys of the cotton mills could be seen from the highway and the railroad station. When passers-by would ask what village it was, they were told: "That's the one where the sexton ate up all the caviar at the funeral."
Fiction Writer's Workshop (1998 version) by Josip Novakovich is available to purchase online at IndieBound.
