The Beginning

"Realistically, that first line is all you have." So says multi-published author of inspirational romantic suspense, Camy Tang. With our books, we have maybe five seconds to catch the reader’s interest. We have no more than that to excite an agent or editor such as 4RV Publishing.

 

First lines count more than anything.

 

When you begin your story and edit it to prepare for submission, this question should be answered first.

 

Where do you start?

 

Writers have five possibilities for first lines.

1.     Dialogue

2.     Action

3.     Exposition

4.     Description

5.     Thoughts

 

Dialogue beginning: “This place is awful,” Victoria said, spewing all the venom that a fifteen-year-old could muster.” Victoria and the Ghost by Janet K. Brown

As you may guess, this is one of my favorite type first lines.

 

Action first lines: “The station wagon jolted over a rough place in the blacktop, and I opened my eyes and sat up.” The Hills of Homicide”  by Louis L’Amour

 

Action starts are more rare. I searched many books before I found one. No surprise that it came from someone like Louis L'Amour.

Starting a story with exposition: “On June-eleventh, ten days after my sixteenth birthday, my life as I knew  it came to an end.” Live On Hold by Beverly Stowe McClure

 

Beginning with exposition is found a lot, but it's tricky to make it fresh and captivating. McClure does a good job here catching the reader's attention. We want to know more.

    

 Description first lines: “The manger was empty.” Angels Everywhere by Debbie Macomber.

 

A reader can get lost in description, but here, Macomber uses four words of description to snare the reader. 

 

 

Beginning with thoughts: “Somewhere in her heart, Danielle Montgomery knew this was wrong, and her guilt had a face, Momma’s face.”  No One heard her Scream by Jordan Dane

 

Internal thought is used effectively here by Dane to get to know the protagonist and identify part of her problem.

 

 

 

 

If you catch the reader's attention with the first line, chances are they'll read a bit farther. Concentrate and construct the first several paragraphs carefully.

 

Elements to consider for the first page.

1.     Do you show if the story is humorous? Dark? Suspenseful? Inspirational?

2.     Have you put the reader into the protagonist’s mind?

3.     Have you grounded us on where this story is taking place?

4.     Have you identified the problem to be solved?

 

A journalist’s guideline works also for fiction. After reading the first chapter, do you know why, when, where, who, and how? The sooner the reader relates to the protagonist and lives in his or her world, the best chance the author has that the book will not be laid aside in favor of another.

 

 

 

North Texas Romance Writers of America does an annual contest for first lines. Winners have been announced for 2014, but here's the link to the rules in case you'd like to enter in a few months when the contest cranks up again.

http://ntrwagreatexpectations.blogspot.com/p/2013-contest-rules.html

 

Hartline Literary Agency posts a good blog on first lines. Here's the link for it:

http://hartlineliteraryagency.blogspot.com/2014/03/first-lines-and-first-pages-for.html

 

 

A blog that I follow has this good article on writing that first page. Here's that link:

http://storysensei.blogspot.com/2009/01/first-page-part-1.html

 

A parting thought:

    Does the rest of your novel keep the promise you made to the reader on the first page? Was that really what the story was about? Do you answer the question posed in the beginning.

 

Dribbling Backstory

Backstory trips up new authors and still troubles seasoned ones.

Question: What is backstory?

Answer: Anything that has happened to your characters before the first page of the book.

Question: What makes it hard?

Answer: Deciding what a reader must know to understand what he’s reading and what can be left to the imagination to build tension and hold interest.

Here’s 3 truths.

1.     Backstory dumps near the beginning kills novels.

2.     Stories must be understood to be interesting.

3.     So, the author must tell as little as possible and wait as long as possibe.

Here’s a couple of guidelines given by multi-published, multi-awarded authors. They help me.

In a fiction mentoring clinic, DiAnn Mills taught us to strive for no backstory in the first fifty pages.

At Blue Ridge Christian Writer’s Conference, Angela Hunt told us to wait until about the 75-80% finished spot in your book to give lots of backstory. By then, the reader is invested in the character and wants to know what happened to him/her in the past.

 

Here’s some examples. Think about which you like the best and why.

Appearing on page 12 of Texas Blue by Jodi Thomas

     Since the War Between the States, bandits from across the border had been raiding cattle off ranches in Texas. At least a hundred fifty thousand head had vanished, not counting the hundreds stolen by small-time outlaws hiding out in canyons within the state.

      By this time, the reader is well acquainted with the protagonist and his goal, motivation, and conflict.

