Writers in the Storm

I just taught a class on  Beginning Pages recently, so I’ve been thinking a lot about first lines.

 Stephen King had something to say about the magnitude of a novel’s first line:

“An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story,” he said.

“It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.”

Preach it, Steve.

I’m not saying a killer first line will land you an agent, get your book sold, or make it a NYT bestseller. But it sure won’t hurt your chances. And I’d make a case that a book that achieves all the above, more often than not, has a great first line.

Why is that? A first line is a promise to the reader, telling them what kind of book this is. What your voice is. Maybe who the main character is. A good first line will pull a reader into a story.

But how do you do that? Here are some suggestions of where to start:

• Irony - A contradiction or opposite of some kind, something unexpected.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

You just know from those 23 words, how Jane really feels about this ‘universal truth’. And you could guess how she’ll handle it in the book, right? Jane has just shown you her voice - snark, Victorian style.  BTW, many will argue to the death that this was the best first line ever written. Let’s not go there – we've a lot more to do.

• Catalyst -  The catalyst is what sets your story in motion. A knock at the door, a phone call, please, just don’t start with a dream!

“When the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it's never good news.” Anthony Horowitz, Stormbreaker

“It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.” Paul Auster, City of Glass

• Comparison - A simile or metaphor.

“Unlike the typical bluesy earthy folksy denim-overalls noble-in-the-face-of-cracker-racism aw shucks Pulitzer-Prize-winning protagonist mojo magic black man, I am not the seventh son of the seventh son of the seventh son.” Paul Beatty, The White Boy Shuffle

• Dilemma –

“Once upon a time, in a far-off land, I was kidnapped by a gang of fearless yet terrified young men with so much impossible hope beating inside their bodies it burned their very skin and strengthened their will right through their bones.” Roxane Gay, An Untamed State

“He—for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it—was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters.” Virginia Woolf, Orlando

“The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we understood the gravity of our situation.” Donna Tartt, The Secret History

• Question – But be careful using this; it’s been used SO much that has to be fresh and intriguing. NO clichés!

 “What makes Iago evil? some people ask. I never ask.” Joan Didion, Play It As It Lays

• Intriguing Character –

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye

• Intriguing Premise – The line itself may not mean much, but after reading it, you HAVE to read on!

“Don’t look for dignity in public bathrooms.”  Vitor LaValle, Big Machine

 “Your father picks you up from prison in a stolen Dodge Neon, with an 8-ball of coke in the glove compartment and a hooker named Mandy in the back seat.” Dennis Lehane, Until Gwen

“They shoot the white girl first.” Toni Morrison, Paradise

 “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Here’s mine, from The Sweet Spot:

The grief counselor told the group to be grateful for what they had left. After lots of considering, Charla Rae decided she was grateful for the bull semen.

I screwed up with that line. I wasn’t going for funny. I didn’t even know it was funny until, when I read it at a writer’s retreat, Tessa Dare snorted wine through her nose. See, bucking bull semen is a legitimate industry – just as racehorse semen is. And Charla Rae owns a ranch where they raise and train bucking bulls. The book is emotional, and deals with grief and forgiveness. So, in this case, the first line breaks its promise to readers (unless they know the bull industry). But you know what? When people meet me, they mention that line. They actually remember it. So I can live with that.

I may not have the perfect first line when I start a book, but if I don’t, it niggles at the back of my mind until I come up with one – even if it’s after I’ve written half the book!

I knew I didn’t have the best first line for my current WIP – it’s a hard-hitting, right to die novel. Here was my first shot at it:

Funny, how knowing the exact time and place of my death makes me exquisitely aware of being alive. 

It’s not bad; it raises a question in the reader’s mind. It’s in the voice of an upper-middle class scientist and professor, which the protagonist is.

But I knew it wasn’t a killer first line. Enter the brilliant Margie Lawson. On a Writer’s Cruise (yes, it was as amazing as that sounds, and they're having another this year! You can check it out here), she worked with me on my first scene. Together, we came up with the first line:

Today, death rides a bicycle. My bicycle.

