The First 50 Pages

Posted by J. Mark Bertrand
on Tuesday, February 27, 2007
|
Permalink

 
A couple of years ago, as I waxed nostalgiac over the tenth anniversary of a novel-writing workshop with my Daniel Stern (who recently passed away), I recalled some great advice he'd given about openings:

Dan used The Heart of the Matter as an example of how to begin a novel. Since he's a cellist, he was fond of musical analogies. In this case, the opening of the novel -- the first fifty pages or so -- lays out the theme, and the rest of the book pursues variations and changes. Everything in that opening, he said, should be overdetermined. Everything needs two or three causes. He said, "Set the stage for the end in the beginning."

Now more than ever, I'm convinced that this is good advice. The usual approach to beginnings is linear. An opening, we're told, should hook the reader, establish the characters and setting in their resting state, and then introduce an initial conflict. The beginning of a book raises questions that will be elaborated in the middle and answered at the end. All this is true. But the symphonic analogy offers a fresh perspective on what the first fifty pages are really about.

I've attempted to illustrate the difference in this diagram. In the linear view, the beginning gets the story started and, as we travel forward, it is left behind. The story pushes ahead toward resolution in a straight (or straightish) line. But the progressive view assigns the opening more significance. In addition to getting the ball rolling, the fifty fifty pages define the circle that the rest of the novel will color in. The pages that follow push out from the starting point, but they travel toward a destination that the opening has, on some level, defined. As Dan said, the first fifty pages introduce your themes, and the rest is for changes and variations.

To me, this shift in focus emphasizes the virtuosity of storytelling. With all the technical details of characterization and plot, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that storytelling is, above all, a performance. It is the quality of that performance -- and not, for example, the originality of our ideas -- for which we are ultimately judged. It might be a good idea at this point to hum a few bars of Beethoven's 5th. Think about the way the music develops after the famous opening, realizing that the seed of all the other notes and melodies are contained in some form -- are intimated -- in that introductory blast.

This isn't an either/or proposition. The linear view is right on. It's a helpful way to conceive of your story. But the progressive view is, too, only it doesn't get as much airtime. When you look at the first fifty pages of your novel, try considering it from both perspectives. You may find that while it's strong in the linear, it is weak in the progressive sense -- and that realization could lead to a breakthrough.