Let's Start At The Very Beginning

If you are not familiar with the musical The Sound of Music then A.) I feel very sorry for you and B.) You probably do not realize that the title of this post is a lyric from the Do-Re-Mi song from The Sound of Music, which is why there is a picture from that musical at the top of this post.

Not that this post has anything to do with The Sound of Music, it does however have to do with beginnings. Beginnings of books to be precise.

You see this weekend I worked on revising Chapter 1 of my WIP (and I'll talk more about the whole revision process as always during my WIP Wednesday posting) which I am now officially calling Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. I'd settled on this title several months ago, but it wasn't official until last night when my husband, Andy, looking over my shoulder, saw the title and said that he liked it. He might even have said that he really liked it. This was amazing, because Andy's usual response to my titles is more like, "Really? That's your title?"

Luckily, he is much more encouraging in all other aspects of my writing, so I guess I'll keep him around. Andy hasn't actually read any of my WIP errr... BTDATDBS yet though, so once he reads it there is a very good chance he will tell me that the title doesn't fit at all.

Anyway, it just so happened that while I was working on this first chapter there was a discussion going on in my Passionate Critters group about writing a first sentence that hooks the readers. The difficulty of this and the questionable importance of this first sentence was debated, and I found myself wondering how effective my own first sentence was.

I also thought about what draws me into a book. As I mentioned last week in my Musing Monday post, I am a big believer in the first page test when deciding whether or not I want to read a book. This isn't to say that I always read the whole first page, but I don't think I've read only the first sentenced and then closed the book and placed it back on the shelf, knowing without a doubt that it wasn't for me. Usually I'll give a book at the very least a paragraph or two to give me a sense as to whether or not I'll like it.

I've also mentioned in a past post that Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes was a book that I fell in love with right there in the middle of the bookstore after reading the first page.

However, If I only had to go by the first sentence I don't know if I would have been hooked.

"My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born."

That's it for the first sentence. Are you hooked? There isn't really any action there, but there is some heavy foreshadowing and also a hint of the writer's voice.

For another opinion I Googled through the always amazing past posts of Nathan Bransford's blog - specifically some of this past contests, which interestingly enough started with the first sentence, moved onto the first paragraph, and then the whole first page. All this focus on beginnings should be enough to tell us that they are important.

In the first sentence contest here is how Nathan's co-judge summed up what really grabbed them:

"In looking over the finalists, I realize I tend to like the ones that leave you wanting to know what they mean. They don't necessarily ask a question, but pose a situation that you want to know more about. I guess that's what a first line is supposed to do—draw you in—but it's interesting to see how it works."

Okay, but what if you first sentence doesn't do that? Or do it enough to win the contest? Can you build upon an okay first sentence to have a great first paragraph?

Here again is Angela's Ashes.

"My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born. Instead, they returned to Ireland when I was four, my brother, Malachy, three, the twins, Oliver and Eugene, barely one, and my sister, Margaret, dead and gone."

For me the voice really builds here, maybe it is that brief mention of Ireland, but I start to hear the lilt of an accent. The listing of all the siblings while it could be boring, also draws me in because you note how close in age they are, and then it ends with the heartbreaking news that one sibling is already "dead and gone".

And what did Mr. Bransford have to say about the importance of the first paragraph while anouncing the finalist for one of his first paragraph contests?

"I was reading these paragraphs for clues. Clues on whether someone has a novel that I can sell. Because selling is the thing. People want to be eased into a novel. They don't want to be throttled by first paragraphs. They want the scene to be set and the characters revealed. They want subtlety, and proper word choice, grammar, sentence structure, and seamless readability. Clues that the rest of the package is a sure thing."

Finally, the full page. Actually, this isn't the totally full page of Angela's Ashes, but most of it. I'll stop at the point where I knew I was hooked good and deep.

"When I look back at my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.

People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father, the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years.

Above all-we were wet."

It was that last line that hooked me. After that long list of items, each one sadder and more horrible than the next - you get this little glint of humor, that oddly makes it all the more poignant. There also almost a feeling of poetry in these words, that also made me want to read this page again and then every page that came thereafter.

Again, back to Nathan Bransford's blog and his first page contest. Apparently, there was some grumbling after the finalists for this contest were announced and Mr. Bransford addresses those grumblings and also explains how he chose the finalist.

