Inside A Story, Lots Of Little Stories

Let’s say in this chapter I’m writing Jurgen discovers he is the father of ex-girlfriend Maria’s teenage son. That revelation at the end of the chapter is dramatic and emotional and vital to the rest of the story. 

Let’s say the rough outline of this chapter is Jurgen bumps into Maria out shopping, he offers her a lift home, she invites him in for coffee, he sees a photo of the kid and there’s no mistaking the resemblance. Cue major drama.

It’s very easy to consider the reveal a big enough deal that everything else before it becomes very direct and simple. They bump into each other, say hellos, polite chatting, an offer of a lift etc. The big dramatic moment coming up is so omnipresent for the writer that everything else seems to take on added meaning. However, for the reader, that isn’t true. 

A series of bland, mundane events in the life of two people will read just like what it is. When the moment of realisation comes for Jurgen, its meaning and implication will be clear, but the experience of getting to that point won’t be a particularly enjoyable one.

Not every scene is going to be a high-octane ride where the momentum keeps the reader glued to the page. Some scenes need to set stuff up, slow things down, and even portray normal life. So how do you do that without boring the reader to tears?

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Chapter One: Rosemary's Baby

The latest genre in my series of Chapter 1 Analyses is horror. Rosemary's Baby was written in 1967 by Ira Levin, and was made into a hugely successful movie. It is a supenseful supernatural chiller set in a modern city with a cast or urbane characters. It is not an out and out blood and gore type of story, but it is horribly effective at getting under the reader's skin.

It is quite short at 195 pages. Chapter one is about 8 pages. There will be spoilers.

The opening lines are:

Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse had signed a lease on a five-room apartment in a geometric white house on First Avenue when they received word, from a woman named Mrs Cortez, that a four-room apartment in the Bramford had become available.

The opening is not particularly scary. In fact the whole first chapter is about the couple trying to get out of their lease and move into the Bramford. The actual story doesn’t start until they become residents, and the novel could easily have opened with them moving in. So why didn't it?

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The Little Hook

Most people when they think of a hook in a story think of the Hollywood, high-concept version, something like:

Martha Harry was the best spy in the business, but what no one knew, not even her bosses at the CIA, was that Martha was a vampire.

Which is fine if you’re writing a high-concept story of that kind, but hooking the reader at the start of a story is more to do with phrasing and learning how to pose a question without a question mark.

Martha Harry, or ‘Buckets’ as she was known to anyone who had been at school with her, lived in a two bedroom apartment in Manhattan.

There is now a question that will appear in the mind of anyone who reads that  opening: why was she called 'Buckets'? It doesn't need to be a question that the whole book is about answering, it just keeps the reader on the other end of the line, an especially useful technique at the start of a book.

If I were to rephrase it as:

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Don't Overstuff Your Verbs — Unpack

Having received some interest in Minimalism (mentioned in my last post), I thought I’d share this minimalist writing technique for making verbs more active and immediate. It is an approach I picked up from The Cult Writer’s Workshop, part of Chuck Palahniuk’s Official Fansite (this is a paid membership online workshop that costs about $40/year. It was certainly worth the money back when I was a member. Any current active members, please let me know how things are going).

Unpacking Verbs

There are time when it’s obvious an adverb is unnecessary.

He ran quickly to the phone. It’s redundant to have quickly in there, running already implies speed, so you should cut it out. He ran to the phone.

Sometimes it’s perfectly fine to use an adverb (no, really , it is). An adverb is a modifier, and if you’re modifying the verb in an unexpected way that changes the meaning of the verb it can be a useful tool. Examples:

She smiled sadly.

His arm was partially severed.

He whispered loudly.

But most times the adverb is modifying the verb in a way that there is already another word for. Examples:

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