Craft Notes is a weekly column on the craft of fiction writing, published every Thursday at 8am UK time. These posts draw on four decades of published work — not a writing school, just one working novelist’s hard-won observations.
There’s a hoary old chestnut you hear in writing schools sometimes. It says if you haven’t grabbed your reader by the third paragraph of your opening scene your book’s doomed. No one will read it, least of all any busy agent or editor.
This is balderdash, and dangerous balderdash at that. I’ve seen wannabe writers swallow it whole then agonise for weeks on end trying to formulate the perfect few opening paragraphs for a story that rarely ends up getting written. Why? Because all they’ve done is sweat over producing a beginning that’s supposed to be smart and clever and attention-grabbing, never giving much thought at all to what comes after: the book.
Any agent or editor will tell you that they have a pretty clear idea from that first page whether or not the person who wrote it has any chance of becoming a published author. Whether they’re right in that judgement is another thing. But I doubt they reached that because they’ve been blown away by three perfect opening paragraphs. Publishing professionals have a nose for potential. It’s part of their job. They spot bad writing a mile off. They can read a short extract and understand very quickly whether the author reads books too, has thought about how narrative works and what they would like to bring to the party. But the question they’re really asking themselves is… what would the book be like that follows? Does this look like the work of someone who can master a full-length novel with the same apparent ease they may be able to knock out a few snappy paragraphs?
Writing that has potential possesses a confidence, a sense of direction, and an unhurried feel that’s hard to nail down but obvious by its absence. The marks of an over-anxious, hurried approach — or a sense that someone is trying too hard — are what people hunt for in a first page, not some ornate piece of look-at-me writing principally designed to display how brilliant you are.
Focusing on producing a few stunning opening paragraphs, even if they’re very good indeed, doesn’t really tell anyone worthwhile about the narrative to come. A publishing professional is trying to evaluate your chances as an author — your skill, your understanding of narrative, your feel for character and language. Those qualities will show themselves in how you write in general, not in whether you can force a few sentences into a shape that mimics the opening of a thriller you once admired.
Write the book. Write it as well as you can, from beginning to end. Then worry about the opening. You’ll likely find, once you know how the story ends, the right beginning is obvious — and that it may be nothing like the one you’d have agonised over beforehand.
And if someone says your first efforts are dismal just remember. Writing is made up of nothing more than words. Words that can be changed, moved, deleted, replaced. No angels die if you scrap them all and start again. Which one way or another those of us who’ve been in this strange business find we do all the time.
I’ll do my best to respond to comments below, though please bear in mind I’m a working writer, not a full-time correspondent. Others are very welcome to join the conversation.
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