A Novel Approach: Cart comes before horse
Welcome to A Novel Approach, a weekly note about writing. Without more ado, here is
Number 9: Cart precedes horse
A punch line is only as good as its set up line. And, no more than a comedian could start a joke without knowing the punch line, an author cannot write a memorable beginning until he has written the ending. The author must set the pace and tone and raise the conflict and resolution before he is able to instill expectations in the reader that will last through the denouement.
I suggest writing the opening only as a place holder and then forget about it until you have finished your novel, history, or story. The beginning sentences, indeed even the opening chapters, are no more than drafts until the story itself is finished. So, in my view of the process, you should write and re-write and edit your work until you have completed the final draft, at least through the denouement. Only then should you return to write the final version of the opening sentences of your story.
In One Hundred Years of Solitude, when at last General Buendia does face the firing squad, the expectation of the novel’s opening sentence -- General Buendia facing a firing squad while remembering the day when his father took him to discover ice – is fulfilled. But not until Gabriel Garcia-Marquez actually had written of Buendia’s discovery of ice, his taking up of arms and the destruction of his community, not until he had chronicled Buendia’s leadership and betrayal and his pact with the firing squad, could Garcia-Marquez have written in final form the first sentence of the book.
In a nutshell, it is easier to revise the first sentence to comport with your story than to revise your story to live up to your first sentence.
Now, get back to the thousand words you are writing today. I’ll see you next week.
Jack
Jack Woodville London is MWSA Author of the Year for his novel French Letters: Engaged in War. For preceding episodes of A Novel Approach, go to http://jwlbooks.com/category/blog/