Winning a monkey on the turn of a knave
A few weeks back, when Covid first struck, we ran a lockdown-friendly 14-day free membership offer. You could sign up for free and, if you liked it (and were wise and decisive), you could convert to a full membership. As an extra little sprinkle of stardust, we offered the converters a quick review of their opening pages.
That’s always an interesting exercise, reminding one of the astonishing breadth of fiction. And one of the opening pages that floated my way – this one from a writer called Karen – opened with this brilliant opening phrase (referring, by the way, to a sack of tiny monkeys):
Won from a fellow tar on the turn of a knave …
You know instantly that you’re in the hands of an accomplished writer there, with poetry and vigour right there in the first dozen or so words. You also recognise that the voice is going to be distinctive, which it duly is. Here are some other lovely bits from Karen’s first page:
Earl reminded him sharply with a blow from his fist. The old dog would reap a bright forget-me-not on his temple as a reprimand.
And what about this:
Experience had taught him that encouragement in the softest of tones invariably succeeded in calming a frightened creature. Horse, woman, whatever.
Part of the joy of these openings is the delicious realisation that we are about to witness a voice, and a character, that lies several standard deviations away from normal. You might think of published books like Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated:
My legal name is Alexander Perchov. But all of my many friends dub me Alex, because that is a more flaccid-to-utter version of my legal name. My mother dubs me Alex-stop-spleening-me!, because I am always spleening her.
That first sentence lulls you into a sense of security. Then my ‘friends dub me Alex’ catches you out and forces you to pay close attention to what’s coming. And then – bim-a-bam-bosh – you get your reward with the delightfully barmy phrase ‘a more flaccid-to-utter version…’.
We’re just two sentences into the book and, if you were browsing in a bookstore, you’ve already made up your mind to make the purchase.
Or how about this:
Marsh is not swamp. Marsh is a space of light, where grass grows in water, and water flows into the sky.
That’s the opening of Where the Crawdads Sing and it combines poetry with an immediately distinctive presence.
In all these cases, the book announces itself with something distinctive, something that rejoices in language, something that doesn’t sound anything like the book next to it in the shop or online.
And that sort of sounds like a recipe for success: invent something distinctive and glittery for the first page. Get the sale. Then tell the story.
Except that to succeed, to really succeed, the distinctive thing you offer has to be baked into the story at the very deepest level. The Crawdads opening makes a promise about place and mood that the entire book lives up to. The Safran Foer opening likewise makes a big, bold splashy promise that the book also amply lives up to. (That book is multi-voiced, so there are multiple promises, in fact.)
So maybe the right way to think about these distinctive voices is that they perfectly align everything about the book. Genre, mood, setting, character. Those things line up so that the reader ends up reading some perfectly presented whole. It feels impossible to detach any one part of the book, so completely is everything integrated.
And that in turn means: no cheating. No shortcuts.
A flashy opening sentence or vignette is fine, but if the flash dissolves into something without a coherent original vision, you haven’t necessarily gained yourself much.
That kind of originality is hard to do. It took me five novels and nine or more books before I’d really nailed it. And of course, you can be a highly competent writer writing highly competent books without the bolt of inspiration that elevates your work to a whole different level. You never quite know how an idea will turn out until you’ve written the damn book.
But this I think you can do: you can take what is original and distinctive in your voice or concept and lean into it. Encourage it. Invite it to display itself to the full. You need to stay disciplined, of course. (No sloppy phrases, no weak writing.) But even the act of inviting that voice to unfurl to its fullest extent is an act of bravery.
And your bravery will be rewarded. Always. If you keep the discipline, then always.
Find the heart of what you have, the most distinctive strand of your story-DNA and lean into that thing. Make the most of it. Put it at the very heart of what you do.
I’d love to see snippets of text from anyone who thinks they are writing with a distinctive voice or an unusual, strong-flavoured character. If you reckon your text qualifies, then let’s share.
Meanwhile – Stay safe and keep writing.
Oh yes. And I’m going to have something AMAZING to tell you about next week. Stay tuned for that.
