The crucial difference is that my first drivers aren’t actions, they are mysteries. In a novel, it is a bad idea to start with action because your reader doesn’t yet care about your characters, so putting them in immediate danger carries no pathos.
As for worlds being foreign, that has nothing to do with it. An author has to figure out how to make his world, no matter how foreign, familiar to the reader. Not everything has to be familiar, but the author has to find what is. Maybe that is how a person feels. Maybe it is an object.
They’re mysteries to you. To a reader, they might read as generic tropes of the genre (as would my example). That’s the point: you can’t rely on a rule to govern what will or won’t work in a novel. Sometimes what draws the reader in is a beautiful turn of phrase. Sometimes it’s a question. Sometimes it’s a moment of such high action that you want to see how it plays out.
Your original comment was in reference to @mlucas saying:
You said:
So I was responding to your implication that what he was referring to was an exception to the rule, and subsequently that writers should avoid trying to build careers on finding those exceptions.
Honestly, I don’t understand the propensity on this board for these grand sweeping statements about writing. Where is it coming from? Some kind of extensive experience in the field? My seventh novel comes out this month and my books are published in more than a dozen languages, I get to travel around on promotional events and make a great living and I still couldn’t tell you a single truism about the craft beyond “don’t be boring.” I have lots and lots of theories about writing, but they’re all just approaches that are meant to add to a writer’s arsenal, not limit it.
But one person’s experience is only anecdotal, so instead consider the massive number of successful and beloved novels – both old and new – that bely the rule you’re advocating. Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series is one of the most successful of all time. I’m pretty sure every one of them had a big omniscient prologue at the start. Most of Patrick Rothsfuss’s “Name of the Wind” is told in flashbacks. On the other hand, I’m sure we can find books that do start with an initial driver.
The only era I’m aware of where that approach was dominant, however, was during the Pulp era of the 40’s and 50’s that started with things like, “She was a tall drink of amber whisky and the first things she said as she walked into my office was, ‘My husband’s dead. I want you to prove that I’m the killer.’”. But the pulps were 40-50K word novels. And they mostly went away as genre readers wanted bigger, longer, deeper stories.
So in fact, what you’re advocating is actually not the current convention, which is precisely why it’s an interesting and worthy approach to try – one of many in a writer’s toolbox.
Even if they read as generic tropes of the genre, they still raise a question. Your example doesn’t.
You’re on the Dramatica forum. Your question is like asking why there are so many references to french fries on the McDonald’s forum.
Dragon riders of Pern: Dragonflight Intro
That’s starting with a mystery. Why is she cold? Why is she surrounded by stone walls? But, most importantly, what is this danger she senses?
Name of the Wind
[quote] It was feeling night, and the usual crowd had gathered at the Waystone Inn. Five wasn’t much of a crowd, but five was as many as the Waystone ever saw these days, times being what they were.[/quote] Again, starting with a mystery.
I like what Swain says about being able to open ahead, on, or after the first driver with these caveats:
(1) Open too far ahead of your initial change, and you may bore your reader.
(2) Open on the change itself, and your reader may feel he’s hanging suspended in a vacuum.
(3) Open after the change has taken place, and you may find yourself forced to sandwich in a lumpy mass of explanation later.
Even if we are an ADHD society due to constant exposure social media, these three possibilities still exist. I imagine the choice has to do with genre, story, etc.
Almost all stories that I have read or seen open before the change. Perhaps the current style is a bit different? But, I don’t think so. I imagine the tendency is to write a traditional setup before the first driver. I look at the setup as the question and the storyform as the answer.
I think don’t be boring is sound advice.
Anything in excess – whether it be sensation, emotion, introspection, recollection, action, summarization, dialogue, narration, description, exposition, or transition – is a problem. But, all of these different parts can be interesting to read. And all of these different parts are necessary.
@YellowSuspenders Maybe I need to read the whole thread again, but what you are talking could just be a hook(s) as opposed to the first driver – though it can be the first driver.
