The Writing Class - The Story Form

BEGINNINGS

OR

"ONCE UPON A TIME, IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY . . ."

Most of us who love to write have, despite our best efforts, found ourselves twisting in the chair, trying to think of the first few words to put down on paper [or type in the computer], and longing for for the ease and simplicity of:

"Once upon a time there was a land called Zogaland . . ."

Okay, there's several reasons why we might be struggling at this point, and one might be that we simply don't know how to start the story (or the book). How do we introduce our character? How do we start the conflict? How do we let the reader know that Zogaland enjoys a parliamentary form of government, that grapes grow on mushroom-shaped trees, and that women run around nude one day out of eight?

Well, one answer is: you don't do it all in the first few paragraphs.

You don't want to overwhelm the reader right off the bat. Remember: the purpose of a story's beginning is to (1) give your reader a sense of what's coming, (2) set the stage for your story, and (3) grab their attention. Now, there are a lot of ways to do this – as many as there are writers, actually – but most stories and books follow one of three standard forms:

(1) The action,

(2) The setting, theme, or characterization, or

(3) The lure.

Let's take a look at each in turn.

(1) An action.

The classic writing class rule is this: "Always start your story with an act. It captures the reader's attention." Okay, before we all rush to the front of the room to show examples of how great writers have BROKEN THIS RULE, let's take a few minutes and just examine how the rule works in the first place and why it's so effective.

An act shows, well, action. Somebody is doing something (or has done something) and now something else is going to happen (the reaction) and then something else and something else . . .

We call this plot.

Introducing the reader to the plot in the first paragraph has the natural effect of keeping him reading simply to follow the plot. Consider a rough example:

Carter was done. He'd had it up to his eyes with Travis Wayne and his horde of small town thugs. When he stepped out of Shankton's Jewelry Store with Annabelle's engagement ring in his hand, when he saw the parking ticket stuck under the wiper of half-ton International pickup truck – the fourteenth ticket he'd found in the last eight days – and when saw the sly smirk on Deputy Sharpe's face, Carter was completely finished. Put a fork in him, Mom, he's done.

He stepped to the truck. Out came the shotgun. Down went Sharpe.

Okay, I'm not going to get any awards for writing like that, but it does show how to use plot and action to start you story. As a reader, I gotta read on to find out if Carter had a reason to gun down Sharpe for giving him tickets or if he was just another disgruntled post office employee.

There are an infinite variety of acts that can start a story. Yet oddly enough, many, many stories start with the same type of act. Dialogue. The benefit of dialogue is twofold. It introduces your characters right away and avoids long paragraphs that describe your characters to death and tend to bore the reader, uh, to death. Reading dialogue brings out the voyeur in all of us. We're no longer reading, we're eavesdropping:

"Tell me," Sarah whispered, with a single coy flash of her sapphire eyes, "have you ever been with a woman before?"

Buck froze, his entire face considering the question. "Uh, we countin' family members?"

We know a lot about Sarah (including that she has blue eyes and can be coy), and even more about Buck (maybe more than we want to know), from just these two paragraphs. And the action (dialogue) in the story is giving us the background.

Consider a less flamboyant example by Henry James, from his story Paste:

"I've found a lot more things," her cousin said to her the day after the second funeral; "they're up in her room–but they're things I wish you'd look at."

That's it. One paragraph and what do you know about the story? Two people, cousins, are talking. Two people have died and there are two funerals. Soon they'll be going through the dead persons' things. And there is something, we don't know what, that one wants the other to see.

James proceeds from this point to describe the mourners, the Churchyard, etc., in typical, heavy Jamesian detail, but the single paragraph of dialogue is enough to capture your attention and spark your imagination.

The nirvana of storytelling is to blend your action into your theme and your theme into your setting in a way that reaches out and grabs the reader's throat in a vise-like grip. Consider this:

Through the bloody September twilight, aftermath of sixty-two rainless days, it had gone like a fire in dry grass – the rumor, the story, whatever it was. Something about Miss Minnie Cooper and a Negro. Attacked, insulted, frightened: none of them, gathered in the barber shop on that Saturday evening where the ceiling fan stirred, without freshening it, the vitiated air, sending back upon them, in recurrent surges of stale pomade and lotion, their own stale breath and odors, knew exactly what happened.

