Starting out

Beginnings are hard to write. I must have written and re-written the opening of Shelter twenty times at least. I write an opening, then I go on and write the rest of the novel, but while I'm working on the rest, I re-visit that opening many times, trying to get closer to something that captures what the novel is really about.

For a high school English class, my son is reading A Tale of Two Cities, with that famous opening about the best of times and the worst of times. No writer could get away with that now. Long and rambling, it starts with that wide, wide view, slowly narrowing. I'm not even sure I like it. But it got me wondering about what I do like.

I like the opening of Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451: "It was a pleasure to burn." So simple, startling and incongruous that it immediately makes me curious. But an opening is not just about a good first sentence. Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day starts more subtly, with a distinctive voice that puzzles me and draws me along. I'm currently reading John Steinbeck's notebooks written for his editor about his novel-in-progress, alongside the manuscript of East of Eden. Steinbeck's openings are slow and meandering, winding through the landscape of the Salinas Valley. When I begin on the first page of a Steinbeck novel, I know I'm entering that world and I'll be there for a long time. I like that feeling.

I've re-written the opening of Sing a Worried Song, the novel I'm currently working on, maybe ten times. It's getting closer.