Stephen King once said that books are like pumps. You've gotta work at it for awhile before you get much out of it. I guess my students would describe a story like that as 'starting out slow'.
Both ways have something to be said for them. For instance, the 'slow' way allows for character development so when things start happening they're happening to somebody we care about. The other, more modern way starts off being interesting but you've gotta pack in character development right away, which can be more challenging to the writer.
My question is, do you guys think the old way is dead and gone? Do publishers not want to see it anymore?
Hence, the idea to get going on the action of the story.
That said, the pace at which you build your story does not need to meet any particular goal. It just needs to read well.
You can build slowly, working heavily on character and then as the climax approaches, pick up speed and start pumping more action into it.
Or you can rush right in, hammer the action and character together through out, but such tales can be exhausting quickly.
In any case, the story starts when the main plot begins and your story or novel should not start far from that point. If back story is neccesary, we can always talk about the past later.
Modern writing very much follows the idea that everything contributes to the story and anything that doesn't should be cut. If you tend towards digression, your publishing process will take a little longer than most.
That said, I don't like waiting forever for something to happen...especially in a short story, but even in a novel. The truth is, before i can care about a conflict I have to care about the character it's happening to, as you said, but before I can care about the character I have to sympathize with him/her.
That essentially means that conflict and character development happen simultaneouusly. What a job!
Mary is a nice person. She likes children and animals. She is smart, too, and a little spunky.
Now, assuming I spent the proper amount of time *showing* you all that instead of just telling it, why do we care? Lots of people like children and animals, are smart, and attitude helps but not that much.
Now try it this way:
Mary sees her neighbor's 5-year-old attacked by a large, viscious dog. She has to shoot the dog, even though she knows it's her idiot neighbor's fault for being such a bad dog owner.
During the course of this scene, we can learn how Mary loves children and animals. The conflict makes us keen to watch, because it's interesting, and Mary's actions tell us who she is. But this isn't the end of the story, it's the beginning. What we've done is introduce the character in such a way that engages our attention.
The trick is to pick a scene that really demonstrates character, but does so in an interesting way. I imagine that this dog attack is not the whole story, but just the beginning.
I think as a new author you probably have a better chance of getting a novel published if you have a snappy quick opening chapter that really grabs attention. Even without one, you could probably still get published, but it might be harder to get a fair read on it.
This is just a thought, as I'm still trying to break the glass ceiling myself. Maybe someone else who has published has more insight.
A reader may well already have bought a publication; they'll probably read everything in it, unless something's particularly dull. Editors are constantly inundated with submissions, the great majority of which are (by all accounts) rubbish, and they need to junk the rubbish as quickly as possible. Give them any excuse, and they'll toss something on the scrap pile. The job of your first few lines (until you're an established author - and then, yes, the rules change big style) is to sell your story to the editor, not to "normal" readers.
It's different with a novel. You'll capture an editor for that with a good teaser (my habit is to write the back cover copy, which after all is what hooks a lot of novel buyers), a really good synopsis (which I have no idea how to write) and a demonstration that you know what you're doing with prose. The hook is more in the synopsis or teaser than in the opening.
Once you've made a reputation as an author, you can get away with different techniques, because you'll have created a readership that trusts you to interest them; so long as you don't abuse that trust with a book of shopping lists, you'll be fine.
But until then... there's a lot of competition, and you need an edge. Don't try and tell everything in your first thirteen - but tell us enough so that we really, really want to know more.
A lot of "Old School" writers (and I use the term thus because it's not exactly uncommon today) manage with brilliant prose that sparkles even when the text is clearly miles away from the subject on a tangent that has rapidly becoming hyperbolic.
A lot of authors sell on the quality of their prose. Sometimes lyrical, often humorous, occasionally "hip" or some such thing. The best of those authors (the ones that endure long enough to ever be considered "old school") also pay attention to crafting a solid story.
As writers, we always need to be working on both.
I usually tend to get straight into the action, but I'm not really that experienced yet at writing.
