The Most Important Sentence In Your Book

Remember the old Peanuts Cartoon? Snoopy, a lovable beagle, wanted to be a writer. There was a recurring story line featuring Snoopy atop his dog house with his old manual typewriter, beginning his book. Snoopy never got further than his opening line, “It was a dark and stormy night.”

The first line is the most important sentence of any book, be it fiction or non-fiction. That first sentence has a big job to do. It must capture the interest of the reader and convince her to read the rest of the first page and then the rest of the book.

Today’s reader is increasingly busy, distracted, and in a hurry. He will not spend time with a book that is boring, hard to read, or needs twenty-five pages to get to the point.

So, what can you do to craft a compelling first sentence?

Follow these steps to make your first sentence powerful:

1. Don’t worry about your first sentence until you are in the editing phase of your book project. If you are in writing phase, just begin your book and know that you can come back to your first sentence to polish it during editing. If you try to write the perfect first sentence during the writing phase, you run the risk of never moving past it to the remainder of the book.
2. Pay attention to headlines in news reports, on magazine covers, and on websites. While your first sentence is not a headline, it is the very first experience your reader has of your book so it should be exciting and invite readers to continue. Begin to notice how these headlines are written and see what you can learn from that style of writing.
3. Is your first sentence boring? Read it aloud and listen. Does it sound compelling? If not, it needs revision.
4. Next, look closely at your first sentence and see if it generates curiosity. When a reader is curious, she will want to keep reading.
5. You can elicit curiosity by leading with a surprising fact, a compelling story, a thought-provoking statistic, or by using a metaphor in unusual way.
6. Read your first page. Find the most interesting piece of information on that page and make that point in your first sentence.
7. Pare down the number of words in your first sentence so that each word is crisp, clear, and serves a purpose. Shorter sentences convey more energy.

Continue to work on your opening sentence until you feel satisfied with it. When your book moves into publication, your editor will also review this opening sentence and make additional suggestions if more revisions are needed.

Your first sentence is the prelude to your reader’s experience of your book. Invest time in making that sentence shine and your readers will thank you by continuing to turn every page of your book.

Lynne Klippel is a best-selling author, publisher, and book coach who specializes in helping non-fiction authors write books that build their business and transform the world. For a f.r.e.e. assessment that will help you see your author strengths and opportunities, visit http://www.BusinessBuildingBooks.com

Ode to Spring

It may not be a mystery - or is it? Ode to Spring formed itself from my pen as if the rain flowed onto the page and here is the result.

LISTEN TO THE SILENCE

Listen to the silence

Punctuated only by

The Spring of birds

Songs of renewal and thanks giving

Songs of lessons learned and new beginning

A single drop of rain

Drips and soggies food

No matter, cheerful chatter

Gives thanks

profusely for abundance

Gray clouds shroud the day

Bird songs spread the light

And raise the gray

Inside if not on the out

Juncos – pilgrim birds

Dresden plate pattern tails

Sparrows not one drops

Without God's notice

Buds of spring

Miracles of song

 And Robins

Tree branch's twigs

Weep drops of captured rain

Puddled bird bath dips

In path and road

Invite

Connect

Bird Songs

Listen to the silence

Between Winter and Spring

Before gold finch and wrens return

Before buds burst into full bloom

And maple sap nourishes

Thirsty birds

and you.

Ginger Visits Printed Words (No, not from Gilligan's Island)

Billie was kind enough to offer me a spot on her blog, and I hope you don’t mind if I “recycle” an oldie but goodie from my own blog a couple years back.I think the message bears repeating, plus I’m suffering from the after affects of sedation dentistry and couldn’t put a creative blog together if my life depended on it.I loved this one…hope you do too.


A New Soap Opera for Authors

Between belonging to two critique groups, being edited by different publishing houses and reading information on blogs, I feel more confused than ever. It seems that rules change from house-to-house, and while the lines blur, I’m very clear on the following traps we authors fall into while writing. I just wonder why some people refuse to crawl out after they’ve tripped up. I keep reading the same mistakes over and over so I’m offering a few helpful hints that I’ve garnered from friends with much more experience than yours truly.  I trust that their awesome grasp on what NOT to do when writing that winning novel will help me get famous someday. *lol*.