Appearing on page 4 of Life on Hold by Beverly Stowe McClure

     My father, with Uncle Gary’s help, had built it for Rachel and me when we were younger. In addition to being firefighters, the Gibson brothers owned a construction business.

     McClure gives this piece of insight into the treehouse which figures greatly into the story, but then she goes right back into the action.

Appearing on page 4 of Second Chance by Galand Nuchols

     Leroy looked toward the wizened garden he and his mother had tried to save. Buckets of water had been carried to peas, corn, and tomatoes.

     We get this tiny bit of backstory giving a view of the setting before Nuchols goes back to action.

On page 1 of Victoria and the Ghost by Janet K. Brown

     The expression of pain on Dad’s face was familiar since the divorce.

On the same page several paragraphs down.

     Dad gave Mom’s fancy French Provincial to the Salvation Army.

On page 13 of Scorned Justice by Margaret Daley

     He had come back to his hometown of San Antonio to fill a ranger’s position in Company D because his father’s health had taken a turn for the worse six months ago Then, he’d had a heart attack, and his dad had required a lot more care than Brody checking with him every day could give him. When his dad was released from the hospital, he came to live with Brody.

     This was a full paragraph after the reader has been introduced to the heroine and then the hero with dialogue and action included.

Another solution to the problem is shown by including a prologue as in Shadow in the Past by Melanie Roberson-King.

     Nine-year-old Sarah Shand struggled to keep up with her grandmother on their way to the stone circle. (This prologue continues on for 2 ½ pages.)

     Then in chapter 2, page 8, the first touch of backstory comes with this.

     Blair had been Sarah’s first serious boyfriend. They started dating the year she turned sixteen. She was certain he would ask her to marry him when they finished school and had even picked out her wedding gown and planned her big day.

     Then, the author goes back to dialogue.

Compare the above examples that were published with this example that needs work before it can be published.

This is the beginning of a novel I wrote before editing.

     Hannah Hastings was in a mess. If only James had stayed home with his family, but he hadn’t. He had deserted them to write his book, to make his mark. Then, a drunk driver cut his life short, and left Hannah with three kids to raise, no job, and little money.

     Notice this action all happened before the story began. It’s all backstory. How would you solve this?

 
Which example do you like the best and why.

I found these links helpful.

 http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/how-to-weave-backstory-seamlessly-into-your-novel

http://storysensei.blogspot.com/2005/08/how-to-write-backstory-without-putting.html

http://www.foremostpress.com/authors/articles/prologue.html

My best solution is dribbling only a few words at a time through the novel. What’s you best idea?

PLOTTING 101

We get an idea for a story.

Perhaps, we know something about the main character and what goes wrong in their lives.

            (Obviously, something goes wrong, or there wouldn’t be a story)

Maybe, we can imagine a hint of how that character’s problem is solved. Perhaps not.

 

A character with a problem needing resolution might give us a short story, but a full-length novel or even a novella, that doesn’t make. At some point we have to fill 200, 300, 400 pages of what writers like to call sagging middle.

 

This post won't work for some. True pantsers hate plotting in any form, but for those who need some direction, here’s my solution, my suggestion, my system.

 

On a blank sheet of paper, draw this silly looking diagram that I fondly call my amoeba.

 

Thee "amoeba" for my one published novel, "Victoria and the Ghost."

Write the working title at the top, the main character’s name to the top left along with what it is that they want. Then, I write on the top right the antagonist’s name and what they want. In a romance, this would be the spot for the hero’s name. On my drawing, I could’ve put the ghost, or any one of Victoria’s friends. I chose her dad because he’s who Victoria blames for all her trouble. At the middle top, write why the main character can’t have what they want. What’s stopping them?

 

At the #1 tip of the amoeba, write where the story starts, the "inciting incident," as some call it. This may be all we have when we begin, but we can add as we write and as we decide what happens next, or we can write suggestions at each tip of the amoeba and aim for that. Either can work. It depends on how we prefer to plot. We all plot at some point, or we can’t write a book.

 

Tips for Picking Up Sagging Middles

1. Give the protagonist a new complication to reaching her goal

2,    Give the protagonist an extra problem to solve separate from the main goal

3. Give a secondary character a problem to solve.

     4. Make a list of things that could thwart the protagonist from getting their goal. Usually the items

        at the bottom of your list will be most interesting. We start with obvious problems.

 

     5. Ask the question; what would my main character never do? Then, have him/her do it. This

        could start a whole new plot twist.

A quote that points us in the right direction when trying to come up with new plot twists comes from Nancy Kress  in her book Beginnings, Middles, & Ends.

