There was a post last week that fascinated me when I read it. Mary Carroll Moore, and author, editor, and book doctor, and her blog post How Do You Start Your Chapters for the Most Punch? Some Simple–and Surprising–Structure Tips for All Genres suggested that editors don’t read the first five pages a manuscript anymore, they only read the first two. She further suggested that:
“We readers have gotten impatient. Or publishers are gearing toward a new generation of readers, the movie-goers? Our brains have changed, certainly, and we may not be able to hang in there for seven chapters before something happens.”
“Look for a dramatic event that causes conflict for someone and has the potential to make big changes in the storyline.”
- She is abandoned in an airport by herself after being orphaned, because her aunt, who she never knew existed until her mother’s will was read, doesn’t come to meet her.
- She lies to her godfather about the fact that she’s been abandoned, thereby giving herself no safety net or way to have him help her.
- She goes off in a taxi to figure out what’s going on with her aunt without knowing what kind of a reception she will get when she gets to the plantation her family has owned for three-hundred years–a plantation she never knew existed.
- She uses her family gift for finding lost things to return the taxi driver’s wedding ring.
- She discovers that her finding gift connects her to Watson’s Landing as if that’s where she’s supposed to be.
- The gate to the plantation may or may not have opened magically to admit her.
- She finds the mansion falling apart and her aunt sitting on the front steps crying, having evidently broken down so badly that she lost all sense of time.
- Feyre has ventured further from home than she normally dares in chase of deer, who are being pushed further and further away as the forest dies. She and her family are a week from starvation.
- She finds a doe that would feed her family for a week or more, but a wolf is after the same deer.
- The wolf kills the deer and she in turn kills the wolf, who makes no effort to avoid being killed by Fayre’s special arrow of ash and iron.
- It isn’t until after the wolf is dead that Feyre is sure the wolf isn’t one of the wicked fairies who lay waste to entire towns and who may or may not have been spotted in the area.
- She skins the wolf and carrying the pelt and dead doe, she retreats toward home.
- Set out the stakes early. (Barrie has nowhere else to go. Feyre is a week from starvation. )
- Start with the story question. (Will Barrie find a home/family? Will Feyre be caught and killed by the fey?)
- Keep your main character in the forefront by engaging her/him in activity. (Barrie transports herself to Watson Island. Eyre hunt a deer and kills a wolf.)
- Reveal character and special abilities through action as much as possible.
- Build the story world as you go, slivering in the details of place as needed.
THIS WEEK’S GIVEAWAY
A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES
by Sarah J. Maas
A thrilling, seductive new series from New York Timesbestselling author Sarah J. Maas, blending Beauty and the Beast with faerie lore.
When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin—one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world.
As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow grows over the faerie lands, and Feyre must find a way to stop it . . . or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.
Perfect for fans of Kristin Cashore and George R. R. Martin, this first book in a sexy and action-packed new series is impossible to put down!