Oh yeah.

So, do you have a favorite first line for us?

Either one of yours, or a memorable one from another author?

And You Shouldn’t Even Bother Me with Your Stable Characters

by Kimberly Brock

Lately, I’ve been watching a lot of Netflix with my husband – particularly British crime shows. Well, actually, anything British. I don’t know why. But this blog is not about that. What it is about is the fact that I am always, always, always most interested in the trashiest, quirkiest, strangest, darkest, most unstable characters. Liars, cheats, addicts. Personally, I would rather eat cold, overcooked oatmeal than read about a good character who does good things in a good world where everybody is on time and well-groomed, consuming a healthy diet, getting enough sleep, living life in tastefully decorated rooms with Barry Manilow piped in to set the mood. My husband pointed this out to me a few weeks ago when we were talking about my girl crush on actress Nicola Walker’s character in “Last Tango in Halifax,” which then led to binge watching another of her series, “River.” I actually sank back into the sofa and sighed and said, “Oh, she is so screwed up. I love her.”

My husband was perplexed. But he wasn’t really worried until a few weeks ago when we finished our nightly romp through the “Luther” series. In the final episode, my favorite character, a narcissistic psychopathic serial killer who saves the hero, uttered the most fabulous line to his little wisp of a girlfriend. It was the best line of all time, delivered with steely eyes and a smirk. If you hurt him, I will kill you. (INSERT DELISCIOUS PAUSE) And eat you.

OH, YES! I jumped off the couch, cheering and laughing. I made my husband rewind it. (Do you rewind anything anymore?) Twice. I said the lines with her, dramatically. Gleefully! And my husband, who is a brave man, rolled his eyes. The same way he rolled his eyes later in the week when he caught me making a Pinterest board dedicated to these characters. If you make fun of my Pinterest Board of Psycho Characters, I will kill you. And eat you.

Now, really. I don’t want to kill anyone, much less eat them. But, man! It got a reaction out of me - this character saying those perfect words at that perfect moment and what it meant to the person hearing them. Even though, obviously, the character is quite the psycho, I loved her.

So, why am I confessing all of this to you at risk of sounding like a sicko and losing your readership forever? Because I’ve been trying to work out my fascination with the most unstable characters and why I love them best when I’m a reader. And – here’s the twist – why I’m always so afraid to write them.

Don’t get me wrong! I DO write them. I ALWAYS write them. I write them cloaked in what THEY believe is noble, but they’re screw ups, heroes and villains, alike. Listen, I’ve been to the conferences and the panels and the workshops. Dammit, I teach them! I know what they SAY about how your characters are supposed to be three-dimensional and flawed. I know what they SAY about how a good story is only a good story because there’s CONFLICT. I know how books like Gone Girl have flown off the shelf and been made into blockbuster movies and caused us all to despise Ben Affleck and get our own secret badass undercut bobbed haircuts. Girl Reading This Blog, I know!

But it’s a challenge to actually do it. And I often fail at it before I succeed. Why? When I first sit down to create characters I love they come out fabulously twisted and depraved and socially awkward. But inevitably, I start to lose all confidence that readers will stick with them. I’ll invest tons of energy second-guessing their morality and editing their language. I will smooth out their rough edges and bad habits and cover up their body art. I will make them better parents. I will sweeten up their motives and switch out the shots of whiskey in their hands to a tall glasses of sweet tea. All in an effort to convince my readers they can safely embrace my paper people. They can love us (because, the truth is all of my characters are an extension of me.) We’re perfectly acceptable, if you just don’t notice that little bit of psychopath sticking out from beneath our neatly pressed collars.

Before I know it, my characters turn out like a whole new cast of the Mickey Mouse Club, chilled out on anti-depressants. They turn into cold oatmeal and nobody, not even me, wants to read about them. I’m perplexed. I loved all those super freaks when I started. What went wrong? It’s a common lament and I think I know the answer, but it might not be what you think.