“Carrelia leapt upon the masselvack’s scaled back and dug her heals into its coffveve wings. Drawing her muklupi blade she screamed, ‘Death to the Burstelbassels! Life for Jubliga!’ as her Undenhoudt horde followed close behind, shouting her name over and over . . . even though they knew they’d already lost the war”
Feel better?
It’s still weak, clichéd writing and can be beaten by a half-decent turn of phrase about picking a petal
No, it’s like being at a McDonald’s restaurant where some guy keeps pounding the table and saying, “French fries must be exactly four-point-seven inches long or they suck!”
You’re right – I should have been more specific that it’s the ones after Dragonflight that have the preludes. By the way, one of the reasons McCaffrey did this was she was worried readers thought she was writing fantasy, when what she intended was to write science fiction. So she put in preludes that began with:
Rukbat, in the Sagittarian Sector, was a golden G-type star…
Because she wanted to make it clear that even with the dragons and swords, this was a sci-fi novel.
You might think it’s a mystery. To me it’s a bar that isn’t as busy as it used to be:
It was cold that night, and the usual crowd had gathered at O’Toole’s Bar. Five wasn’t much of a crowd, but five was as many as O’Toole’s ever saw these days, times being what they were.
Most readers won’t read that and say, “Oh my God, what a mystery!” They’ll think it’s a run down bar in a poor part of town.
More importantly, though, its not the initial driver of the story.
I’m really unclear here on the basis for your feeling so confident about making such broad pronouncements about novels. It’s not borne out by the bulk of successful literary works. It’s not borne out by the way most professional writers I know work. It’s not even borne out by most craft books on the subject.
Are you really so opposed to the notion that “starting with the first driver” is an approach to writing a novel but not necessarily the only good one?
I believe the hook and the first driver should be the same. I’ll add that adding a faux-first driver is damaging to the trust required for suspension of disbelief.
But, let me rephrase the argument because some people are getting confused.
Starting the story with a giant wall of exposition (the classic example is “It was a dark and stormy night”) before you get to the hook is a very bad idea. Another example is decastell’s horrendous
I know you’re not talking about me, because what I said [quote=“YellowSuspenders, post:19, topic:1756”]
There will always be exceptions
[/quote]
and I know you saw it because you quoted it! So, are you upset at @jhull’s belief that there are no exceptions wrt Dramatica?
Starting with what can be called the initial driver (or what often gets called an “inciting incident”) is pretty rare for novels. It’s more common with novellas and kind of necessary with short stories.
Classically novels (well, if we start past the era where the first act of a novel was the life history of the main character) started with the everyday world of the character – revealing through it the way in which they were “stuck” in one way or another.
Nowadays it’s more common to start with some kind of suspense – anything from a spaceship battle to a really awful blind date. Often those books then go into the “normal world” of the character because at some point we need to see who they are independent of whatever new conflicts or crises arise from the core story.
I’ll agree that someone here is confused. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s you. But I’ll suggest the following:
“It was a dark and stormy night” is not an example of a wall of exposition. It’s an example of what is now seen as an out-of-date cliché: starting with the weather.
The novel it comes from, Paul Clifford, was actually a successful book. Unlike many works of the period, it gets into action and dialogue very quickly. I’ve only read bits of it myself, but you’d probably find that it goes into a hook faster than most contemporary novels.
Also not exposition. In fact, it could easily be the initial driver of a story. What makes it horrendous is that it’s cliché and suggests violent action without any reason to care about the character.
And worse . . .
Where is this expertise coming from on the nature of a reader’s trust or suspension of disbelief? You keep making these pronouncements about prologues being bad, starting without a mystery being bad, hooks that aren’t the initial driver being bad . . .etc. None of that is borne out by much of the successful literature out there.
I don’t know you or your background, but all I’m seeing right now is someone making grand pronouncements without any obvious expertise or basis to back it up.