 

       “The forces developed in the middle must emerge naturally out of the characters and situations introduced at the beginning.”

 

This comes back to what your main character wants, and why he/she can’t have it.

 

As I add plot twists to the swerves of my amoeba design, I realize something that helps me. While I’m writing my novel, and I reach plot twist number 3, I’m halfway around the amoeba which means halfway through the book. This is a guide. If I’ve reached this point and my word count is 20K, but I’m writing a novel of 60K, I’ve got a problem. This clues me to the fact that I need to develop plot twist #2 more, or I’ve added plot twist #3 too quickly.

 

I hope my simple suggested way of plotting helps.

Let me know if you have other ideas on how to help sagging middles or think up new plot twists. I’d love to hear from you. I always need help.

Synopsis: What it is and Isn't

You’ve pitched to an agent or editor at a conference, or you’ve queried an editor or agent about your book, and they request a full submission.

That can mean many things, but most often for fiction books, a submission requires some of your actually-written-edited-best-it-can-be chapters. Their request can also ask for the dreaded synopsis.

“Yikes,” you say, “what’s a synopsis?”

When I began writing, I wrote a synopsis as the final task and worried myself silly over it. I admit I still don't like them.

Multi-published author, Karen Kelley, http://authorkarenkelley.com/

set me straight. “Write your synopsis first when you have the idea in your head. This avoids deciding what’s important and what’s not. In the beginning, we only know the important part. 

Her words of wisdom proved correct. When the book was completed with all the problems I threw at my protagonist, my synopsis was too long. Every plot twist seemed important. I couldn’t delete anything. When I wrote the synopsis first, I hit only the main plot themes.

 

Now, let's look at what a synopsis really is and what's it's not.

What a synopsis is not:

    It’s not a summary.

    It’s not a chapter by chapter outline.

    It’s not a query.

    It’s not a back-cover blurb.

 

What a synopsis does:

     It gives the reader the essence of the story.

     It tells who and what with a light touch on when, where, and

             how.

     It answers the questions:

         What’s so different about this story?
         Why should I care about this person or their problems?
         What does the protagonist want? Why? Why can’t he get it?

     Instead of saying what happened next, it should tell the reader

           what impact it has on the characters.

 Important reminders when we write a synopsis:

     Those who read it judge our writing.

     Find out what the agent or editor that’s the target of your submission wants in a synopsis. Requirements run from one page to ten pages, and formatting desires may differ.

     A synopsis is IMPORTANT.

Good websites on writing synopsis:

http://www.margaretdaley.com/2011/04/synopsis-writing/

http://cjdarlington.com/writing-articles/how-to-write-a-novel-synopsis.htm

http://killzoneauthors.blogspot.com/2010/06/synopsis-writing-made-easy.html#.UaYwN6wo7cs

http://www.lindaneedham.com/synopsistips.htm

Good examples of synopsis: 

http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/open-ready-synopsis-example-the-ides-of-march-political-thriller

http://www.storysense.com/synopsis.htm

Kansas Book Festival 2012 - 4RV style

by Vivian Zabel  

The grounds of the Kansas Historical Museum set up for the book festival

          The minivan loaded with books and supplies headed north from Edmond, Oklahoma, its nose slightly airborne due to all the weight. The rain washed the vehicle clean all the way to Topeka by way of Emporia.

          Friday about noon, Melanie Robertson-King and Carla Ralston joined Jacque Graham and me at the Best Western Hotel. After we greeted and hugged each other, we moved our luggage to a suite where we had connecting bedrooms and began an old fashion slumber party -- but full of plain ol' hard work.

The table with 4RV YA, fiction and nonfiction with editor Carla Ralston, authors Janet K. Brown and Melanie Robertson-King behind publisher Vivian Zabel

Carla Ralston tries to stay warm

          Saturday morning, September 15, dawned cold, dreary, and wet. We hauled (well, mainly "they") boxes and boxes and boxes of books and materials from the van to our tables. Someone wanted pictures of what it took to set up. That's impossible. Take my word for it, with the help of 8 people, it took us over two hours, as we shivered and felt our feet become numb. Needless to say, the crowds stayed away -- until mid-afternoon when the sun decided to awaken and warm us a bit. Then the people began to flood the grounds, over 2000 of them. 

Galand Nuchols, Carla Ralston, Jacque Graham, Melanie King

          The book festival actually was a combination of conference and festival. Authors and other book related people held workshops in the museum and history center, found on two sides of the grass area where tents held a children's area, exhibitors, and special book signing area. 

