{"id":19955,"date":"2018-09-11T01:00:27","date_gmt":"2018-09-11T08:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writersfunzone.com\/blog\/?p=19955"},"modified":"2018-09-10T13:08:51","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T20:08:51","slug":"find-empathy-in-your-openings-by-kay-keppler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersfunzone.com\/blog\/2018\/09\/11\/find-empathy-in-your-openings-by-kay-keppler\/","title":{"rendered":"Find Empathy in Your Openings by Kay Keppler"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Revise<\/a>Let\u2019s\u00a0welcome\u00a0back monthly columnist, editor, and novelist,\u00a0Kay Keppler<\/a>, as she shares with us \u201cFind Empathy in Your Openings.\u201d\u00a0Enjoy!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Writers are often urged to begin their stories with action.<\/strong> It\u2019s a hook, we\u2019re told. Readers will want to find out what happened.<\/p>\n

This advice can be good, but it isn\u2019t always. Depending on your story, having a slower, more descriptive start that shows your readers who your characters are can be a better way to begin.<\/p>\n

Pen! Paper! Action!<\/em> <\/strong><\/h2>\n

The teachers who suggest that you open your book with an action scene are really telling you to avoid scenes where characters sit and think, or walk on the beach and think, or have a cup of tea and think. These reflective openings usually are all about backstory, which happens before the real story\u2014the story you\u2019re telling\u2014starts. Your readers don\u2019t care if the mother died in childbirth forty years ago. They want to know what happens now<\/em>.<\/p>\n

An opening where your protagonist sits and thinks is duller than dishwater.<\/strong> But sometimes in the effort to create an action sequence\u2014a scene where something \u201chappens\u201d\u2014 authors fall back on elements that now are all but cliched: car chases, death scenes, shootings, or fights. Without context, these scenes won\u2019t hook your reader, either.<\/p>\n

You want readers to invest in your characters. Your opening scene must show readers why they should care.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a Story for You<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Therese Walsh is the co-founder and editorial director of Writer Unboxed<\/a>. Her debut novel, The Last Will of Moira Leahy<\/em><\/a>, was a Target Breakout Book. But she ran into trouble with her second novel, The Moon Sisters<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

It goes like this:<\/strong> she\u2019d been working on The Moon Sisters <\/em>for about four years, as publishing imprints shut down and editors left. The fourth editor was encouraging, but she didn\u2019t like the story premise, which was, Walsh said, \u201cTwo sisters travel to a cranberry bog in West Virginia to find the end of their recently deceased mother\u2019s unfinished novel.\u201d<\/p>\n

The editor asked, Why should readers care if the sisters get to the bog and meet their goal?<\/em><\/p>\n

Walsh had to find a way to make her editor care.<\/p>\n

Tension Rises!<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Despite multiple efforts to clarify, revise, or reimagine the story premise, Walsh drew a blank. As her deadline approached, she feared that perhaps there was no<\/em> solution, and the book might never be published.<\/p>\n

A Turning Point!<\/strong><\/h2>\n

One night as Walsh struggled with her premise, she read a tweet by Jane Friedman<\/a>, which read in part: \u201caction should have context, and be as grounded as possible in a character that we\u2019re already starting to love.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Walsh\u2019s novel,<\/strong> scene one\u00a0did\u00a0<\/em>start with action\u2014one of the sisters, blinded from staring at the sun, walked to the bog her mother had always meant to visit. However, context was not in place to support the action. Walsh was asking readers to trust her without giving them anything to go on.<\/p>\n

Yeah, no. Bad idea.<\/p>\n

A Happy Ending<\/strong><\/h2>\n

No one would ever tell an author to begin their story with backstory\u2026except when it works. Walsh took a backstory element that she\u2019d placed later in the story and moved it up to show the last time the protagonist saw her mother alive, the moment that broke her hope and seeded the desperate need to find it again.<\/p>\n

The editor loved the new opening,<\/strong> and Walsh did, too. The story felt more immediate, the character more real. The scene clarified the story and emphasized the theme. It wasn\u2019t just about action<\/em>, it was about emotion<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Walsh met her deadline, and Library Journal<\/em> named The Moon Sisters<\/em> a \u201cbest five women\u2019s fiction novels of the year.\u201d Congratulations all around!<\/p>\n

Lessons Learned<\/strong><\/h2>\n

What can we take away from Walsh\u2019s experience? The obvious one is that rules are made to be broken, and no one opening type will serve all stories. Practically speaking:<\/p>\n