"A first page really can do (basically) four things: reveal the setting, reveal the characters, reveal the plot, and/or reveal the style. There were many first pages (just as there are many wonderful books) that started off with a wonderfully evocative setting, there were many that started off with wonderful characters, an intriguing plot and/or an interesting style. You could find all sorts of wonderful books that start with a combination of one, two, three, or four of these elements (ATONENMENT, for instance, begins with a fascinating character, Briony, organizing a play with McEwan's intricate style)."

I would argue that Frank McCourt in his first page hit all four of these elements. Setting he hits really hard. Characters - again yes. We get all the siblings and we know the father is an alcoholic and are also given the first glimpse of the titled Angela, the mother "moaning by the fire". Plot is probably the least of these, but the book isn't one with a very strong plot and really just follows his miserable childhood, which he sets up for us right at the beginning. And finally, style, or voice, and again I think this one is evident from the first sentence up to the last one.

Now you tell me: How important are beginnings to you, both in the books that you read and write. Would the first page of Angela's Ashes have drawn you in as a reader? Do you agree with Nathan Bransford's thoughts? And is it most important to hook the reader with the first sentence, first paragraph, first page, or all three?

Blonking and Read This NOW!

I've been on a one post a week thing lately, which while consistent, it is also a bit on the low side for a blog. So I am posting today (two whole days before the one week mark!) with a posting that what it lacks in having a main thesis or idea, makes it up in having lots and lots of links! That's right - it's time for another blonk.

Today's blonk, in keeping with this blog's overall writing theme and in honor of my own made-up term of "blonking", begins with looking at the beauty of sniglets - which is a made-up word to describe other made-up words that should appear in the dictionary, but don't.

Part of writing is having fun with langauge, and sometimes when you are in the middle of a scene and suddenly you can't think of that word you just need for your sentence, and bits of the word keep floating up in your mind, but when you try to grab them it is like trying to catch dust motes wafting through sunlight - well, then it doesn't seem like much fun. That's the beauty of sniglets - they're just a silly good time. Some of my favorites include:

Arachnidiot (ar ak ni' di ot) - n. A person, who, having wandered into an "invisible" spider web, begins gyrating and flailing about wildly. (The porch off my apartment is a spider resort. Every night I can look out and see them sipping at their dead-fly daquiries, and come the morning when I have to go out and water my plants - the wild flailing inevitably begins.)

Brattled (brat' uld) - adj. The unsettling feeling, at a stoplight, that the busload of kids that just pulled up beside you is making fun of you. (I rode the bus until midway through high school and can actually not remember one incidence of noticing any other cars on the road at all - unless they contained other students that someone knew. Nonetheless, I do still get brattled, probably because I remember those brats on the bus so well...)

Oreosis (awr ee oh' sis) - n. The practice of eating the cream center of an Oreo before eating the cookie outsides. (Okay, this one is more of an "awww" cause my son does this - I think it just must be a human instinct thing.)


My other blonk has to do with the age-old debate over what to call insanely sugary carbonated beverages, and awesomely enough has been captured in map form. Now I grew up in a household and area that were clearly pro-pop. That place is Buffalo, NY and we pronounced the word "pop" like we say most things - through our noses. For some reason in my early college years, I decided it was more cool, mature, and/or cosmopolitan to refer to it as soda, and have continued to do so until this past summer when I was visiting my family and heard my mom ask me, my sisters, my son, my nieces, everyone else about a hundred times if they wanted any pop. And for some reason when I returned home, it stuck in my head, and now when I open my mouth to say soda, the word pop comes out instead. I am sure this says something very revealing about me... but I'm not quite sure what exactly that is.


Okay, that's all of my blonks for today, but I am adding another element to these free-form posts called Read this NOW!

This new section was inspired by my former post of the same name. I was going to call it recommended reading, but that sounds too laid back for the books that I want to talk about which are ones that have grabbed me from the first page and refused to let go until I finished the entire book - sometimes only hours later. These are the type of books that if I got them from the library, I want to own them, so that I can read them again and again. These are also the books I want everyone I meet to read, so they can feel what I feel - just don't expect me to lend you my new copy - I am a book grinch.

The first book in Read this NOW! is an older one - Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. Talk about grabbing me from the first page - It was probably almost ten years ago, but I can still remember with perfect clarity the exact place I was standing in the bookstore (that is now closed) and the display of paperback books that Angela's Ashes was sitting among. This was at a time when I had no interest in reading anything other than fiction, but when I picked up the book and read the first paragraph I was converted - instantly and irrevocably. Since then the world of non-fiction has opened up to me, and I have a much richer reading life because of it - but Angela's Ashes started it all. If you haven't read it - at least follow the amazon link above and read that first page and see if it hits you as hard as it did me... Read it NOW!

