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Writing tip -- Setting 5/7/2021 8:19:21 AM
An author's novel opening looms critical to installation of reader disbelief Writing Tip - Setting
Often the most rewritten part of any novel is the beginning. Rightly so. It's the key to the engine, the gasoline to the fire.
"World building" leads the list in a genre like fantasy or science fiction. Yet, it must be sketched to capture the reader in any writing. Ernest Hemmingway, in days before space ships and Hubble telescopes would describe a landscape, including the rock color in a stream.
Thriller writers, like Lisa Scottoline in "Lady Killer" begins: "Mary DiNunzio sat across from the old men, deciding which one to shoot first. Her father, Matty DeNunzio, was the natural choice ...." No rocks here; no location; no backstory unless you include the family relationship and the ethnic-identifying name.
Behind the words, use an organizing principle. This is not the nuts and bolts of what happens, i.e., plot. It is a sense of imagery, guiding metaphor, often linked to a physical object. Examples, a mystery writer uses a baked item with recipes; a romance incorporates a specific flower variety; a historical relies on letters or notes uncovered in an old chest; a fantasy casts a magical spell.
Think hard about your organizing principle. It enables and brings life to your choice for your novel's setting be it calm and peaceful or terror.
Now begin.
