Engrossing beginnings

I’ve begun to devote serious time to not only writing my novel, but researching writing techniques and the writing industry. As I hope most new writers feel, I believe in my ideas–my themes and characters are important to me. I want to ensure I can spread my message once I finish the book. I’ve read some about querying agents, and some general novel-writing tips. I’ve seen it said that in some ways the first few pages of the novel are the most important–this is what hooks an agent, a publisher, and ultimately a reader and customer.

I generally think of the beginning of a novel as the place to establish the role of the narrator, main characters, setting in time/place/dimension/whatever, and tone/worldview. However, that’s not necessarily what draws a reader in. Based on my meandering thoughts, advice I’ve read recently, and recollections of high school and college writing classes, here’s what I think is important to keeping a reader interested:

• Immediately create empathy for the main characters
• Set up a conflict that the reader wants to see the protagonists overcome
• Show the reader the protagonists’ goals and motivations
• Create a sense of mystery, intrigue, and suspense so that the reader wants to know what happens next
• As a philosophical science fiction reader and writer, I think the beginning of a novel also ought to establish key symbols and themes, as well as introduce the fictional expansive world

I think it is difficult for the beginning of a novel to emotionally entice a reader (empathy, motivation, conflict, mystery) while simultaneously fulfilling the opening’s structural duty (setting the tone, role of the narrator, introducing characters, introducing setting). From what I’ve read, it sounds like the publishing industry has become increasing oversaturated and cutthroat in recent years, so to convince an agent that your book has a chance of success, the agent wants to see you do something new and original from the outset. Agents, apparently, want to see a hook.

So to aid me in succeeding in creating a strong beginning in my own writing, I grabbed a handful of books off my shelf to see how they did it. I picked books that are some of my favorites, and books that were commercially successful. I also made an effort to find weaknesses in these books. Not necessarily that they ought to be changed, but what worked for these successful authors at the time these books were published may not work for a first-time writer in the current writing/publishing climate.

Warning: minor spoilers ahead. My bullet points are summaries so may not make much sense to someone who hasn’t read the books. Here’s what I found:

Hooks / new and innovative concepts in beginning of first chapter / engrossing conflicts, motivations, mystery, empathy

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, by Philip K Dick, 1968

• Penfield mood organ
• owning animals and ersatz animals
• World War Terminus
• hunting andys, bounty hunter/cop
• Mercerism, grasping the handles, empathy box
• Weakness—very confusing, and somewhat sexist. Husband is in control, ungrateful wife spends husband’s money, wife is emotionally unstable, husband is cold and calculating. I’ve read many of PKD’s books and observed stereotypical females in many of them. He had a letter-writing exchange with Ursula LeGuin (in the 1970s I think) that was published in a science fiction magazine, in which she accused him of being sexist and creating shallow female characters (my paraphrase). This seemed to make an impact, as the female characters in his later books are deeper and more unique.
  

The Magicians, by Lev Grossman, 2009

• First line! “Quentin did a magic trick. Nobody noticed.” Great!
• Romantic/dramatic conflict between Quenton, James, and James’s girlfriend Julia.
• Will they get into school of their choice?
• Realism! In dialog and description. Unexpectedly familiar and personal. Creates empathy
• Witty dialog between longtime friends—sarcasm, quotes, references, sex, and facetiousness
• Desire/challenge/motivation is immediately staged—Quentin is not happy and wants to be. This is one of the simplest and most overdone motivations/conflicts, but the first few pages are so well written that this cliche is not bothersome. The rest of the novel is engrossing and unique enough that Quentin’s own search for happiness is unique and mindblowing, far from cliche
• Description of Fillory novels three pages in, after the protagonist’s problem and desire and all the previous has been set. What could be a boring “book within a book” is tolerable because the first few pages were so engrossing
• 6 pages in: “the real problem with being around James was that he was always the hero. And what did that make you? Either the sidekick or the villain.” Quentin’s MO is that he feels unimportant and wants to be center stage. This sentence should be earlier in the chapter. We’ve all been there; everyone can empathize with feeling upstaged by someone else, wanting to be more noticeable
• Weakness—oh shit another kids’ novel about magic. Cashing in on Harry Potter, Twilight, Golden Compass, Narnia, etc. Bo-ring, I already read that! This is not the case with The Magicians but people might pass it up believing so. Good thing there is sex and mean witty sarcasm and gritty realism first. Also, the synopsis on the back cover and the three pages of praise at the beginning of the book helped to convince me that this was not simply a Harry Potter clone.
  