I’ve no idea if Jim believes that there are no exceptions to Dramatica. However since both Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and The Maltese Falcon are treated as broken storyforms in Dramatica, I would have to say that such a conclusion would only show that something which Dramatica considers broken can nonetheless be an incredibly successful, critically acclaimed, and beloved piece of dramatic writing . . .
. . . which is something professional writers care a lot more about that whether their novels started with an initial driver.
P.S. I say this as someone who’s written several books with the very helpful aid of both Dramatica and @jhull in particular.
Something is called a “cliche” because it is bad*, not the other way around. There isn’t some great big red marker in the sky ready to highlight any particular trope once its egg timer has gone off. So, when you say something is bad because it is a cliche, then you put the cart before the horse. It is a cliche because it is bad. That’s why, for example, we’ve had space ships and lasers in sci fi, dragons in fantasy, cowboy hats in westerns, etc. for ever without them becoming cliche.
*(and, no, I’m not saying that all bad things are cliches)
So, saying something like
is just wrong.
And all the books which you’ve mentioned, besides your own, that I looked up started with a mystery. Not that they had to. I explicitly stated that exceptions exist. But, just to show that what you think is your support isn’t actually supporting you.
A cliche isn’t something that is inherently bad. A cliche is something that has been used so much that it becomes seen as having been overused and portraying a lack of original thought.
Dragons in fantasy are a cliche. Space ships and laser fights in sci fi are a cliche – if that’s all you do with them. If the author doesn’t make any effort to bring some kind of originality to the concept, then it becomes a cliche. But that doesn’t mean that dragons, space ships and laser fights are bad.
What @decastell is illustrating with his example is that the use of random, flashy violence as a hook in a fantasy story is seen as cliche because it’s been done so many times. In my second novel, I used that as a hook without even knowing that it was considered a cliche. Luckily for me, I actually had good results with it. Which wouldn’t have happened if “cliche” meant “bad.”
I haven’t been writing nearly as long as I’m assuming that Sebastien has, but I’ve seen plenty of writers fall into the trap of needing to follow the “Rules of Writing”. I’ve been one of those writers for an uncomfortably long period of time. I’ve also read a bunch of craft books and articles and blog posts and newsletters and tweets and agent advice – and all of them are either saying the same thing in their own way, or saying different things that are based solely on their preferences.
But there is more than one way to skin a cat. And arguing back and forth for this long over this isn’t really productive.
Respectfully, I disagree. In my opinion, you are confusing tropes with cliches. Dragons in fantasy are a trope. Space ships and lasers are tropes.
Tropes used badly are cliches.
Also, note that I’ve never said “You must write like this.” What I’ve said is that X is bad. That leaves a really huge area of not-X. I’ve also explicitly stated that exceptions exist. I’ve also tried to make it a point to always explain why X is bad. That way, if you want to try to make an exception, then you will know what the dangers are.
Just saying that the only real rule is “don’t be boring” means that any author’s career is just dumb luck. I mean, any schizophrenic homeless person or a twelve-year-old boy with ADHD can “not be boring.”
Totally agree – giving it an original twist or sometimes simply doing it really is what changes it from a cliché to something compelling and even fresh for the audience.
Nope. Clichés are often referencing things that are terrific. A hobbit having to take a magic ring to a volcano was amazing until it was repeated over and over. Now having a hobbit take a magic ring to a volcano is bad because it’s a cliché, not because hobbits are inherently bad. #PippinDeservedHisOwnBook
No, they didn’t start with a “mystery”. I pointed out precisely why the opening you quoted from Name Of The Wind is not a mystery. Now, you may find it interesting and have questions – “My God . . . there aren’t lots of patrons at this tavern these days? What a mystery!” but it could as easily be the first line in one of those giant walls of exposition you so disdain.
