Setting the setting

[xenith]

I think I'll blame green_knight for this :) I've been thinking today on how to establish time and place at the start of a novel. How's it done, obviously. How soon is it done. Opening lines? First page? But also, how is it affected by what the reader brings with them, from the cover, from reviews, from the blurb. That is, when you pick up a book, do you already have some idea of what time & place, whether real or imaginary, you're getting involved with. And, as I think the answer to that is yes, how often does the writer rely on that to do the job for them.

Obviously I need to look at some examples of opening paragraphs, but the problem with relying on library books, if I'm not going to have many modern/recent novels at home that I can look at. (Suggestions for good and bad examples?)

Comments

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

I wrote quite a bit on opening pargraphs for the ASiF website (the special guest section, where they brought writers in for discussions and open questions) and also I did a blog series here, ages ago. We're talking years, in both cases, but my approach was a little unorthdox and it might be useful for you.

Maybe I should - one day - pull all that togehter as a single article.

[monissaw.livejournal.com]

You should. I'll go and see if I can dig them up now.

For all that's been written and written on opening paragraphs, I don't think I've ever stopped to think about this aspect. If I'm writing "other world" settings, it's natural to lay down the bones ASAP. If I'm trying to write real word stuff, it's easier to stick in a few pointers and hope that's enough.

I've certainly never thought about it from the POV of a reader either, which I find rather interesting actually.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

When I teach, I talk about the reader side of things and most of the writers in my classes don't seem to have thought of it.

[monissaw.livejournal.com]

I have noticed this on writing forums. Even the idea that if a piece of writing works/doesn't work for you as a reader then it might be worth looking at how it was written seems to pass some people by. As if the end result of writing is to produce a good piece of writing not a good piece of reading. (I do at least try to think as a reader when I'm writing, and a writer when I'm reading.)

[sue-bursztynski.livejournal.com]

In my experience, the blurb is written AFTER you've done your book. Monissa, just write the thing and worry about the opening paragraph afterwards. This is the beauty of computers. You can change it without having to re-type the lot.

Otherwise, you could end up like that man in Camus' "The Plague" who spent twenty years on the perfect opening line and never wrote the book!

If you have already written it, of course, you just need to ask yourself if this opening would pull YOU in. :-)

[monissaw.livejournal.com]

But that's not the point :)

It's more about what expectations readers bring to the book and how the writer manipulates them, because that's what the opening does :)

(I'm also thinking on the difference between historical and otherworld fantasy, and how this is presented, both in the opening and beyond. There's a lot of thinking packed into the short post.)

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Happy to oblige. I am amazed just how much I can spot in those brief opening paragraphs, how much of what I subconsciously notice (wandering attention, insignificant details, whatever) is actually born out by the text when you only squint at it in the right light.

And the other thing I'm very much realising is that the only thing all these writers have in common is that they know their craft. All good openings are different (I've got one with internalisation on my desk that also worked for me) - they're just somewhat sharper and more focussed than the ones that don't work for me. I think I'll run this series for a while longer before I attempt to summarize just what does and doesn't work.