I put back books that open with sentences like: 'Had it not been for the tomato the Pope would have died that day,' because they're the literary equivalent of being cornered by charity clipboard people

I completely know what you mean. It's cheap, gimmicky and facile.

And yet... at the same time that line's already got me kind of interested. I'm thinking, 'Tomato? Pope? What on earth? Tell me more...' - even though the more discerning part of me knows there won't be much to it after all, and that I'm being had.

I think the thing is that those kinds of lines do work - unsubtle as they are - but they do need to be backed up by something pretty good. The potential for the story to fall flat on its face (spurious Pope-saving tomato gambit) is massive.

I agree with Helen. I have no doubt that an openng, if well enough written, can be quiet or anything else it wants and be highly effective/successful. (If you are Ian McEwan, for example!). But when you're a new writer, and you have your half-minute to seize an agent's imagination, I suppose I feared it might be a different story. That was really (at least in part) what my question was about. Otherwise, Ilm in te 'do what's right for your book' camp every time. But how far should a new writer compromise to 'sell' their submission from page one?

Rosy

But I think you'll always write a better quiet opening, if that's what's right for you and the book, than you will a grabby one purely for its own sake: it'll never actually work. That kind of inauthenticity is terribly obvious to any experienced reader.

Emma

I just wanted to quote the opening of a novel I'm reading at the moment because it is by an author I like and it worked for me. It's a crime novel – so as someone said earlier, crime writers might have a slightly easier time of launching a story.

'Moran's first impression of Nolen Tyner: He looked like a high risk, the kind of guy who falls asleep smoking in bed. No luggage except a six-pack of beer on the counter and the Miami Herald folder under his arm.'

That's the opening par. It's not grabby in the exploding volcano sense, but what hooked me is that in one sentence it pitches a character to you. No messing, you're immediately in the middle of an exchange with someone iffy.

It's from Cat Chaser by Elmore Leonard. Not one of his but what fascinates me about his style is that it looks so simple. Just try conjuring a juicy character in one sentence, however. It's a quite an art but a worthwhile challenge if you're trying to immediately draw a reader/agent into your world.

I just wanted to quote the opening of a novel I'm reading at the moment because it is by an author I like and it worked for me. It's a crime novel – so as someone said earlier, crime writers might have a slightly easier time of launching a story.

'Moran's first impression of Nolen Tyner: He looked like a high risk, the kind of guy who falls asleep smoking in bed. No luggage except a six-pack of beer on the counter and the Miami Herald folder under his arm.'

That's the opening par. It's not grabby in the exploding volcano sense, but what hooked me is that in one sentence it pitches a character right at you. No messing, you're immediately in the middle of an exchange with someone iffy.

It's from Cat Chaser by Elmore Leonard. Not one of his but what fascinates me about his style is that it looks so simple. Just try conjuring a juicy character in one sentence, however. It's a quite an art but a worthwhile challenge if you're trying to immediately draw a reader/agent into your world.

Interesting thread, and I agree with a lot that's been said. Ie, the opening has to be natural and appropriate to the story you're telling - but it also has to be strong (no matter to what it owes its strength - whether dramatic suspense or breathtaking writing). I think it's one of the hardest parts of writing - deciding where the story starts. But essentially if your story is strong and you find the right beginning for it, then your opening will be strong, innit? That's just my theory. I also like Emma's point about voice. If the story comes from the voice, then once you have the voice, you'll know how to start it...

The job in the opening is the same as the job everywhere in the book: to keep the reader reading, only it's harder at the beginning because the reader has to get to grips with the story and the fictional universe, etc. The editors I've spoken to are not afraid of 'quiet' openings, provided they are both quiet and compelling.



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To relate this to my own efforts with Taking Comfort: the very opening of the novel is a kind of extended riff on a leather briefcase, which the central character Rob is given by his girlfriend as a gift to celebrate his new job. I was very worried that this would turn readers off (perhaps it did!) and that the editor would make me cut it and start the story a little further on right at the bit where the Japanese student jumps under the train. However, I felt that to start it there, without first getting inside Rob's head and seeing ordinary mundane things from his POV, experiencing his commute, would be sensationalist and would not work because the event would mean nothing, as we would have no (fictional) subjective perspective to view it from. The reader could only bring their own psyche and value judgements to that event, rather than experiencing it through the prism of a fictional character. So that was why it was important to me to establish Rob as a character, before the (first) terrible thing that happened to him, happened to him.