I’m starting to wonder if what you mean by “mystery” is anything that implies the state of a character isn’t its obvious natural state. Yes, water is usually blue. “Johnny walked by the beige ocean” raises a question in the reader’s mind (why is the ocean beige?) but that’s neither a mystery nor a hook nor an initial driver.
The Lessa opening in Dragonflight similarly is neither an obvious mystery nor an inciting incident, first driver, or can of fairy dust. You could as easily open the book with, “Frank Hill left the house wearing his blue coat instead of his usual red one” and decide that’s a mystery. Yes, the reader can wonder why the blue coat, but that’s significantly different from a first driver.
Again, you started all this with your pet theory that books that don’t start with an initial driver are inherently boring and that – while exceptions existed – they were a bad idea. The simple fact is, based on the evidence that’s available, you’re probably wrong. So again, I can’t help but ask what this magical expertise is that you’re relying on to make these broad pronouncements? The only thing I or anyone else has said is that there’s more than one way to start a novel effectively. Your position requires significantly better evidence than anything you’ve put forward.
You’ve hit the nail on the head. This is why I’m bothering to engage with this particular bit of nonsense about novels having to start with the storyform’s initial driver. First, because it’s obviously not true, second, because I don’t think it’s even true for Dramatica, and third – and most importantly – because people who are trying to write their first novels need tools not rules. I’ve met so many new writers who’ve ended up quashing their own considerably more interesting instincts because someone told them to “never start a book without X”.
I sent my first novel to a freelance editor who insisted I cut out the opening prologue (it’s a couple of paragraphs that anyone can read on the Amazon preview), that I not allow the first line of dialogue to have a swear word, and that I skip the three-guys-having-a-chat to go straight to an action scene. The editor was dead wrong. Not only did the book sell with its quirks intact, but when I showed my publishers the trimmed version in case they’d like it better they thought I was crazy.
So, yeah, we should all offer up the best tools and ideas we have. But that can be done without grand pronouncements or laws of the universe.
Except “Don’t be boring.” I’ve still never found an exception to that one.
On what authority are you saying that X is bad? Where are these explanations written in stone? Where did you learn these reasons as to why X is bad? Where did those people learn these reasons and explanations?
There is no authority in writing (except that held by publishing houses, I guess). All I can do is appeal to your reasoning power. If these explanations aren’t compelling to you, ignore them. Just think about them before you do. If you want to discuss them further with me, that’s cool. But, ultimately, its all about what you find compelling.
I wonder if maybe we could find ground on the following notion: that if a writer is struggling with an opening that isn’t working for them, or if they have beta readers losing interest by the second act, or if the book’s first act feels kind of trite, then a good approach to try is to cut away all the chaff from the beginning and jump straight into the initial driver (or inciting incident for non-Dramatica folks).
I could easily see someone trying that approach and solving a lot of the problems they’ve been encountering, and then if the opening felt too rushed they can flesh out the first chapter to create that sense of emotional context.
I think they should be told to start with a good hook, preferably a good initial driver. When they feel ready to try something different, they can do away with the rules.
I wouldn’t start a kid in learning how to count by giving them texts on algebra. Stress the fundamentals. Master the fundamentals. If the writer wants to spend their entire life on the fundamentals, that’s okay. Their writing can be just as good as if they didn’t.
If you teach them the exceptions first, then they will fixate on them and always suck at them because they never mastered the fundamentals.
If you watch Star Wars, the First Driver or IE is basically at the front of the movie when the ship is boarded.
However, this just creates a ripple that eventually collides with Luke’s throughline and kicks off his story.
I don’t believe that the First Driver must always start in the OS, but it does set up the Potential of a collision within the MCT when it does.
So, I think it generally comes before the change in the characters personal world, but it doesn’t always have to come right at the front. I might call that a no nonsense beginning. But it could come before the first word as well. Or a bit after.
It is purely Outcome until it shifts to Potential in the MC’s world.
In a way, I think both parties have a valid point.