Is your name flaccid-to-utter? Or are you just spleening me? If you’ve got something you want to share, then share it below. Nowhere like Townhouse for winning a monkey on the turn of a knave.
Stay a comment on Alan’s work! Love Doodlebugs 🙂
Scary!!!
Some great examples here, character doesn’t have to be poetic. From Finding Esther
‘Tis a favourable time to be a lunatic.’
Dinah shifted in her chair, should she look kindly, amused or stay with the discomfort she was really enduring? Her unease wasn’t entirely brought about by indecision, she was also perilously perched and shifting was a chancy occupation while inconvenienced by a bustle. From behind his polished desk, the sawbones gave no hint of his expectations.
Good opening sentence. The second para doesn’t quite do it for me. It feels (maybe wrongly) like there’s a bit too much 21st century consciousness invading the mind of an Edwardian (or whatever.) I just wasn’t quite pulled into this character.
Nicely paced 🙂
I think that I have a distinctive voice and unusual, strong-flavored characters, and I’ve always thought that one of the best ways to “show, not tell” is to show the development of a character through conversations and interactions with other characters. And, Harry, you didn’t say that we absolutely had to give you opening lines, so here is a conversation from within my fantasy novel, with a little setup information first. The novel’s main character is a young girl named Dora Dunn, and as she learns about this fantasy world that is new to her we learn right along with her.
* Twa—the name of a race of small, furry, vaguely humanoid creatures (think of cute little koalas who can talk) who are known for being very talkative (“chatterboxes” is the term used most often by others), and who do almost everything in threes: all of them have names with only three letters, their name for their kind also has three letters, and they always give birth to triplets.
* Dora ends up in conversation with a newly met workman who seems friendly enough though he’s busy repairing a stone wall. The subject comes up about a race of creatures, new to her, whose name for themselves is the “Twa.”
“Wait. Why does that sound familiar?” said Dora.
“You’re thinking of trois, in French. This is twa, in… Twa.”
“They sound the same.”
“Yes. Well, they’re not.”
* In their conversation, Dora tells him about how she has found out about Mermaids almost always having twins.
“That’s nothing” he said. “You should see a Twa family sometime. They always have triplets.”
Dora had not expected that. “What?”
“Triplets.” He stopped and looked at her. “You know. Three babies at once?”
“I know what triplets are! But how can they always have triplets?”
“I don’t know. How can Mermaids always have twins?“ He shrugged and went back to work. ”They just do.”
“Hmm.” She was quiet. Then, “Are they identical?”
“As alike as peas in a pod,” he said without looking up.
She thought for a moment. “Doesn’t that make for huge families? For the Twas, I mean.”
“Not really. Each Twa mother gets pregnant only once.”
“Wait. Once?”
“Yup. It’s one of the few things that they don’t do in threes. One pregnancy, three babies, done! It keeps life simple, you know?”
“I guess.” She was quiet for another moment, thinking again. “But doesn’t that mean that their land is overrun with people? If every family has three children, I mean.”
“Not really,” he said as he struggled to get a particularly large stone in place. “The Trolls help with that.”
She was confused. “How?”
He stopped and looked at her. “Young Twa are good to eat.” He said it as though it was common knowledge. “Trolls find them delicious,” he said as he used his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his face. “So do the Vile Witches. And Ogres, of course. They’ll eat anything.” He turned back to the wall and went back to his work. “I’ve always found them a little tough, myself.”
This is interesting, but again I have a feeling you may be telling us too much too soon. Slowing down the pace of info / revelation keeps the reader interested to learn more. Hard to be sure though when I havent read more of the book.
Here’s another conversation that Dora has with her new friend, a Giant named Hopsack. (I posted the first two hundred words of this here a while back but I think that one needs a little more to get the full flavor of the scene.) Hopsack is a bit of a runt for a Giant at only eight feet tall, but he is nonetheless kind and friendly, at least to Dora, and I imagine him speaking in somewhat of a countryman’s style and with a Yorkshire accent. In this scene he is working at moving some recently felled and cut-up trees. Their talk here begins with Dora confidently telling him some newly acquired information that she considers useful.
“Yeah! And I also heard that a Troll that gets caught in the morning sun turns to stone instantly.”