The brave writers are the ones who don’t try to dress up the truth to the taste of their readers. They lay out the reality of who we are without considering the sensibilities of their readers!

Think about it. They trust that instead of being cowards, readers will do what they’ve done for as long as people have been telling stories – they’ll recognize themselves in the mistakes and sicknesses, the betrayals and selfishness, the most heartbreaking falls from grace. The most powerful characters created through literary history have all come from authors who are fearless. Can you think of them? They are made that way by one thing – their authors trusted readers. When this happens, we are all rewarded by an uncensored experience that gives the ultimate gift of human expression. What’s that? You don’t know about the gift? Buddy, I’ll tell you. It’s priceless.

But first, you should know it will cost you. Not all readers will appreciate a straight shooter. They won’t all cheer for the writer that sticks his or her head up too high, who exposes something ugly or tragic or contrary or just plain hard to look at. Because human beings judge. And we preach. And we take stands and get offended. But writers who trust their readers don’t expect accolades and awards and admiration. They expect torches and mobs, condescending emails and ranting blog posts and Twitter *%&!storms. And you’ll know a brave writer by their response to this - they’re smart enough to know that means they’ve done their job.

Which brings me back to my original question – why do I love the weirdo, psycho, screw up characters best? Because they’re true. They’re real. They’re more real than me, even. They are uncensored in ways that implore me to see things their way. They can do and be anything and I can experience it all with them – good, bad and ugly! I can hate them for it or love them for it, but by God, I can feel it with them. And there’s the little gem that this whole quest boils down to for me, the gift of a fearless, trusting author to all us readers – their characters create empathy in us.

Without empathy, none of our stories matter. Empathy can change the world, not just entertain it or appease it. And if I’m going to spend hours out of my life alone in my own head, staring at a screen (which, by the way, is pretty weird), I think at the very least I ought to be doing something brave enough to change the world. And myself. I ought to tell the truth.

So as I work on this next book, I hope it costs me. I hope I let my characters fly their freak flags and don’t censor a single detail to anybody’s liking. I hope I’m brave enough to write like I read, embracing my inner weirdos. All of them. And trusting that if I get it right, Twitter will let me know.

Who are your favorite weirdo characters? Do you read fearlessly? Do you write fearlessly? Would you write differently if you didn’t censor your characters?

About Kimberly

Kimberly Brock is the award winning author of the #1 Amazon bestseller, THE RIVER WITCH (Bell Bridge Books, 2012). A former actor and special needs educator, Kimberly is the recipient of the Georgia Author of the Year 2013 Award. A literary work reminiscent of celebrated southern author Carson McCullers, THE RIVER WITCH has been chosen by two national book clubs.

Kimberly’s writing has appeared in anthologies, blogs and magazines, including Writer Unboxed and Psychology Today. Kimberly served as the Blog Network Coordinator for She Reads, a national online book club from 2012 to 2014, actively spearheading several women’s literacy efforts. She lectures and leads workshops on the inherent power in telling our stories and is founder of Tinderbox Writer’s Workshop. She is also owner of Kimberly Brock Pilates.

She lives in the foothills of north Atlanta with her husband and three children, where she is at work on her next novel. Visit her website at kimberlybrockbooks.com for more information and to find her blog.

Angela Ackerman

Conferences are full of opportunities to learn, network, and grow. This summer I attended a local 3-day event called When Words Collide, which is a conference for writers and readers. Over 700 people attended, and every hour there were many different craft, marketing, industry, and genre-specific presentations to choose from. A fantastic event!

As a writer, I soaked up the learning sessions. But as a professional author, I also paid attention to conference subtext, watching how other authors, presenters, keynote speakers, and booksellers interacted and carried themselves to be successful in their roles.

Going From Writer to Author: Hello, Learning Curve

Once you start thinking of your writing as a career, you juggle more hats. At conferences, you might teach workshops, attend book signings, participate in author meet-and-greets, or give inspiring keynote talks.

