More story elements I want to see on the first page

A couple of weeks ago I briefly covered these story essentials for the first page of your novel:

• Tension.
• Story Questions.
• Voice.
  

Without them, well, I don't think you've got much of a shot at hooking a reader. I also mentioned three other elements that I think should be there, too.

• Clarity.
• Scene setting.
• Characterization.
  

Clarity.

Maybe this seems obvious, but it can be more subtle than you think. Take this opening sentence from one of my workshoppers:

Mark Johnson's daughter had disappeared, and that was all that mattered to him.

What could have been an intriguing opening was, for me, diminished by what it fails to make clear: what is the relationship here? Is the girl who has disappeared Mark Johnson's daughter? Because the first sentence is ambiguous, the disappearing daughter could be that of Mark Johnson's friend, or boss, or a crime victim's. Yes, we know that the girl matters to him, and we might assume that she's his daughter, but it isn't clear.

Even if you simply reverse the positions of the pronoun and the name, it works better for me:

His daughter had disappeared, and that was all that mattered to Mark Johnson.

Here's another example; this description is from the point of view of someone inside an airplane.

In the distance, the ice-capped peaks of the Rockies rose intermittently among the clouds. Far above the peaks, the roar of the airplane pierced the shrieking winds of the atmosphere.

The dissonance here, for me, was that in the first sentence the peaks are in the distance and in the second, the airplane is above them. Isn't this more clear?

The ice-capped peaks of the Rockies rose intermittently among the clouds. Far above them, the roar of the airplane pierced the shrieking winds of the atmosphere.

Scene setting.

One of the number one flaws I see in manuscripts is failure to set the scene effectively -- or at all. Some are more like radio scripts than novels. Others are simply underdone, probably because the writer puts down a sparse description that evokes the whole picture in his mind but fails to get it in on paper.

Why is that a problem? Primarily because, although readers bring their imaginations to your novel and willingly take part in fleshing out the vision, they need to experience characters and action in context. It helps a reader to slip into the shoes of a character if she knows whether the shoes are walking along a snow-covered sidewalk or wading a stream.

I'll illustrate. First, a snippet of dialogue:

Roger said, "Don't you think that's a bit skimpy?"
Maggie twirled. "You don't like it?"

Context can give meaning. I'll put these players into two different contexts to see how the meaning of their dialogue changes.

Roger opened the dressing room door and found Maggie admiring herself in front of a full-length mirror. He stepped inside and shut the door on the caterwauling of the woman currently on stage. Even though Maggie was next, she didn't seem nervous at all. Roger said, "Don't you think that's a bit skimpy?"

Maggie twirled. "You don't like it?"

Okay, same dialogue, different context.

The window rattled with the impact of the Arctic Express that had struck the city that morning. Roger pulled on his parka and then scraped frost off the glass to peer into the swirling snow outside. He turned to find Maggie waiting at the front door. Roger said, "Don't you think that's a bit skimpy?"

Maggie twirled. "You don't like it?"

We don't yet know what Maggie is wearing, but we do know that, in the first situation, Roger doesn't think she should go out in front of an audience with that little on, and in the second that he doesn't think she's sufficiently protected against a dangerous storm. In each case, where the scene is set, and where the environment in which these characters act impacts them, gives context to the character's actions and words that effortlessly give the reader an understanding -- even better, a feeling -- for what's happening. And, in this case, that conflict is just about to blossom.

Characterization.

While plot and action are tools to engage and entertain a reader, it is character that makes them come to care about what happens, and it is character that invests meaning into what happens. There are many aspects to illustrating character, but here I want to focus on one that not enough writers, in my view, utilize -- description. Specifically, the description you do for scene setting.

When you filter description through a character you can do two things at once: set the scene to give the reader the context in which things are happening, and to show a character's personality. The example that follows is from a previous post.

Here's a mailroom in a large corporation seen as a simple snapshot, the approach many writers take to description:

In a gray room with fluorescent lights, a rack of pigeonholes for sorting mail sits along one wall. Next to them sits a wheeled delivery cart, a desk with a computer on it, and a worn swivel chair.

Now let's describe that same setting in a way that characterizes a middle-aged man who works in the mailroom, sorting the mail, delivering it with a little cart. He packages shipments and sends them out. He has been in this same job for fifteen years, and knows he'll never advance. His scene:

Jeff switched on the mailroom light. The fluorescents glared at him the way they had for fifteen years, and the gray walls radiated depression. The rack of pigeonholes for sorting mail along one wall stared at him, each empty hole like his life. The delivery cart stood ready to cause the daily pain in his hip when he trudged through the offices, delivering mail to people who didn't see him, like he was furniture.

On his desk the computer waited to be turned on -- no, they said "booted up," didn't they -- its programs lurking, waiting to trip him up again when he tries to set up a shipment. He sat in his beat-up swivel chair, and a small sense of comfort came with the way the worn cushions conformed to his body and from the squeak when he tilted back.

Okay, that's the mailroom as Jeff sees it. You now have a picture of the room and what's in it, but in the context of a character's personality. Here's the same room described through the point of view of Jinny, a new twenty-something.

Jinny burst through the mailroom door and was disappointed yet again to see Jeff already there. One of these days she'd beat him there and do the setup. He hadn't even turned on the computer yet. She reached past him, slumped as usual in that crummy old chair of his -- why didn't he requisition something decent -- and flicked on the computer. When break came and he went out for a smoke she'd surf her favorite blogs.

The gray walls under the soft fluorescent light soothed her headache. The racks of pigeonholes waited for her to fill their mouths with the mail that helped the company function. The delivery cart stood ready -- maybe today she'd ask Jeff to be the one that wheeled it through the cubicles, saying hi, meeting people. Even though she'd only been here a month, the mailroom felt like an old friend.

The next time I review the first page of my WIP, I'm going to be looking for these six tools for sinking my hook into a reader. If you do the same, be sure to be tough and make every sentence in your narrative contributes, in some way, to crafting compelling fiction.

• Tension.
• Story Questions.
• Voice.
• Clarity.
• Scene setting.
• Characterization.
  

For what it's worth,

Ray

Free edit. Email a sample for an edit that I can post here.

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© 2006 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[Therese Fowler]

Ray,

I've been a casual reader for a long time, and am always impressed by your thoroughness and clarity. I recommend your site often--and have just linked it to my own new blog (http://theresefowler.blogspot.com).
I'm one of the lucky newbies who just got my first publishing contract. In the competitive world of publishing/writing, an author can't have too many excellent resources. Please keep up the good work!