I've always thought that sci-fi/fantasy writers have the hardest time with getting right into it. Not only do they have to develop the characters, establish the beginnings of the conflict, but they have to deal with unfamiliar settings as well which begs exposition. It's tricky. I'm not complaining though, just kinda thinking in print.
If skillful, a SF/F writer will set a 'skeleton' opening scene with enough familiar stuff in it that the reader can fill in the details on his/her own, based on things that are already familiar to him. The weird stuff can come out later as the story progresses.
It's like walking into a strange house. If there weren't things there that were already familiar to you--couches, chairs, a kitchen, carpet--you'd feel very uncomfortable being there at first. You don't want your reader to be uncomfortable walking into your book, so you show them a 'foyer' that has some familiar things in it. Your visitor can see a little bit of the main house and that it promises to be very different. But since the foyer is familar enough, they trust that you'll take care of them. Then you lead them on in to the main house that is totally or largely unfamiliar. And they're OK with that.
[This message has been edited by djvdakota (edited October 20, 2005).]
Sadly, I am old school, and learned to write with character building leading to suspense leading to a climax. I can't write a climax and lead to nowhere.
When I read I don't want to know everything about a character in one paragraph, I want to learn bits about them as I go along, I can't assimilate it all in one piece. I want the author to tell me important bits such as "Mary values animals." What method the author choose to show it, may not convey the same meaning, in fact it can convey the opposite meaning. If the author write that Mary shot the dog, I would put the book down, and never know she did it because she valued them.
So, yes, there are people who like it one way or the other. Sadly, it seems many want instant gratification. They want to know everything about the character and the stroy before they read beyond the first page. To me, after you know everything about the character, the story is over. So the story would be over after page 1, very boreing.
I like to be able to set up a setting, characters and then start on the plot.
I am learning to hint at the plot in my opening and to economically describe settings and appearances of characters. I find that Dialogue and POV are very useful in establishing character. Rather than flat out describe my characters, I try to create a sub plot, usually a weak one, to expose the character. The sub(or minor) plot can be an opening plot, as long as it gets the reader on to page 2.
I do believe that there are "fashions" and "trends" in literature as in other arts. Deal with it, you can't change the fact that vampire/ninja/detective stories phase in and out of popularity. But I will say that it makes less of a difference than most people seem to think.
Why do different trends come about? Because of what we call (appropriately enough) "trendsetters". The people that start a trend aren't following one. I know that may sound like a tautology, but think about it for a second. Something becomes popular because someone did it even when it wasn't popular and inspired imitation.
If you're preferred type of story is currently out of fashion, you have the opportunity to lead the pack. Complaining about that sort of situation is just admitting to everyone else that you don't believe that you have the chops to write a story that other people will want to imitate. I can see why, as a writer, you can't keep going if you're going to admit something like that to yourself. But why admit it to the rest of us? That doesn't exactly help.
Get out there and start your own trend!
If I may offer something here?
The literary term that's applicable here is probably "in medias res" which does not mean "in the middle of a chase scene" or "in the middle of a fight" even though some people seem to interpret it that way.
The literal translation is "into the midst of things" which can be any kind of middle.
If "new school" writing tends more toward "in medias res" it's because many of the readers today are not willing to give a new writer set-up time. But they still want to have a reason to care.
So there'a a line to deal with between how much set-up you do and how much action you start with.
Damon Knight used to say, over and over again, that a story should start when something important happens. And he rejected the interpretation of "in medias res" that said a story should start in the middle of that important happening.
If you look at OSC's description of the structures of each of his MICE story categories (in HOW TO WRITE SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY), he explains how each kind of story should start. Even if you aren't writing science fiction or fantasy, it would be worth reading what he has to say about how to start and end the four kinds of stories.
(Besides, by the time you finish your novel, unless you write very fast, the trend that inspired it might be over.)
The constant battle with pure evil that is my interior life...what can I say? Even the greatest evil can't always be pure 