The children's books table with gift bag for drawing

          4RV had two tables, and one table held nothing but a variety of children's books, and at the end the gift bag donated by Stephanie Burkhart for a drawing. We had several people sign up, and the woman who won loved it.

Janet K. Brown, Melanie Robertson-King, Galand Nuchols

          4RV had three new releases, with their authors present to promote their books, and one of our top editors at our booth: Melanie Robertson-King from Ontario, Canada and her debut novel A Shadow in the Past; Janet K. Brown from Wichita Falls, Texas and her first book Victoria and the Ghost; Galand Nuchols from Mt. Pleasant, Texas with her second 4RV book Leroy's Chance; and editor Carla Ralston from North Dakota.

          Also located in the exhibitors' tent were some of the award groups. They were looking for children's books and middle grade/young adult books, published in 2012. They left with three entries for the Bill Martin Jr. Award: My Cat, Porcupine's Seeds, and Rhino Crashes &Critter Classes. For the William Allen White Children's Book Awards, the representatives took First Flag of New Hampshire, Life on Hold, and A Shadow from the Past. Joining them soon will be Victoria and the Ghost and Leroy's Chance.

          We sold several books, more than usual at a book festival. All told, the Kansas Book Festival was a success for 4RV Publishing.

A few glimpses of the hard work:

Boxes under table after setup

Boxes under the other table after setup

       Hope these pictures give just a glimpse of some of the work involved.

Galand begins tearing down

Even husbands work - Charles Brown

Sisters help, too - Galand's sister

Melanie sells herself and her book

      And then there's the "job" of meeting, greeting customers and persuading them they want your book.  

We're in the News - from Alaska to Kansas

          Published on the digital version of The Edmond Sun:

September 11, 2012

Edmond publisher speaks at Alaska Writers Conference

The Edmond Sun

 

EDMOND — Edmond author, editor and publisher Vivian Zabel of Edmond was one of the featured speakers at the 2012 Alaska Writers Conference Sept. 7-9.

This three-day annual conference brings nationally known authors, agents, editors and publishers straight to writers, ready to share their knowledge of how to write well and get published. Many of these speakers have authored or worked on nationally recognized books, films, television and other media.

Zabel was to present one of the Friday Interactive Workshops — Keeping the Reader’s Interest: A workshop on how to write so that “action” and “showing” keeps a reader’s interest.

Her publishing company 4RV Publishing produced the Oklahoma Book Award winner in fiction for 2010; “Confessions of a Former Rock Queen” by Kirk Bjorngaard. Other books have received regional awards in their categories. 4RV has released children’s books, middle grade and young adult books, novels and nonfiction books. 4RV is a royalty paying, traditional press. Authors do not pay for being published. The company takes the financial risks.

As an editor for more than 35 years, an English and writing teacher for nearly 30 years, an author with poetry, articles, short stories and novels published (with a few writing awards), and the head of a small publishing company for more than five years, Zabel experienced both sides of the submission experience. She understands being rejected, too. Since all submissions go to acquisition editors anonymously, one of her own submissions to 4RV was rejected.

“That’s the only way to keep the company honest,” Zabel said.

Zabel also was to speak on pitching book ideas and tips for impressing agents, editors and publishers, and presenting a finished book to a group.

 
           Included in the same issue of The Edmond Sun:

4RV launches young adult paranormal books

4RV Publishing of Edmond will officially debut two young adult paranormal fiction books at the Kansas Book Festival Sept. 15.  The event will be at the Kansas Museum of History in Topeka, Kan.

“A Shadow in the Past” by Melanie Robertson-King and “Victoria and the Ghost” by Janet Brown will debut at the Kansas Book Festival.

Robertson-King will be flying to the festival from Canada to sell signed copies of her debut YA/crossover paranormal romance.

In “A Shadow in the Past,” ancient Scottish legends become a reality when Sarah Shand finds herself transported back to the Victorian Era. She falls for the handsome Laird of Weetshill, but will he simply be the next to break her heart? After all, he is spoken for...

Brown will sell signed copies of her new YA paranormal novel as well. 

In “Victoria and the Ghost,” Victoria, a 15-year-old city girl, loses her mother’s love and tries to cope with country isolation, no friends, and no one who cares, until she meets a ghost.

           At the time the press release was sent to the media, the company didn't know Leroy's Chance would be ready to be launched. However, Galand Nuchols will be at the Kansas Book Festival for the official release of her novel, too. 

          All together, 65 4RV titles will be available for purchase at Topeka.  All can be found on the 4RV Book Store, too.