Starting in the Right Place

I just got back from a perfectly wonderful weekend with the Nevada SCBWI. I attended quite an awesome conference, and got some really excellent feedback, and one of several enormous writing tips.

This is a post for all those writers who have been told, over and over again, to "Start with the action!"

That doesn't always work.

At least, what you don't realise is they mean to start with the right kind of action. For months and months I've been really working on perfecting my language, getting rid of superfluous ands, thens, and thats. I've also worked on making my opening chapter "hookier" and more exciting to read, because people kept saying it was too slow, or too rambling, not enough happened.

So, I made the first chapter quite exciting.

Guess what?

First of all, when I read my sample pages aloud to my critique group at the SCBWI, they all loved my "voice". However, they got a bit confused with names and terms. See, I write YA fantasy. For me, I tend to "name" things and use those names liberally throughout the novel. However, the reader can't divine what those words mean. They wanted a bit more worldbuilding, a bit more grounding in the world and a deeper connection to the character before he was thrust into madness and mayhem.

Same thing happened with my second critique group, except they felt the entire story started in the wrong chapter. I needed to write a new chapter, because I had started with the wrong action, and needed to give the readers a sense of place.

So, my advice is this: starting your story off with a thrilling road chase may not always work, especially in fantasy. It doesn't work for me, and I know that now, thanks to my fabulous critics. For a fantasy writer, you owe it to your readers to take that extra two, five, or even ten pages it takes in order to establish the major points of your world (i.e., if it *happens* to be a mulit-universe world) and to explain, creatively, what certain things mean.

Such as, the word below:

Chrestomathy \ kres-TOM-uh-thee

Noun;
1.A collection of selected literary passages.

Example:  My house is littered with chrestomathy. There's something about collecting selections of literary passages that intrigues me.

Origin:
Chrestomathy literally means "useful to learn" in Greek, from the roots chres ("to use") and math ("to learn").

Wednesday, Words and Worlds

You know what I love? When I pick up a book and the setting is so believable you can't stop reading.

I just finished reading the Stoneheart trilogy, by Charlie Fletcher. What I loved about this is that the story begins in modern-day London, but after the MC, George, commits an act of minor and semi-accidental vandalism, the story is catapulted into another layer of London, a mysteriously similar and different London where statues come to life. It was really interesting, and though I didn't like some of the language that peppered the book, I couldn't stop reading until I'd finished the whole trilogy. Took me about five days to get through all three books, and that's because I (unfortunately) have to work some days of the week. :-)

Another book I read, and one that is part of a series (or perhaps a trilogy. I can't be certain about that) is called The Fire Within, and that was another really engaging, don't-stop-until-you're-done kind of read. The author, Chris D'Lacey, plants you in a normal, everyday kind of world where a tenant, David Rain, moves into a house for rent that specifies the tenant must have a tolerance for cats, kids, and dragons. That in itself is engaging, but when you discover the landlady, Liz Pennykettle, actually creates the dragons out of clay, and that they are, somehow, alive, WHAM! You're in a suddenly different world where everything is normal except for the fact that dragons are existing in one house.

What was the last book you read, where you really connected with the worldbuilding that was created for the story?

The Art of World Craft from Other Writers' Writings

How perfect does the world you craft for your story have to be? Do you read other writer's books in order to glean some little sparklet of genius from their words?

Some authors really do it for me. Patricia McKillip is one author who just delights in her words, and in her worlds. She weaves together the most remarkable terms in order to create a shockingly vivid picture. Her lands, her worlds, her sense of place is solid and firm and there. You can't visualize another land except the one she snares you in during the duration of her tale. You're there, in Hed, in Sealy Head, in Ombria, wherever she takes you.

Diana Wynne Jones, of course, is another writer that does it for me. She has a real talent for picking random words, combining them, and creating a word that is completely new, bizarre, and amazingly perfect. She also has a vivid sense of place. She writes, and her worlds come alive. In between the pages you can believe in magic, in a series of worlds numbered 1-12, in an askew sense of normality. She knows how to draw you in and keep you there, in Ingary, in Dalemark, wherever she takes you.

Tolkien is the one I go to for sheer inspiration. I read what he writes, and the poetry in his words refreshes me, makes me think, makes me wonder about my world, and my worldbuilding. His sense of place, his intricate attention to detail make him one of my fantasy heroes of all times. Plus, he has a great way with words.

Below is one of my favourite passages from his book, "The Silmarillion." The beauty of his language sings like poetry.

"Then the discord of Melkor spread ever wider, and the melodies which had been heard before foundered in a sea of turbulent sound. But Iluvatar sat and hearkened until it seemed that about his throne there was a raging storm, as of dark waters that made war one upon another in an endless wrath that would not be assuaged.

Then Iluvatar arose, and the Ainur perceived that he smiled; and he lifted up his left hand, and a new theme began amid the storm, like and yet unlike to the former theme, and it gathered power and had new beauty."

From: The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien

Taken from the first chapter of The Silmarillion, with the creation of the world and the re-harmonizing of Melkor's first discord.