These Are the Books of My Life

It's time for another blog chain, and for this round it is my turn to choose the topic.

Now in our many months on the chain we have discussed many writing related topics from characters, to angst, to even two chains back showing off a bit of our mad short story writing skillz.

This time though, I'd like to focus on the flip side of the writing coin - reading.

Specifically, what books have influenced you? This can be books that influenced you as a writer, or simply books that touched you as a human being. If you want to talk about one book, a top three, ten, or even twenty go right ahead.

For me though, there is no way I can pick and choose, or try to limit my picks in anyway. Rather I'd like to acknowledge the various books in my life the same way that the stars receiving an Oscar at the Academy Awards do - with a long-winded seemingly endless list read loud while the Orchestra (you'll just have to go ahead and imagine this part) plays the "get off the damn stage already" music in the background.


So, thank you to all the books I've read in my life. You've been there for the sitting by the pool times and huddled beneath the blankets with the itty-bitty book light times. You were there when I needed pick-me-ups or distractions. You were good for escape and also inspiration. From library books and ones I've purchased, to the ones well-meaningly lent to me by friends that I conveniently forgot to give back - thank you all.

There are too many of you to list, and I know that I'll forgot ones that meant more to me than I can say, but I'm going to try and give props to the ones that I can.

Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein were some of my earliest books from the library.

Next came Beverly Cleary's Ramona series and then everything ever written by Judy Blume.

I discovered the joy of science fiction from Anne McCaffrey and her various series of Pern, Krystal singers, and telepaths.

I fell in love with classics like To Kill A Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, Anne of Green Gables (and everything else written by LM Montgomery), Little Women (and Little Men), A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, Where the Red Fern Grows, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Joy in the Morning, The Scarlet Letter, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and so many more that I am no doubt forgetting to list.

There was Christopher Pike's Remember Me that I had to sneak out of my older sister's underwear drawer because she didn't like me reading the same books as her.

Then came the time when I was old enough for "adult" books and began to borrow from my grandmother's selection. The first I remember was Beaches. Yep, the same as the movie. I felt so proud reaching such a grown-up book.

When I finished that one I started digging into my grandmother's stacks of Mary Higgins Clark, Sidney Sheldon, Lavyrle Spencer, Julie Garwood, Jude Deveraux, Judith Krantz, Judith McNaught, and again many more than I can remember.

By this time I had fallen fully in love with the romance genre and was trying to get my hands on everything I could. It was around this time that I discovered Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Fancy Pants and I was in love. I read everything of hers that I could get my hands on.

A few years later when I found Jennifer Crusie and Janet Evanovich, I felt much the same way.

More recently I've come to love memoirs, a genre that I never would have thought I'd find interesting. A few times already on this blog I've mentioned Angela's Ashes and it's effect on me. Other memoirs I've read and loved are: everything by David Sedaris (although technically not quite memoir, honestly these brilliant little essays defy categorization), Running With Scissors (the two sequels aren't bad either), The Liars' Club, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (difficult to get through, but worth it), and A Girl Named Zippy ( the sequel to this, as well as her fiction works are pretty amazing as well.)

In other non-fiction that I have known and loved. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto (again his other books were great as well), The Omnivore's Dilemma, and Into Thin Air (and then this book so fascinated me with the story of Everest I also read High Crimes, another book by a different author about the same topic).

Is the Orchestra getting louder? Okay, okay, I'm getting close to the end.

Other books in no particular order.
The Book Thief (just read this one last month).
A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews. OMG this book was gorgeous. Read this a little over two years ago and it just sticks with me.
Books by Melissa Banks.
The Tomorrow When The War Began series. This is another one I just love too too much.

And finally two books that gave me sanity and order after I had my son Jamie. The Happiest Baby on the Block and Secrets of the Baby Whisperer. See? Books really do influence each and every part of my life.

Ooooh, I know I am forgetting so many books. In fact there are books out there in the universe that I forgot the title and as much as I would love to read them again, I cannot (mostly ones that I got from the library, but one was a book my older sister owned and knowing I LOVED it, she sold it at a garage sale. She really did not like me reading her books.).


Anyway, that's it for me. To find out what books the rest of the blog chainers have loved (and perhaps, like me, even lost) head on over to Michelle McLean's Writer Ramblings next.

PS. All the pics are from an artist called Quint Buchholz.