Writing Right Out There In Public: Notes on the First Scene

Now, as to that first scene... 

The first scene I write isn't always the opening of the story, but recently that's been the case more often than not, and this is probably going to be the beginning of this novel, which I've tentatively titled The Road to Amalin. (The title will probably change half a dozen times before it's ready for a publisher.)  You can write scenes in any order you want; I've written novels beginning with the dramatic climax -- the last novel in my series The Weird of Hali will be written that way, as I've had 10,000 words before, during, and after the events that conclude the whole story arc written for more than a year now, and I'll be going back and filling in the rest once I finish book 6, which is now under way. 

But the scene I've written is almost certainly the beginning of this novel. 

I have certain prejudices about the beginning of a novel. I like to put the viewpoint character front and center from the first moment; I like to see at least one of the core relationships that will structure the story, right there at first; I like there to be plenty of cues that'll be followed up in the scenes ahead; and I like to leave the reader guessing. 

Let's talk for a moment about the difference between suspense and surprise. Suspense is what happens when you know what's going on in the story, and the question is whether the main character is going to succeed or not. Think of your basic bodice-ripper romance. You have Priscilla, the female lead; you have Lord Ironbuns, the male lead; you know, if you've read the genre, that the rest of the story is going to be about whether Priscilla bags Lord Ironbuns or whether her hopes are dashed by his villainous aunt, the Dowager Duchess of Squeam; and the author, if she knows her business, throws all kinds of obstacles in Priscilla's way, some of them functions of Priscilla's own character, some of them from outside, some of them signaled in advance, some of them sprung on the reader without warning, so that when Lord Ironbuns finally drops to one knee and proposes to Priscilla, your sigh of relief is as loud as hers. That's suspense. 

Surprise is what happens when you don't know what's going on in the story. You have Priscilla, okay, and there's Lord Ironbuns, but is this even going to be a romance novel, and if it is, is Lord Ironbuns going to be the male lead or is he Priscilla's long-lost elder brother, or is he possibly Priscilla's childhood friend Clarice Lilybottom in really convincing drag, or a ghost, or what? And what is the Dowager Duchess up to, anyway -- is she really as villainous as she seems, or is there something else going on? So Priscilla goes through the story, and Lord Ironbuns turns out to be the villain, and when the Dowager Duchess has her henchmen kidnap Priscilla it's to save her from a box of poisoned snuff, and Priscilla and Clarice are reunited at last and fall in love and decide to run off to Paris and scandalize everyone, and the reader is left going "Wow! I did not see that coming!" That's surprise. 

Suspense is fairly easy. Surprise is harder. If you're going to have surprise, you can't use a formulaic plot, and you can't let the reader know too much too soon. This means, among other things, that you can't lecture the reader. You know the kind of story that starts off with ten pages of description, so that the reader knows all about the history of the duchy of Squeam, and all the conflicts between the family members, and by the time the story finally starts the reader has dozed off? You can't do that if you want surprise.  

You also can't do the Prologue That Tells All. That's a pervasive bad habit in fantasy fiction, in particular.  So you have Blorg the Bad, Evil Lord of Evilness, and he's got a copy of Being a Dark Lord for Dummies, and he's preparing to do the usual thing and unleash his legions of horror on the lands of Lower Upper Southeast Central Earth, right? Just in case the reader might possibly miss what's going on, you do a prologue where Blorg the Bad is brooding in the Tower of Terror, plotting his imminent invasion. You don't have to give the details of the invasion; the reader turns the page and starts chapter one already knowing what the story is about, and from there it plods to its predictable end. You can have suspense in such a story, but you've flushed any chance of surprise down the gardyloo. 

I like surprise. I also like suspense, but I dislike formulaic plots, and I really really dislike long boring author lectures and the Prologue That Tells All. (When I use a prologue, my goal is to make sure the reader misunderstands everything he or she gets from it until the story's just about over.)  So my preference in the opening scene, and in every other scene thereafter, is to give the reader just enough information to understand what's happening at the moment, without signaling the broader context. So in my first scene, I've got Embery and Tay; he comes home, they talk, they have dinner, they settle down for the night. In the process, I've done certain things. 

First, you know something about Embery, who's our viewpoint character. You know that she's poor, she's a single mom, she does things with herbs, she doesn't agree with the local religion but doesn't dare say so openly even to her own son, and she was taught stories by an older woman, and is now passing them on to her son -- stories you don't tell in public and don't admit to knowing, stories that have to do with a place you don't talk about, a place called Amalin that has golden sunlight in contrast to the gray cold climate of Raithwold. You know that she's got a good relationship with Tay -- and you know that she's worried. The sound of that latch clattering makes her jump. 

Second, you know something about the setting. I decided, in this story, to rebel against the supposed law that all fantasy fiction must be set in or around the year 1066 -- you know, chainmail, straight double-edged swords, tunics, cloaks, castles, and so on endlessly. The Road to Amalin is set in an equivalent of 1700 or so, thus the iron stove, the teakettle, Tay's shirt and trousers, and so on. You know that it's not set in a familiar place -- the kingdom of Raithwold is on no earthly map, and in 1700 there were no big monasteries with iron bells sounding the call to prayer in rural Scotland. But it's familiar enough that it's not too hard to figure what's going on, and that sense of familiarity is going to be heightened over the next few scenes, as we move toward the events that will set the main arc of the story in motion. 

Third, you've been introduced to one of the central themes of the story, even though you don't know it yet. The first chapter, in my way of writing, brings all the main themes into play. The one you get in this scene is Amalin, the place you don't mention in public. Embery and Tay are going there, in the company of a very unusual guide; it's going to be a long, slow, difficult journey; and what happens to them on the way, and what happens to them when they get there, and what happens because they get there -- why, that's the story. You notice that the reader has absolutely no way to figure that out yet. All he or she has are some intriguing loose ends that are definitely leading onward. That's a good way to get surprise, and it's something I like very much when I read it in fiction, so I like putting it in the stories I write. 

So that's what's in my mind as I glance back over the first scene, and prepare to write the next one. Questions? By all means.