“Don’t count on it!” said Hopsack, looking at Dora. He pointed his finger at her. “You go bettin’ your life on a Troll turnin’ to stone at sunrise and you’ll be served up fer supper that night.”
“You mean he won’t turn to stone?” said Dora.
“NO, he won’t!” he said. He turned back to his work. “Not right away, anyways. Not soon enough if he’s right comin’ after ya.” He stopped and looked at her. “A Troll what runs into the sunlight can still kill you up dead-as-a-dormouse before you can say ‘Jack be nimble’ and jump out o’ the way.”
“Oh,” said Dora
He went back to his work. “Trolls stay away from bright light of any kind if they can. Hurts their eyes. That’s why they hang about at night, and in caves and caverns, and in the dark forest and such.”
“That what I heard,” said Dora.
“And it’s true, what you heard, that it’s sunlight hurts ’em worst. Pretty bad if they stay out more than a bit. They get all arthy-ritus-y, and stiffen up, and if they’re out too long they turn rock solid and die.”
“That’s what I thought!”
“But it’s not instant-like!” he said firmly. He stopped and looked at her. “If they can get back in the dark again quick enough it eases up a bit.” He started to turn away but stopped to turn again and look Dora square in the eye. “And if they ketch ya, that’s the end of ya, sunrise or no.” He went back to work.
Dora was quiet for a moment, thoughtful. “But what about the Trolls at the Trollgates?” she said. “They let people through.”
He sighed and stopped working again. “They lets Magicals through. But let a lone Drupe try to get through a Trollgate and he’ll never see t’other side.”
“So how do some of them make it? We know that Drupes—I mean Ordinarys—appear in the Outlands sometimes. Some of them even live there.”
He went back to work. “Most likely they shows up at the Gate when the Troll is out takin’ a piss—sorry—is ‘indisposed.’”
“That’s it?”
“Well, they could try gold.”
“What do you mean?”
“Trolls can be bribed. They’ll do ’most anything for a bit o’ coin…” He took a deep breath as he lifted a heavy log. “…if they ain’t too hungry,” he grunted as he turned and tossed it aside. He stopped working and looked at her. “Trouble is, they’ll take yer money and still try to trick you into showin’ up fer dinner. Ya got to keep yer eye on ’em, all the time. ‘Never turn yer back on a Troll.’ Me mam taught me that, when I was a tyke. Served me well all these years.” He was quiet for a moment, a thoughtful look on his face. “I miss her.”
“What happened?”
He looked at Dora. “She turned her back on one of ’em, didn’t she.”
Hey,
If you would like a reliable beta-reader I would LOVE to read the rest of this story!
^_^
LT
That’s very kind of you to offer. It’s a great feeling when someone has read something that you’ve written and wants more. That is a sure sign of one’s success as an author. I will keep you in mind… when it’s finished. (A long way to go yet.)
Loved the galloping unicorns but I can’t help feeling that there is a little too much info in that first sentence. The clash of east and west is explained only a little later by the parent’s photo, and maybe just Elda would do instead of Elda Brighton. But what do I know?!
Enjoyed the crabs, Penelope! Really pulled me in
Hi Harry,
Here is the opening paragraph to my YA/CliFi-Scifi WIP:
The lovebirds couldn’t have been louder if they tried. They arrived suddenly. An instant plague of noise and feathers and the farmers thought that the birds had come to destroy the plantation.
The reality though was simply this; the birds found what everyone else was looking for. They were an answer to a prayer. A loud answer.
Happy to know your initial reaction and observations.
LT
^_^
Here’s a paragraph from my nearly completed novel ‘Love Not Included’.
Once inside, he passed quietly unseen past the Chinese restaurant that comprised the major part of the ground floor. He climbed a flight of stairs situated halfway along the main hall, at the top of which he was met with a small, defiantly closed door. He knocked loudly. Seconds later a tiny hatch slid open to reveal the gate-keeper, an extremely pale, emaciated-looking young man, who appeared so at one with his surroundings that he seemed to have taken root, forever denied daylight like some sickly, etiolated houseplant.