Category: The Book

First impressions matter

After reading Michael J. Sullivan’s article, “Starting out Strong – How to Write a Killer Opening” over at Mythic Scribes, I was reminded of the effort I went through working on the opening my book, Ohlen’s Arrow. My original opening was action packed and very engaging, or so I thought.

Like the love of a first child, we can become enamored with the beginning of our book, especially after we have spent hours or even days writing and re-writing it until we are convinced it is perfection incarnate and have no room for improvement. Then someone can come along and point out just how much work it really need.

Sullivan worked with me on my opening chapter and as he pointed out in Starting out Strong, I was giving away too much information without really engaging the reader/editor early enough. So I rewrote it, cutting it down to just three paragraphs. I also realized that I was telling the reader what was going on rather than showing them. “Show, don’t tell” is very simple advice but it’s a powerful approach that really sets a story apart from the rest of the herd.

To show you how the opening of a story can impact the reader, below is the current version of my book’s beginning. Read this and notice I’m showing you some intense action in just a few brief paragraphs but I’m raising more questions than answers. What is a cru’gan? Why was it there? Who is the character that fires the arrow?

Thwip.

The arrow sank deep into the creature’s throat and it fell backward in a spray of blood, twitching and clawing at the wooden shaft protruding from its severed wind pipe. The man lowered his bow and crouched down into the bushes in case there were others. He remained still but watched and listened intently to see if he had stumbled upon a lone cru’gan or if it had been part of a patrol. At first the only sound was the wet gurgling coming from the cru’gan’s throat. Now it lay still and silent and the only thing the man could hear was the evening breeze through the pine trees.

After several minutes passed he retrieved his arrow and quickly searched the body, then rolled it under a pile of briars out of sight. He kicked the creature’s blood into the dust and pine needles to obscure the evidence of the encounter, then moved silently away into the pine forest amidst the diminishing evening light.

The book begins with a single action word, indicating the sound an arrow makes when it strikes its target. The next sentence is somewhat gory, which captures the reader’s attention, but it’s not gratuitously so. The third sentence establishes who fired the arrow, something about where he is, and that the sense of danger may not be over (“…in case there were others.”) The opening segment finishes without answering the question of why the encountered occurred, why the man wanted to conceal the evidence, or where he was going. This curiosity is what will spur the reader to continue.

This opening segment is also short enough to fit on the back cover of a book, which can help sales.

For contrast, here is the longer original version. Notice how I was telling the reader a lot of information and only showing a little. It was also too long-winded and didn’t create curiosity within the opening paragraph:

His feet found the trail to be familiar and he quickened his pace. Normally he traveled with a slow cautiousness, always alert for the presence of enemies and danger. Today was different. He was heading home.

The tall pine and fir were fragrant in the afternoon sun. Their needles softened the ground and quieted his footsteps. The sun was setting and it cast long autumnal shadows where it slivered in between the forest trees. He had hunted this forest in childhood and learned its ways and paths under the guidance of his grandfather. The old man had been wise enough to allow the boy to get lost on occasion, always knowing he was safe as he struggled to find his way back to the village. Those lessons, although seemingly dangerous and somewhat frightening to the boy, had shaped him into the ranger he had become as a grown man. It built within him an innate sense of direction and an awareness of his surroundings. Those lessons had saved his life on more than one occasion.

The trail was worn and solid. His people had walked its length for generations for trade with neighboring villages. It’s warriors moved along its course on the way to hunting grounds. Today it saw their best warrior returning home. It had been many years since his feet trod this ground. It had been far too long.

A musky scent in the air brought his senses back to the moment. He stopped and slowly looked around him, listening intently and sniffing the air. A faint breeze came from the north. There was a slight incline rising to his right up into the tree line. Whatever he smelled was gone now, but he knew it wasn’t natural to this area. He was familiar with every kind of animal in the forest of his ancestral home and he knew their ways and habits. This scent was different, not of any animal in the area and although it seemed animal in nature, there was also something malignant and human about it.