No one really talks about the learning curve as one adapts from writer to professional author, but boy, it’s there. We have so much to learn. Watching what others do can really help us. So with that in mind, here are some of my conference observations.

What Makes a Powerful Keynote

This conference had a panel of keynotes, so 5 speeches total. What an opportunity to deconstruct what made each work (or not). Common elements: each talk inspired in some way, shared a personal story of overcoming adversity tied to writing or publishing (that the entire audience could relate to), it didn’t sugar coat the hard stuff and it demonstrated that perseverance and self-belief are key. The speeches also conveyed optimism and shared a love for what we all do: write.

One speaker made a tactical error in his keynote by targeting two groups (teachers and self-published authors) and made statements about them that were off-putting. This ended up alienating a good portion of the audience as many happened to be members of one of these groups. So the lesson? Understand who you are speaking to and why, and stay away from opinions that may result in the audience feeling disrespected.

Presenters and Panelists Best Practices

I attended many panels and presentations (and participated in some, too). The best presenters were well-prepared, had slideshow presentations, knew their topic intimately (they didn’t read a script), ran sessions on time, and left time for questions. They also incorporated humor in a very natural way, which allowed everyone to connect through laughter. After the presentation was over, time was tight, but if someone had a follow up question, the presenter would exchange business cards with the attendee, and follow up later—very good form.

The best panelists were respectful of one another’s opinions even when they differed, they didn’t monopolize the discussion (as a panelist, it’s frustrating when someone does take over), they came prepared (sadly this is not always the case) and they stuck to the panel’s topic. They also allowed enough time for audience questions.

Successful Author-Reader Interactions

As a readercon, there were many opportunities for authors to interact with fans. At the mass book signing (80 authors), I was sitting next to national bestselling author Eve Silver, so I was able to see firsthand how she engaged each person who approached, asked them questions, made eye contact, and left each one feeling valued and special. (Watching her was great because I always feel like such a dork at signings, lol.)

Aside from the signing, authors who were really on point were those who always made time for readers (stopping in the halls to chat or answer questions, visiting during after-hours socials, etc.) They were approachable, available, inclusive, warm, and genuine.

Booksellers & The Bookstore

The bookstore was massive, with thousands of books on sale and it had a big community feel. Many publishers and organizations had tables featuring their authors' books, and often a reader would only know a book title or author, not the publisher. Even if it wasn’t a book from their house, all sellers made time to help them find the correct table.

Authors (both traditionally and self-published) milled about or helped man tables, so I saw lots of discussion over books and cover art, and invites to enter a draw or take a bookmark…but no hard selling. I think most are now savvy enough to know that just isn’t well received.

A neat tidbit I learned: never display bookmarks or business cards in a stack because psychologically people won’t want to disrupt the pile. So, fan it out and people are more likely to take one with them. Also, CANDIES, people. Put a jar on your book table. Everyone likes a candy to enjoy while browsing.

Interacting with Organizers & Conference Volunteers

With such a massive conference, organizers (all volunteers, no one was paid) had a lot of authors and presenters to juggle. I am in awe of the job they did. Everyone was very accommodating if you needed something, and they went out of their way to help authors who were respectful and genuine. One author I noticed was griping and complaining, and as a result, no one seemed incentivized to go the extra mile. But then it’s common sense to treat the organizers and volunteers with the respect they deserve, and not act entitled.

What are your conference experiences? What tips and tricks have you picked up? Let me know in the comments!

 About Angela

Angela Ackerman is a writing coach, international speaker, and co-author of the bestselling book, The Emotion Thesaurus: a Writer’s Guide to Character Expression, as well as four others including the newly minted Urban Setting and Rural Setting Thesaurus duo. Her books are available in five languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. Angela is also the co-founder of the popular site, Writers Helping Writers, as well as One Stop For Writers, an innovative online library built to help writers elevate their storytelling. She loves connecting, so please say hello on twitter, facebook and instagram.