Neuromancer, by William Gisbon, 1984

• Prose style – cool and counterculture yet sophisticated
• First sentence – sky was the color of television tuned to a dead channel. Creative description and sets the mood: the sky (re: heaven/aspirations/promise) is the color of a dead fantasy. This is a dystopia, a world of hopelessness and cynicism
• Many new characters/concepts/brands/products: Case, the Chat, the Sprawl, drug use joke, professional expatriates, not hearing words in Japanese, Ratz bartending, prosthetic arm, draft Kirin beer, teeth East European steel, Lonny Zone’s whores, tall African with tribal scarred cheeks in naval uniform, Wage and his joeboys with business for Case, affordable beauty and ugly smile, Ratz calls Case an “artiste” and “Herr Artiste”, Case tells the hooker to fuck off, her insulting “spitting” gesture well-described, the moment of silence, “Chinese invented nerve-splicing” according to a drunken Australian, Case disagreeing and feeling bitter—ALL IN THE FIRST PAGE!
• Immediately following that introduction of the world and the people (who are essentially scenery/NPCs) is specific information about the main character Case: the narrator informs the reader (presumably through Case’s eyes in response to his sentiment that it’s BS that the Chinese invented nerve-splicing) that the Japanese were actually the neurosurgery masters. Black clinics of Chiba, Case suffered damage in a Memphis hotel, dreaming of cyberspace, taking speed, Night City, the matrix, cyberspace cowboy, wake alone in a capsule in a coffin hotel in bedslab and temperfoam reaching for nonexistant console, Case’s “girl” Linda Lee, he laughed more with her according to Ratz but now he will end up as spare parts in the clinic tanks i.e. dead, Ninsei crowd
• Mystery/intrigue/suspense: Gibson dropped a heavy world on us with tons of new terminology but it’s engrossing—what is this world? Why doesn’t Case smile anymore? Why does he shrug off his “girl” and a prostitute? What damage did he suffer in Memphis hotel? Why is someone after him? Why does he stay in “coffin hotels” dreaming of cyberspace console?
• Potential weakness: Beginning of first chapter is a lot of exposition and description of environment and random people in it. There is a sense of mystery slowly unfolding, but that mystery is the nature of this world, not of a character. In 1984 this cyberpunk world was new and exciting. Such an introduction would not be nearly as engrossing today. Notice how in Gibson’s second book Count Zero, he started describing the main character’s challenges and life and goals, having been thrust into the middle of a conundrum already. His world had been established in his first successful book—now he needed to make the reader see why they should care about not just the world but the people who inhabited it.
• The big weakness here is that it’s very confusing and risks aliening readers

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, translation copyright 2008 (original copyright 2005)

• Mystery! What do the flowers represent? Where do they come from? Immediately draws the reader in with intrigue
• Why are these two men the only ones to whom this mystery matters? Why does no one else know about it? What is its importance?
• Sense of significance and history—they are both old and this has been going on for 30 to 40 years
• Weakness—why should we care about these people? The writer can’t assume that the reader cares about flowers. We have nothing invested in these characters so what do we care what their mystery is.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Neuromancer quickly became two of my favorite books when I read them as a teenager. I’ve reread both and they have lasting appeal for me–I still think they’re both excellently written, thought-provoking, etc. I read The Magicians about a year ago and was blown away. It’s one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. The most realistic book about magic that I have ever read. For the most part, the characters were not idealized, nor were they stereotypes of evil. The “hero” was extremely flawed, moreso than his friends, and his cowardice becomes more apparent as the book draws on. The symbolism portrayed the themes perfectly. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I would not say is as excellent as the previous three, but it was extremely commercially successful (Swedish and English movies were made based on it). It is primarily a thriller, which I don’t usually read, but what thrillers aim to do is hook an audience and create suspense, and this book did that very well.

I also evaluated the beginnings of For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Hunger Games, and Dune. To summarize, I think For Whom the Bell Tolls and Dune are both excellent books, but their first few pages would not be as noticeable, engrossing, or picked up for publishing as quickly if they were published today. Hemingway spends a lot of exposition describing scenery, and Dune introduces characters, concepts, and politics that take some time to understand. I really enjoyed The Hunger Games but I wouldn’t say it is as technically remarkable an achievement as the previous two books. However, I think the first few pages do a more successful job of hooking a reader, creating mystery, and grabbing the attention of a potential reader, agent, or publisher, for this day and age. This is probably because Suzanne Collins wrote it with the market of this day and age in mind and knew what she had to do.

I’d love to know other people’s thoughts on all this. Agree or disagree with my appraisals of these seven books? How so? Any suggestions of other books with particularly strong, or weak, beginnings, to check out as examples?