Don’t keep me waiting...It’s all in the beginning

In the last two weeks, I have been exchanging emails with a would-be-writer infuriated with me.

This writer has even suggested I be sacked and even threatened to invoke the wrath of Kenya Publishers Association – to deal with me. Reason? Rejected work.

This writer cannot understand why I could dare reject work that has been hailed by ‘others’ as great.

 “My work is so good that I feel this rejection is just a ploy to have it published under the literary editor’s name,” the writer insinuates.

One of the reasons I declined this work is what I will discuss in this article: a good opening or beginning for literary work.

One of the most important sentences among the many that make up a literary piece is the opening sentence and as such the opening itself. Often, when I speak to writers, they say, “Yes, I know that, but wait until you get to Chapter 2; you will be blown away. Then, I point out that no reader will have the patience to go through a completely boring chapter just to get to the interesting part in the next chapter!

Readers sample books and will most likely buy what catches their attention. Moreover, as a budding writer, you must understand that you are in competition with highly talented writers who can hook a reader right from the beginning.

The first line should tell the reader what to expect in terms of language, plot and character. Hence the need for you, the writer, to get this line and opening, right. Let us sample a few openings, old and new.

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice starts this way: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife’. This line really, has a lot of truth in it – that any eligible bachelor; a rich one in this case, must be in need of a wife! Yet there is a lot of sarcasm in the same line.

Reality drama

The question that begs is, is society right in this assumption? This line sets the stage for Austen’s censure on the societal necessity for a woman to marry and for every wealthy bachelor to become an object of desire.

One of the reasons I read Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina − a rather long novel − was the opening: All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. How about Vladimir Nobakov’s Lolita:’ Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.’

I recently came across JD Salinger’s opening of A Catch in the Ryer: ‘If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me... but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.’

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: ‘Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honour to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat’.

All these opening lines are great but they, in themselves, do not make wonderful openings. What is common among them is the fact that they bring to the fore reality – things we can relate to; they set the pace for drama not melodrama.

They cause the reader to ask questions and imagine what the story might become. More importantly, these writers prick the reader’s curiosity; they welcome and ease the reader into the story. Many writers burn their brains as they seek what they think will be the most interesting beginning to their stories.

Some take the reader straight into the action – a bank robbery, a party or a car chase. What the writers must remember here is that this is the beginning; it is neither the climax nor the ending. It is asking too much to expect the reader to relate to characters he or she does not know.

A good writer hooks and then introduces the characters to the reader – characters are the ones that move a story.

Great writers endeavour to make a reader aware of the characters in the story so that when certain behaviour is exhibited, the reader is not surprised and if it is not, the same reader will question the flow of events. As a writer, you must also remember that literature is a reflection of the society and as such truth.

In as much as drama is good for an opening, melodrama is not; playing with words is good, being overly complicated is dreary.

Just because creative writing deals with fiction does not mean that you create characters and events that are unrealistic.

Finally, your opening should make the reader see what is at stake. In other words, the conflict must grip the reader. The higher the stakes, the more the reader will want to know what happened next.  

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