He crouched low and began to work his way off the trail and up into the trees, moving slowly but deliberately. The hill got steeper and the trees became close and dark. He could see a narrow line of rimrock up the slope ahead, stretching from side to side just below the crest of the hill. He paused and closed his eyes, listening intently.

He heard a faint snap up the slope to his right at the base of the short rock cliff. His bow was already in his hand, an arrow nocked and ready to draw. He scanned the hillside and rocks amidst the trees and brush, moving his head slowly from side to side to change his perspective on the area ahead. He heard another faint snap and froze.

The opening continued on for another twenty paragraphs after that, with a detailed description of how the man shoots the creature, followed by even more description of it’s physical characteristics. It was long-winded, tedious, and did nothing to engage the reader’s curiosity. The new book opening gives the reader enough to get a sense of what’s going on but draws them into reading more rather than presenting them the full enchilada on a single, drawn out platter.

Writing Part II and the introduction of a new character

I have started to write the second part of my book which introduces the reader to a second main character, Daena. This woman had been banished from the village of Tarun 30 years prior to the present time for abducting the twin sister of another main character. Daena is a troubled woman, tormented by visitors and voices, and writing her is a fun experience because her perspective on the world around her is so unique.

Whereas my main character, Ohlen — the focus of part I — is somewhat straightforward, Daena is complex. By today’s enlightened perspective she is clearly mentally ill, but in the age of the story she is visited and controlled by sinister forces. Daena is also an extremely tough woman, demonstrated by just how much crap she goes through in her life and still comes through alive; severely scarred, both physically and emotionally, but alive nonetheless.

The challenge I’m facing now is which writing god do I serve in my approach. Do I write in a way that is a purely creative expression of myself? Or do I write in a way that fits the formula for what will sell? Great artists and musicians and authors are not commended for their ability to masterfully fit a known formula that everyone finds familiar and comforting. But at the same time they don’t deviate from familiar patterns so drastically that they cannot be understood. I am facing a fork in the road and I am torn deciding which path to take. To the left is the path my creativity urges me to follow, my own path. To the right is the path prescribed and documented and mapped out by countless others, a relatively sure thing but not a path that appeals to me.

It will be interesting to see which one I take. Even I don’t know at this point.

Excerpt: Ohlen at the Three Fans Inn

This is an excerpt from Chapter 2…

The ranger passed through Eeron’s gate without question or suspicion. Although raiding parties were common in the area, Eeron was seldom a target and between dawn and dusk the gates remained open. As was common for most garrison towns, Eeron was busy with activity and trade but there was little energy spent on appearances. The streets were mud and dirt, the sidewalks made of rough-cut boards where they existed at all, and the shops were made of wood and thatch. Only key portions of the outer wall and the inner keep itself, small by most standards and with a modest tower, was made of stone.

Ohlen had been within Eeron’s walls many times before, typically to resupply or gather information. He had built up a small but reliable network of informants, some within the keep guard, and he hoped the information he sought could be obtained quickly. Ohlen never liked cities, and anti-social by nature, he preferred the solitude of the wilderness.

His first stop was a small inn a few blocks off the main street. Because it wasn’t along the main thoroughfare, it received less business but also less attention. Over the years Ohlen had become friends with the owner, a rough and ready monster of a man. With a frame more suited to wrestling buffalo than serving drinks, Merrick Stonehorn had owned the Inn of the Three Fans for more than a decade. Consensus on the street was that he bought the inn using spoils won while adventuring through a massive orc stronghold near Shellon, on the other side of the mountain range to the west. Merrick had numerous scars and a well-documented reputation as a brutal street fighter which lended credibility to the legends of his adventurous past.

Ohlen had met Merrick under nearly fatal circumstances. The big man had only owned the Three Fans for a few months when a fight broke out in the main room. Ohlen had walked in the front door just in time to duck a sword stroke that would have easily liberated his head from his shoulders. With frightening efficiency, Ohlen disarmed the drunken offender and knocked him out with a rabbit punch to the back of the head. Moving his way through the crowd, the ranger assisted Merrick in ending the fight, acting as impromptu bouncer. By the time the town guard showed up the melee was over with only the ranger and the massive inn keep standing amidst a pile of groaning, bleeding combatants.

