Quite the Life (and all in Times New Roman 10pt!)
I wrote in Great Opening Lines – and Why! (Part 3 – Some Great Opening Lines) that I’d share more great opening lines as I found them.
My last entry in this category was January 2023’s Great Opening Lines – and Why! (January 2023’s Great Opening Lines) which covered Lidia Yuknavitch’s‘s The Chronology of Water. This entry in the Great Opening Lines – And Why! posts is Angela Panayotopulos‘ The Wake Up.
Continue reading “Great Opening Lines – and Why! (August 2023’s Great Opening Lines)”
“Interesting” is subjective. What doesn’t interest some people may excite others. 🙂
I take part in book review groups – you review mine, I’ll review yours – and I let people know going in I’m a tough reviewer.
The reason I’m a tough reviewer is fairly simple: I review books based on an author’s storycrafting and storytelling skills, not a book or story’s genre.
I’ve reviewed romance, poetry, chicklit, adventure, MG, and early readers, along with sf/f/h, and regardless of genre good writing is good writing is good writing.
Likewise, sometimes a writer is incompetent and their work sucks.
For me, it comes down to storycrafting and storytelling. Storytelling – does the author have an interesting story to tell? Storycrafting – does the author tell the story in an interesting way?
Someone can have an amazing story to tell and do it poorly, kind of like a college prof who’s expert in their field and boring as heck in the lecture hall. That’s good story to tell told poorly. The prof who isn’t expert in their field and keeps the students interested has craft but no story.
Then there’s Door #3 – The prof who is both expert in their field and keeps the students interested, enthused about the subject and wanting to know more has both crafting and telling down cold. This is where you want to be if you want to be (in my opinion) an author worth reading.
The statement “What’s interesting is subjective” is true to a point. But yell Fire! or Rape! or Gun! and you’ll get people’s attention because some things aren’t subjective. Get someone’s attention first, they’ll decide if what got their attention is interesting enough to keep their attention.
But the key is getting their attention first, and that is done through good to excellent storycrafting and storytelling skills (and if you’re wondering what gives me the right to talk about such things, take a look at my patents and/or read Reading Virtual Minds Volume I: Science and History).
You’re sharing this because…?
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This gem is must reading for any authors, wannabes, and students of writing. Probably because I agree with 99% of it (I question some of the examples).
First, it’s a guidebook to getting past editors’ and publishers’ bullsh?t meter. I stress getting the opening correct when talking with writers and few get the message. Read this book and if you still don’t get the message, get out of the game.
Second, I learned from it (sometimes painfully). Some of Parrish’s suggestions caught me in an “Oy. I do that” and I had to ballup to my own inadequacies. Never fun, always necessary, definitely joyful when I realize the lesson’s stuck.
Third, I earmarked and highlighted the book to death. I haven’t commented on a writing guide in quite a while and this one is definitely worthy.
Give it a read if you’re an author, writer, wannabe, writing student, and learn!
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I recently reread John Crowley’s Beasts and am reading James Dickey’s Deliverance and am recognizing something I’ve known for a long time and today, for some reason, is being hammered into me – Foreshadowing.
Adjective: foreshadowing
1. Indistinctly prophetic
Noun: foreshadowing
1. The act of providing vague advance indications; representing beforehand
Verb: foreshadow
1. Be a sign of something to come, esp. something important or bad
Foreshadowing is something I ususally recognize after the fact. Sometimes I’ve read something and am surprized by the climax/outcome, except I’m really not.
A story which completely surprises leaves me going WTF?. If I didn’t see something coming, if it happens totally out of nowhere, if there’s no precedent for it, if it’s not foreshadowed, the story fails because you can’t completely, unexpectedly surprise a reader and expect to get away with it. You’ve violated the promise you made when the reader agreed to sit down and read your work.
However, a story which surprises me, even causes me to say, “I didn’t see that coming,” but simultaneously satisfies me, that’s different.
I’ve often said and written one of my joys when talking with my readers is their sharing how my story resolutions catch them by surprise, but when they think about it, everything was foreshadowed somehow.
Regular readers know my style, voice, and technique well enough to notice when something is foreshadowed. They don’t know what it is, but do recognize a particular phrase points to something.
Reading Deliverance and knowing the outcome, I’m quickly recognizing a different kind of foreshadowing and something I will practice – now that I recognize it – because I believe it’ll take my writing to the next level.
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Long Ago and Far Away…okay, starting in August 2022, I shared chapters from The Alibi. That lasted to mid-September when life and starting a new business got in the way.
Life and a new business consumed more time than I expected. I still wrote – actually updated, edited, and got ready for publication my first non-fiction in six years, That Th!nk You Do (due out 15 Jan 2023. You should all buy a copy and leave glorious reviews) – but The Alibi took a backseat (and it annoyed me I did so, by the way).
But I’m also sensitive to my own cycles, transits, methodologies, dispositions, … . I knew the story wasn’t going where it was suppose to go, but I didn’t know where it was suppose to go.
So shelve it. Give it time. Ruminate.
Some time late-September 2022, Susan and I talked about it. I mentioned my biggest challenge with the story was not seeing a character who would change through the course of the novel, didn’t know who or what would act as the throughline, both of which are (to me) critically important.
Continue reading “The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery) – Chapter 1 (backstory)”