I’m going to address a few areas in no particular order:

1. ACTION/REACTION Sequence
The sequence makes sense. Before someone can react, something has to happen first. What may seem simple can be demonstrated with the following examples:
John jumped up and screamed when the ghost appeared from the closet. Or A ghost appeared from the closet, and John jumped up and screamed.
Sally bumped her head when the car hit a curb. OR The car hit a curb and Sally bumped her head. Both make sense, but the rule is: Action first, Reaction second.
The ghost appearing is the ACTION, and I believe John’s REACTION is apparent.
Sally probably wouldn’t bump her head unless the car hit a curb. Make sense?

2. ‘THAT’ bad habit
When I write, and I notice others do the same, I tend to stick in ‘that’ where not necessary. I almost did it when I wrote the first sentence. Out of habit, I wanted to put “I notice THAT others do the same. A rejection I received a few years back noted I used ‘that’ far too frequently, so now I’ve become accustomed to thinking before I type it. I normally would have typed the preceding sentence thusly: A recent rejection THAT I received noted THAT I used ‘that” far too frequently, so now THAT I’ve become accustomed to thinking… I think THAT you get the picture…oops. I think you get the picture.

3. BACK STORY
Almost every story we write requires some back story (facts leading up to current), but the secret is peppering it throughout so that we don’t bury the reader with it. Novels are supposed to unfold as they’re read—happen in the moment and draw the reader into the action. If you spend paragraph upon paragraph TELLING what has already happened rather than SHOWING what is happening now, you’ve most likely lost the reader’s interest. Give enough detail to bring the reader up to speed but don’t drown them in facts that may not impact the story at all. It’s an acquired talent and one I’m working hard on.

The same goes for describing the scene. The reader doesn’t need to know the location of every tree on the property and how many birds nest in them. Better yet, paint a mental image of the tree shading the heroine’s window and the light filtering through the leaves. I recently read a drafted story in which the author fully-described everything in the heroine’s kitchen, down to the knives in the drawer. I tried to explain that you might mention the counter as the heroine moved past and picked up a knife from the drawer, but three paragraphs describing everything in the room soon grew tedious and overdone.

4. RUE
Resist the Urge to Explain = RUE. A good writer enables the reader to determine emotions from the text. Rather than TELL the reader that your heroine is sad, use descriptive sentences to reflect it. Let the reader assign the emotion. Which would you prefer?

It was Cindy’s birthday and she felt sad.
Or
The red circle on the calendar mocked Cindy—her birthday. But today seemed like any other day. As she sifted the mail, rifling through unwanted catalogs and advertisements, she hoped for one single personally-addressed envelope. She found none.

After writing, editing and learning, I'm so much more aware of unnecessary information we add to our stories when our dialogue should show the feeling and eliminate the need to explain what the reader should feel or see.
ANOTHER EXAMPLE:
Excited, Sasha entered the room. She felt tense and nervous at the same time. She needed water to soothe her thirst.
Could be: Sasha burst into the room. (Entered versus burst – using an action verb to show her excitement). Her heart raced, yet her jaw tensed. (showing her tenseness and nervousness). She smacked her lips, hoping for saliva to combat the cottony feel in her mouth. (showing her thirst).

Okay...so I'm not Nora Roberts...I wrote this on the spur of the moment. :) I think you get the message.

5. NAMES
If you have an exchange going on between two people and it is clear to reader, there is no need to continually use the characters name in the dialogue. One must assume the reader is intelligent enough to determine who is speaking to whom with a minimal of hints and tags. Wouldn’t you find this a tad tedious? The concept is taken from something I recently proofread for one publisher:

Jane and Fred sat next to the fire, enjoying their wine. Fred turned to her, with the flames reflecting in his eyes. "Jane, I'm having a wonderful time. Thank you for inviting me."
"Me too, Fred. I'm so glad you came."
"Jane, would you like me to refill your glass?"
"No thank you, Fred. I'm fine. I get giddy if I drink too much."