The two became fast friends and developed a trust they could rely upon, perhaps because Merrick recognized a kindred spirit in Ohlen’s no-nonsense personality.

As Ohlen entered through the inn’s front door he recognized several notches in the frame from that fight many years earlier that made him smile. It would be good to see his big friend again. Since that day, the Three Fans had developed a reputation of being a relatively safe place to eat, drink and sleep, and its prices reflected that safety. Merrick was doing better than average for himself and he took great effort to make sure things stayed that way. Although Ohlen sought to avoid routines or patterns of behavior, he always sat at a special table along the back left wall of the main room. It was near the kitchen, which had its own outside service entrance. The ranger liked to have more than one exit in case he needed to make a quick or discrete departure. There was also a false panel in the wall next to the table knee-high above the floor. It hid a dagger and one swift knock in just the right spot could produce the weapon in case of unexpected need.

He sat down with his back to the wall, alert and facing the front entrance. A rosy-cheeked girl of ample proportions and bunches of curly black hair greeted him with a smile. She was new and didn’t recognize the ranger, but was courteous and pleasant as she took his order of roast lamb, boiled vegetables and a dark ale. She paused and asked Ohlen to repeat himself when he asked that the ale be served upside down. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand, sir.”

“Just repeat my order to the cook. He’ll know what it means.” The ranger’s stern tone came with a wink and the serving girl quickly realized it was an inside joke. Smiling, she patted the ranger’s hand and winked back as if to say, “Your secret’s safe with me!” Ohlen found himself admiring her curvy backside as she walked into the kitchen.

Less than ten breaths passed before a red-haired giant of a man emerged from the kitchen. He wore a fairly clean but well-worn white apron hung from a neck thick as a tree that covered his barrel chest. His hair was long and tied into a thick single braid down the center of his back. Large, thick gold loops hung from each ear and a three-day growth of scruffy gray whiskers covered his grinning face. Merrick and Ohlen didn’t say anything but smiled as they shook each other’s hand. Ohlen only saw his friend once every year or so, but was always amazed at just how massive the man was. Merrick was six-and-a-half feet tall and must have weighed 300 pounds. Despite his size the big man moved with an ease that belied his past as a warrior. He had a ready smile that could be either soothing or frightening, depending on the viewer’s status of friend or enemy. He pulled a chair from a nearby table, spun it around so the back was facing the ranger, and sat.

“I still laugh when I remember the first time you ordered your ale upside down. Shar lost a nut trying to figure out how to serve it. She wasn’t exactly the sharpest arrow in the quiver, eh old friend?”

“Perhaps. But she sure could cook, huh?” Ohlen winked, both men knowing what that really meant.

“I miss her. Well, I miss parts of her anyway. What a shame.” Merrick wiped away an imaginary tear. He had more wives than Ohlen could count in the years since he bought the Three Fans, all of them gone. Shar had been killed under mysterious circumstances. Only Merrick knew that it occurred in the bed of another man.

Ohlen nodded his head toward the cute barmaid that had served him as she took several plates of food to another table across the room. “What about her?”

“Who, Leela? Nah, she’s too sweet for my kind of attention. I doubt she’d survive one night.” Both men chuckled at the joke. Merrick was a big man but had a soft heart in the bedroom. He liked to maintain his tough-guy reputation, though. As they shared a laugh, Leela brought Ohlen’s pint of ale and a basket of bread. She set a small ramekin of melted honey butter next to it. Ohlen guessed she was 18, maybe 20. The ranger got a pat on his shoulder and another wink and a smile from the girl as she walked back into the kitchen. He could feel himself blushing at the unexpected attention. Nearly twice her age, the ranger wasn’t used to being noticed by young women.

“She likes you.”

“She doesn’t know me.”

“Good thing.” Merrick flashed Ohlen another of his big grins and clapped the ranger on the shoulder. “Enjoy your meal, my friend. I’ll make sure your room is ready. When you get settled, send for me. We’ll talk.”

Ohlen smiled back as the big man rose and pushed the chair back to the other table, then returned to the kitchen.