Thus William Faulkner opens his short story, Dry September. At first glance, it might appear Faulkner is focusing on the setting in this opening. But note how Faulkner uses words and sentences to create effect. All references to the act come forth like bullets out of a gun: the rumor, the story, whatever, attacked, insulted, frightened. As the reader, you're just been blasted with the act – and soon the reaction – that makes up the theme of Faulkner's story.

One more comment about this beginning: Faulkner carefully blends the act into a setting as explosive as the act itself. And he does it by using longer, more descriptive clauses to offset the shorter words he uses to describe the act. Sweltering heat that wears on a person, tiring their patience and sharpening their anger. After sixty-two rainless days, the world is a tinderbox just waiting to catch fire. All it needs something to set it off.

An act.

Yeah, it is a brilliant beginning. That's just one reason why William Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949.

(2) Establishing the setting or theme.

If you think the theme of your story (the reason for its existence) is more important than the plot, you may want to hit the reader with the theme first. This is also advantageous when it is essential for the reader to understand the motivation of your character.

No one in the history of writing has pulled this off more effectively than Edgar Allen Poe in his short story A Cask of Amontillado:

The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely settled – but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.

Okay, take a look at what's going on here. Action? Not a whisper. Poe starts his story with an essay on revenge. Like a bad mobster movie, Poe throws out every epitaph he knows related to the rules of retaliation. By the time you finish reading these six sentences, there's not a doubt in your mind what this story is about or, frankly, if the narrator (Montresor) will be successful in "getting" Fortunato. In fact, the only real issue to be settled is just how the clown is going to get it in the end.

The reader knows what's coming. And that's okay. Because what keeps him or her turning pages is the opportunity to find out just how it all ends. It's a promise Poe makes to the reader; that what's coming will be good and gory, and that dark half of our psyches will love every minute of it. [Later, we'll talk about keeping your promise to the reader.]

(3) The lure.

Another way to catch your reader's attention (if you'll excuse the pun) is a lure. Usually, it's a single act that leaves the reader wondering who, what, or how. You give just enough information to catch their interest, which forces them to read the next paragraph.

Here's a rather obvious example:

King Nathan stared with wide-eyed horror at the package setting on the floor of his bedchamber. Round, it was, with four diamond shaped holes cut per the points of the compass. The package had an odd color, brownish-red, like blood that has laid out on a stone and dried overnight. But the color of the box didn't inspire his majesty's horror. After all, he'd swung a sword enough to know what blood – fresh and dried – looked like.

No, what bothered King Nathan was the raspy sound of breathing coming from inside the box.

Okay, it's not genius, but you can see the lure. What's in the box? A rat? A weasel? A asmatic bunny rabbit? His wife's decapitated but still-living head?

You have to read on to find out.

Consider a more serious example:

The first night we got into conversation was in the National Museum in Naples, in the rooms on the ground floor containing the famous collection of bronzes from Herculaneum and Pompeii: marvelous legacy of antique art whose delicate perfection has been preserved for us by the catastrophic fury of a volcano.

Okay, this comes from Il Conde, by Joseph Conrad. He's establishing setting, no doubt. But unless you're brain dead, by the end of this paragraph you're wondering who the heck met who in the National Museum in Naples? Was it man and a woman? A man and a man? A woman and a woman? Some lucky dude and one of those naked women from Zogaland? Obviously the relationship continued, because Conrad uses the term "first night" to suggest that there were other nights. Who met who and why am I reading about it?

It's simple but effective. You've got to read on just to get answers to your questions.

Other ways.

As I said earlier, there are as many ways to begin stories as there are writers. Generally, most story and book endings can be traced to one of the three types of beginnings above. However, here are some other common ways that have been used:

1. A piece of writing. A letter from Uncle Bob, an e-mail from your psycho college girlfriend, an excerpt from a woman's diary, a summons to appear in Court. Yeah, all these have been used.

2. Poetry. More prevalent in the nineteenth century, but a short poem or a quote from Shakespear or some obscure but intriguing text can set the tone and theme for your story.

3. The Ending. This really be cool if you can pull it off. That's right, start the story with the ending. If you've seen the movie Memento, that's kind of what happens. Great attention grabber if you can make it work.

A Final Word and a Test.

By now, you've probably noticed that it's possible to blend one or more of these types of beginnings. Now, if your one of the brave, show us what you've got. Try one or two or more [humorous or serious] paragraphs that might serve as a beginning to one of your stories. I'll open a thread in Mead Hall and you can post them there.

I look forward to reading them.