The same applies for starting every sentence with ‘she/he’. She heard the bell chime can be The bell chimed. She saw the sunset become an artist’s pallet of colors can be The sunset became an artist’s pallet of colors. He or she doesn’t have to identify with everything. Words are better spent describing action to your readers. In the character’s POV, the reader will assume who is doing the feeling, looking, sensing, etc.

I notice this is a trap into which most new writers fall. (See, I didn’t end with a preposition)

6. TENSES (Past, Present, Past imperfect…blah, blah, blah.)

I'm still trying to acclimate to reading things written with 'could see', 'could hear' 'could speak', 'had been missing'. Although I realize it's a style, I've had it beaten into me that 'saw', 'heard', 'spoke', and 'missed' make the story unfold in the moment, and for me are preferred.

Consider, 'she could see his face, even in the dim light. The only sound she could hear was crickets outside the window. If only he could speak the words she longed for. She had been missing him far more than she expected.'

Now consider...She saw his face, even in the dim light. The only sound she heard was the crickets’ chirping outside the window. If only he spoke the words she longed for. She'd missed him far more than she expected.

Okay...CORNY! Still, I prefer this style when at all possible. I realize that dialogue can be in past tense, but I want to feel my stories happening NOW.

We all write so differently. Each of us have a style or flair innately our own. I’m willing to make some changes and concessions during editing, but one thing I will fight for…keeping my own voice. Everyone should. It’s what makes us unique and helps us stand apart from the crowd. The hard thing is trying to convince your editor of that. *lol*

What things have you learned during your editing process, and was this at all helpful? I hope so.

Don’t forget to stop by my website at http://www.gingersimpson.com and please come visit my blog, “Dishin’ It Out,”  http://mizging.blogspot.com

 Ya’ll come.

 Ginger

Count Down to Book Release Date

Whew! Without giving much thought to my finished novel since it was accepted for publication by Wings ePress, Inc. I proceeded to write other things, began another novel and basically went on about my business as usual.
This week end I got my edits for Small Town Secrets release in January 2008. I already had the cover - fantastic as it was, posted it on my website been bragging about it all over the web--now I had my baby back with editor's remarks and correction.

The editing process is revealing. You see the story with a whole new eye now that it has been snuggled away in the editors in box for more than six months, perhaps even a year. You see things you never remembered putting in there, you realize things you left out that needed to be included (your editor spotted those and made a note to you about it in the text) at some point you may even be asking yourself -- "Did I write that?" or some variation of that -- maybe even "Wow this is good, I can't believe I wrote that." Those are the best revelations. As I worked my way through the edits, line by line, paragraph by paragraph, I hoped my characters were as alive as I thought they had become to me as I was reintroduced to them. Sometimes a tear came to my eye over one problem or another for my protagonist. I didn't will them, they just came as my heart went out to Chaneeta Morgan in her despair over her only child. How dare I put her through this kind of torture?

The editing process opens your eyes, it opens your heart, and in the process gives you renewed confidence in your writing While there are mistakes to be corrected, while there are flaws in the whole, the basic story is good--it's readable--you can empathize with the characters--you wonder or you are amazed at what you know and what you've learned through the writing process. You also see how you've grown as a writer since you untied your apron strings from that novel and moved on to the next.

I have a supreme desire to thank my editor, Leslie Hodges, as her gentle red pen tweaked and strengthened my story. What remains after twelve hours of reading and making choices to accept or decline her red penciled edits, I chose in nearly every case to acquiesce to her expertise and judgment. That is what a good editor does--she tweaks she doesn't tamper. She leaves the story better for her footprints in the shadows but never pushes herself to the forefront--like an author who doesn't intrude on his/her story a good editor is invisible, never imposing her way of writing, just adjusting the way you get to the point you want to make.

For sure the first edits are a heady and exhausting experience. Would I skip it? Not for the world. I learned from every comment, every correction and every thought provoking decision made. The proof is in the Pudding, and I await the next task on this way to publication with enthusiasm.
www.billiewilliams.com