May we start…?
"It was a dark and stormy night."
"The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning."
"It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills."
"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."
"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink."
The above might give you the impression that this little piece is about opening sentences in books. Nope. This is about book beginnings, but it's only about the beginning of one book: my book; my WIP.
Like many writers of short stories, I too am working on a long story. I've been working on it for a couple of years, and part of the reason I've been working on it all that time is that it started life as a short story.
Let me explain.
I wrote a short story back in 2005: a thriller/mystery. It clocked in at about 6,000 words, and I sent it out to the usual markets. There was no sale. I wasn't concerned; it was a peculiar story and I knew it would be a hard sell, but more importantly, I had the feeling there was a better story that could be had from it.
I returned to the story several times in the following years.
I widened the plot and added a new main character.
I rewrote the story in first person.
I twice changed the main character's occupation.
I tried different settings and time periods (the original had been set in New Zealand in 1969). I reset it in Germany in 1950.
I then went back to third person and tried it out in England in the 1930s.
For three months, I thought of adapting what I had as a screenplay for a television series.
For three months after that, I thought it might make a decent novella.
Then finally I slammed my head into my desk and surrendered.
What I had was a novel.
I had been thinking that all along, but I had kept putting it off for fear of commitment. Writing a novel is a serious undertaking. It's like joining the Foreign Legion, or flying to Mars. Once you sign on for the ride, it's you and the devil, baby.
I spent the summer of 2013 mapping out the novel's plot. I moved the story back to 1969 and changed its setting to California. I then tweaked that by bringing the story into the present day. Despite the story's original setting and time period, for the bigger story that had developed, it was a perfect fit.
So, why haven't I now finished writing it?
Because I've been working on the book's opening.
I define "opening" as a book's first quarter. For me, it's the most important part of the book, as everything that occurs in the following three quarters must have its roots back in the first. Shotgun over the fireplace in the first quarter – someone pulls its trigger in the last quarter. To most writers, this is a no-brainer. I'm a slow learner.
I've written the book's opening about six times. I say about, because I've lost count. And with every new draft, I had the sense I had finally gotten it right. However, a little voice inside me kept saying: "No" (like that "little man" inside Edward G. Robinson in the movie Double Indemnity).
The first problem was the story's origin as a short story – it took me a long time to break free of it. The first draft of the book retained it almost entirely intact with scenes simply added in and around it.
Little voice said: "No."
I expanded the beginning and wrote a new, and what I considered to be a perfect, first chapter. The three people who read it remarked the same thing: That's a nice first chapter, Stephen. But it still didn't work. And despite my knowing it didn't, I hung onto it like the pair of us were hooked up to mutual life support.
Little voice said: "No."
The chapter didn't work because it was a prologue. It described events that had happened thirty years before the rest of the story. Subsequently, chapter two felt like the book was starting all over again. A brick wall to many readers. Eventually, I incorporated the events of the prologue into later chapters, where they were actually relevant to the progressing story.
Another problem I had was that I was holding too much back from the reader about the main character. It was as though I didn't want anyone to know anything about him. He's the MAIN character; we should know something about him! We should know his thoughts!
Little voice said (with a hint of weariness): "Oh, boy."
A rereading of Stephen King's On Writing kicked me back on course on this one. To paraphrase King: Don't keep secrets from your readers. As a side note, I've read a pile of books about the craft of writing, and King's book is the one I keep coming back to. So, after another restart, my main character is now more engaging – he actually does things, and we get inside his head – and the book flows a lot more smoothly.
Today (late August 2014), I'm about two weeks out from finishing the book's first quarter, and almost everything in the first quarter of the book now takes place before the events in the short story, with almost none of the short story (as it was originally written) making it into the book.
I've learned a couple of valuable lessons in the last year and a half. Be ruthless with your writing. Kill your darlings. Give them a pair of cement slippers and row them out into the harbor at midnight. And don't write a book in denial of the truth, especially when the truth is right under your nose.
So, when will this book be finished? Now that my writing pocket watch has come off glacier time, hopefully within the next year. I have a rough draft already for most of the rest of it (I didn't spend all of that year and a half entirely on the first 20,000 words).
Little voice says: "We'll see about that, laddie!"
On my tombstone will be engraved either Tenacious or Fool. Or as a friend cheerfully suggested: Both.
Update August 2025: The book mentioned above has yet to be completed. It’s in a folder with a couple of others and one day may see the light of day. SR
First published: Sleuthsayers.org (August 26, 2014)
©2014 Stephen Ross
Photo: Diogenes Garzon de Vértiz