Writing thread: Openings, one of my favorite topics.
In a work of history or biography, the first paragraph, often the first sentence, tells you if you are in the hands of a writer, or someone just trying to arrange research and argument in some kind of logical order.
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In a work of history or biography, the first paragraph, often the first sentence, tells you if you are in the hands of a writer, or someone just trying to arrange research and argument in some kind of logical order.
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There are books that shout, “Here’s a bunch of stuff I know about this topic,” or, “Scholarly contribution!” But real writing requires that you give the reader a reason to turn every page. Raise questions in the mind of the reader & delay the answers, as David Lodge says.
2/9
2/9
Claire Tomalin, a giant, shows how to proceed chronologically but invest the reader in events long before her subject does the stuff that made you read about him. She starts with a sentence that announces she is telling a story. Then, mystery! Suspense! (Spoiler: He lives.)
3/9
3/9
Arnold Rampersad’s opening of “Ralph Ellison” is brilliant. A long, rumbling sentence puts us on a train, looking forward and back, a kind of midpoint foreshadowing. It builds curiosity about his youth. Clearly it had consequences. What happens later makes Ellison look back.
4/9
4/9
Richard Rhodes’s landmark book starts with a vivid scene, written for effect. What will happen next is important enough that Szilard will tell the story later. Rhodes makes us ponder details. A blast of scientific insight: What is it? How will it lead to the bomb? Immersive!
5/9
5/9
When I wrote my first biography, I wanted to grab the reader in the first sentence. I tried to locate the place we’re going to geographically and in the flow of time. A famous historian went there, remembered it, tried to reconstruct it. We know big things happened there.
6/9
6/9
But with “Jesse James” some readers complained I took too long to get to my subject. In “The First Tycoon” I began with foreshadowing—a posthumous trial revealing that my subject will become a big deal. It creates expectations for the book. It’s a scene, & we’ll return to it.
7/9
7/9
In “Custer’s Trials,” I faced head-on readers’ pre-existing judgment of Custer. Sentence 1 states the mission of the book overall: not defending him nor dodging his responsibility, but figuring him out. It frames the scene that frames the first chapter, too. Scenes are good.
8/9
8/9
I’m still trying to figure out first sentences and paragraphs. You make very deliberate choices to set the table for both chapter and book, to tell the reader, “I am taking you someplace.” It can’t feel contrived—yet it is! It should show you’ve thought it all out.
9/9
9/9
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