I think that's what I was trying to do anyhow!

That said the chapter about the briefcase is very short.

It's interesting, though, that that opening makes the reader ask a question not by asking a literal question or doing anything flashy - but by simply being so unusual.

I was instantly drawn into that start of Taking Comfort.

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"I always had The Owl Service in my mind as a very slow and quiet book, but when I looked at it again the other day, I realised that in fact, he sets up the plot within the first two pages. Grabby can also be quiet."

I was reading a book that grabbed me recently and it did have a bit of a hook but what got me was a description of a guy eating porridge...

Do you not think that a reader often has an expectation based on the type of book he has picked off the shelf? Someone expecting a literary novel will go with a less attention grabbing opening, but if it's a thriller, (s)he'll want to be entertained from the first sentence. Likewise, most romances introduce the main protagonists, preferably in conflict, very early on.
I'm the worlds' worst for wandering round a bookshop and dipping into first pages. If my attention wanders after a few lines I don't buy it.

Cut the soppy description, tell me the story! My husband is far more tolerant and will persvere with books which start slowly, so I guess it takes all sorts.
Suzanne

A friend of mine has written a great book, IMHO, about the far left in the sixties. It starts with an intro of the MC and how his hum drum middle class experiences are shattered when he goes to Uni in London.
It's integral to the story that the reader understands this and so is the obvious place to park.
Not one bloody agent asked for the full mss. So we tweaked it. Took a great chapeter towrads the end of the book where the MC plants a bomb in the National and started with that instead. Immediately, an agent took note. They didn't sign him up but they did read it at least.
The trouble is now the book is lop sided. You know what's going to happen too early...v difficult.
Just glad I'm a crime writer and I can give a grisly murder on page one!!!!
HB x

Helen, I can relate to that: I started writing my novel chronologically, which is how I like to write (and read). I was advised by a writing tutor to put a pivotal (later) chapter in at the start and then backtrack. It has caused me no end of structuring problems, which I'm not sure have yet been resolved.

SG

The trouble is now the book is lop sided. You know what's going to happen too early...v difficult.

If you've managed to hook the Agent by that means (and I'm sure it's not uncommon), I'd be tempted to put the chapter back in it's proper place.

I was advised by a writing tutor to put a pivotal (later) chapter in at the start and then backtrack. It has caused me no end of structuring problems, which I'm not sure have yet been resolved.

I can well imagine it would. It seems a very drastic solution (and can read like a cheap trick, as has been mentioned, if the subsequent pages don't live up to that first big bang). I'm completely addicted to a sort of ongoing 'then-embedded-in-now' narrative, but it takes a deal of planning from the outset, and very clear thinking as you go, not a last minute decision to start moving chunks about.

I think it can be a good idea to consider the possibility of cutting the first para/page/three pages of your first draft, though, and distributing any necessary information it contains later in the book. Especially if you've left it in a drawer for a while, it often turns out you can, and/or you don't need quite a lot of information and background that you thought you did. But it may mean a more subtle rewriting than that.

I do agree with Stephen King that it's when people all start saying the same thing that you know they're right. But it's hugely important to remember that while the problems they highlight are probably real, their solutions often aren't the right one. (This extends to editors and agents and tutors too...)

Emma

I took part in Nathan's competition

I'm wary of a too-showy offy opener like a mass murderer on the loose or whatever.....I prefer something 'quiet' which grabs me in a different way.

My own opener is... 'The fetid smell of dog meat hung in the kitchen..... It sets the scene and atmosphere (at least I hope it does).

Scotgal I'm amazed at that advice as it runs counter to so much structuring advice I've heard, which is to opt for a simple linear narrative moving forward, for the first book. It's incredibly difficult to maintain the suspense and pace with an opening like that.

I tried putting a late chapter at the front when i first attempted a novel. It got attention but I couldn't ever solve it and never finished the book - no point getting attention if you can't deliver.

I do admire good crime and morality genre fiction (ie Jodi Picoult.) People may not find the voices subtle but the structuring is outstanding.

Cherys: two thirds of the novel is in the present, and approx one third occurs about ten years before. The tutor thought that a chronological structure didn't work since the relevance of the events in the past only becomes clear in the present. So she advised me to start in the present and then feed in the past throughout the narrative.

The novel's out to agents at the moment and I haven't received any real feedback so I can't say whether the current structure 'works' or not.

SG