Learning from Du Maurier

Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again.

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

This is an appealing first sentence in part because it hints at so many possibilities. Short stories often begin with first sentences that suggest something at risk for a character, or that’s certainly one of my favorite approaches. Some novels start the same way, but here is another technique. Options, enough that a reader literally wonders what will happen next, are another great way to begin and might be an especially good way to start a novel.

Among the options and directions the next sentence could take readers, among the questions the next sentences, paragraphs, and chapters can answer are why is Manderley important enough to dream of, what is Manderley, what is the character’s life like during the day (is it better or worse than their dream), and even what have other dreams (nightmares?) of this person or place been like.

Sharing dreams is also an intimate thing. Readers are immediately invited inside the character’s inner life and into a version of that inner life the character does not control perfectly but that probably has some relationship to their daily life. Dreams characterize. Readers know they are getting something they’ll need to interpret. Characters might offer interpretations of their own dreams (or refuse to interpret them) in ways that reveal who they are to readers. Readers will get to know who this “I” is by reading on.

Journal entries might provide similar invitations into inner lives. Epislatory fiction adds the possibility of an audience and complicates the degree of invitation as a result. A similar first sentence might begin with a dilemma: “My new boyfriend left his journal/laptop/browser open on his desk.” A dilemma like this is an opportunity for intimacy but doesn’t seem an invitation to the same degree of closeness as a dream, at least not to me this morning.

Interesting language 5

It was over. Grace leaned back in her chair and stared through the solid wall into her imagination: giant seas, tiny rafts rising and falling on them, rain or snow or sleet, howling winds. If they were not all dead, what would they be doing? How long could they survive in the cold, with just the resources in those rafts?

Elizabeth Moon, Cold Welcome

Learning from Ruiz Zafon

“One of them moved forward with a courteous smile, his hands crossed over his chest like a bishop. He must have been in his early fifties, and his build and spare hair lent him the air of a bird of prey. He had a penetrating gaze and gave off an aroma of fresh eau de cologne and mothballs.”

–Father Fernando Ramos in The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

This is a brief three sentence description of a minor character (I think; I haven’t finished the book yet). Ruiz Zafon descriptions are a strength. In the first sentence, Father Fernando Ramos sets himself apart from a group of priests by moving toward the characters; he also gestures in a way that invites comparison to others higher in the hierarchy. (Does this suggest he is ambitious?) The physical description continues in the second sentence and ends with another comparison, this one more dangerous. It also includes a rhyme and a pun. The third sentence includes another direct description and contrasting (perhaps funny?) sensory details.

In other words, Ramon is created in three sentences with a movement, context (the hierarchy and an attitude toward it), two sets of physical descriptions and comparisons, and a (non-visual) bit of sensory information.

Here is an attempt at something similar: The old man drew his bow slowly over the strings, letting the sound quiet the tavern like the gongs that called the town to prayer. He was at least seventy, spotty in his baldness, his face as blank and his fiddle as steady as stone. He exhaled loudly but slowly and sounded both tired and excited.

(“Tired” and “excited” are both too abstract, but it’s a start.)

Interesting language 2

A little later, remembering man’s earthly origin, “dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return,” they like to fancy themselves bubbles of earth. When alone in the fields, with no one to see them, they would hop, skip and jump, touching the ground as lightly as possible and crying “We are bubbles of earth! Bubbles of earth! Bubbles of earth!”

Flora Thompson, Lark Rise

THE WILLOWBREAKERS in a tentative paragraph

While I am “vomit drafting” The Willowbreakers, I’m also drafting or compiling a summary paragraph of it. These paragraphs are useful in query letters, but they can seem difficult to write after finishing a rough draft. Writing a one as I go has made the process easier.

When the king dies, the Willowbreaker family must flee their home. As different as they are, they want to help each other be happy and stay fed. To do this they must negotiate with their evil stepfather, fight monsters in alien dimensions, combat ghosts, face who they were born to be and who they actually are and confront the king’s daughters. And maybe manage to stay connected while welcoming new blood.

“What She Asks of Me”

I’m proud to have my story “What She Asks of Me” included in Tumbled Tales, an anthology just published by Wandering Wave Press. It includes so much excellent genre-blurring fiction: “Said the Moonlit Moth to the Horse Half-Dead,” “The Walrus Whistles at Midnight,” “Just Right,” all the other stories. Fascinating prose. I learned something from each story in the collection.

The politics of world-building

You can use world-building to distract yourself during a never-ending catastrophe. But that same process can also help you (and others) imagine a path to liberation.

The best world-building contains the seeds of change, and allows us to see how things could be different. And conversely, a lot of mediocre world building contains the unspoken message that “This is the way things are, just because. And there’s no point in questioning any of it.” How things work is often not as interesting as how they don’t work. And the ways that they should work, if things were better. And the way things used to work, until something went wrong (or right).

Charlie Jane Anders in Never Say You Can’t Survive