The first three paragraphs

This week I've been reading Nancy Kress's 'Beginnings, Middles, and Ends'.  Right at the start of the book Nancy reminds us that we have a very short period in which to get our story to grab an editor's attention.

For short stories, she suggests that might be as short as the first three paragraphs.  For a novel, she suggests we might get three pages.  That's not very long, is it?  It means that every story has to start with a bang, and start off running full-speed.

But there are different types of  'bang' and 'running at full speed'.  Which one you use depends on the type of story you're telling, and the implicit promise within that form that you are making to the writer.  A crime story/mystery promises to tell us 'whodunnit', or maybe 'whydunnit'.  In a romance we expect the power of love to triumph.  Or the story may take us to a new world to question and challenge parts of our real one.  Each of these types of story will have a different 'say it with a bang' opening.

The opening to my Panthera : Death Spiral has Ren Hunter examining three dead kingcat cub bodies.  Ren is trying to find out why whole litters of them are dying, and the story is the gradual unfolding of the reason why.  So this is a rather quieter sort of 'bang' than a thriller might have, which might literally start with an explosion.

We need to use details to hook the reader in.  We use the way a character speaks or thinks to indicate their personality.  We use unusual details in the landscape to draw us in and explore.  For me, this often means naming aliens and inventing the worlds they live in.  I always draw a map of each world, and name the features as I write.  This gives me an invaluable reference that makes sure I always have them headed in the right direction.  

Add  into that mix the start of the conflict that will drive your story, and you have a chance of  holding the reader's attention.  Character, conflict, and specificity is a good recipe for an arresting beginning.

Wendy Metcalfe is the author of Panthera : Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Song, and the short story collection Otherlives.  Her website is: www.wendymetcalfe.com