The Writing Life Too

Skies are Robins-egg blue and the high today is only supposed to be only 88. Cannot remember when it was below 90 around here. My new book, Thanks, But This isn’t For Us was written to help writers, especially beginning writers avoid rejection. Here’s an excerpt from chapter one:

“Remember, began with tension and immediacy. Make readers feel the story has started. They want to be in your world, not be told about it. Don’t preface—plunge in.” Jerome Stern

Dear Wannabe a Published Writer;
This isn’t a book about false promises or cheery u-rah-rahs. This book will never claim that anyone can write a best seller or become a billionaire just by typing away, or even that writing is the greatest joy, because after all we cannot forget about dancing, chocolate, and sex. Rather, it’s written by a Demon of Harsh Reality and meant as a hefty dose of reality along with encouragement to keep trying, to keep learning. Because writing is a craft and it can be learned.

When you’ve never been published it seems that all you want to do is break into the publishing world by finding an agent or editor who will believe in you. But actually what editors and agents are looking for is writers who can break out. This means instead of a book hanging out in the midlist category or in obscurity, it somehow stands out and leaps into the spotlight. So breakout equals buzz, pizzazz, mega sales and a book being called a “must read.” When a book breaks out it is infectious, popular and imitated. Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones and Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park are examples of breakout novels and Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs, Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel, and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Wells are examples of breakout memoirs. This happens for all sorts of reasons including good reviews, being picked for Oprah’s Book Club, being blurbed by a celebrity, but mostly because enthusiastic readers and booksellers spread the word about a book.

So what does this mean to an unpublished writer? It means your manuscript must be impeccable and you’ve got to think big. You need to write a compelling story, which is quite different from typing a manuscript. Lots of people can type, but not everyone can tell a story. You need to write stories that haunt readers about characters or real people they cannot forget. You want the reader to be excited about it the moment he starts reading your first words. You want him to act when he reads your book by telling all his co-workers at the agency or publishing house about your manuscript. So it’s all about buzz.
First Impressions

Let’s start at the beginning of your tale and talk about making a kickass first impression. Your story openings are like a job interview and if the words on the page entertain, you get the job. If they don’t, somebody who writes better gets the job.

The best openings of a story, novel, or memoir are contagious—they make the reader yearn for more because you’ve commenced your story by choosing the best words at the best moment to launch the events that will follow while raising questions that demand answers. After all, you’re writing for an editor, a highly discerning reader. Editors are word people. They are connoisseurs who love the written word; appreciate delicate language, carefully crafted sentences, and refinement.

Along with a knack for crafting beautiful language, your first paragraphs need to set the tone for the story to come. Especially in these days of blogging, dashed-off emails, and self-publishing, it’s important to strive for perfection. As in strutting-the-red-carpet-at-the-Academy-Awards-first impression. And your opening needs to have the impact of a starlet draped in a strapless gown and diamonds or a debonair actor in a crisp and oh-so sexy tux. It needs to dazzle and assure the reader that you can handle what follows. It needs to make a promise about the kind of story that will follow.

Promises, promises
Your opening words contain a promise to your reader: Read these pages, and I’ll transport you to a world based on your expectations, where the story events will deliver an emotionally-satisfying experience. And the unfolding events in your novel must be appropriate for the genre or type of story that you’re writing.

This works for memoir also. When a reader opens the first page of a memoir he wants to read the truth about the author’s dramatic experiences. Your opening promises that the true events of a life are fascinating and possibly horrifying. Now, your story might be a bare-assed expose′ of squalor and debauchery with your skinny-necked stepfather starring as the true-life villain. Or it might be luminous and uplifting tale of endurance, or a life story that lies somewhere in between. No matter your approach, your first words telegraph that this story will make a reader laugh, cry, and ponder truths about the human experience.

On the other hand, when a reader opens a novel he’s signing up for a pack of lies. You, the writer, are the liar and your reader is the sucker who is going to buy all these lies, hook, line and sinker as the old saying goes. It’s part of the contract that you and the reader are agreeing to. Your opening promises that you are going to tell the sort of lies that the reader specifically wants to hear. This logic is fairly simple because each genre has a built-in audience and your opening winks a come-on at that audience like a saloon girl in the Old West.

If a reader plunks down $24.95 for a fantasy or science fiction novel, he expects fantastical elements and interesting explorations of themes that perhaps cannot be explored in a story that’s based strictly on realistic elements. Of course some sci fi stories are set in today’s world because lots of chilling truths can be told about this world, especially about ecological nightmares or technology unleashed. So your opening can start in a galaxy far away or just down the street, but your opening promises that imaginative ideas will be explored.

Likewise, suspense novels are always about a crime and a criminal eluding capture. Besides the classic detective story, there are subgenres such as espionage, psychological suspense, romantic suspense, police procedural, courtroom procedural, whodunit, and cozies. Each type has varying degrees of violence and grit, but all are a thrill ride. And the opening must present a world in which all hell is about to break loose.

If you’re writing a romance, in the opening pages love will be in the air, as the lovers collide, usually appearing at an inconvenient time. In a romance, readers expect to deeply delve into the hero and heroine’s psyches, want to watch the blossoming romance falter and fizzle before it finally blooms, and want all other aspects of plot—even if it is set on another planet in the distant future—to rank secondary to the romance. But all this is promised in an opening that opens with just the right note.

An emotional opening prepares the reader for a heart-rattling journey, just as a philosophical opening promises a thoughtful exploration of themes, an action-packed opening promises a bronco-breaking ride, and a quiet beginning usually promises an intense exploration of characters’ lives.

So start with a specific promise about the story within and then, drumroll please, keep the promise.