The Hook #5: An Analysis of a Favorite First Line

In what may or may not be our final post in anticipation of the close of our First Page Contest, we offer up to you a few words mined from the opening page of Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay:

In later years, holding forth to an interviewer or to an audience of aging fans at a comic book convention, Sam Clay liked to declare, apropos of his and Joe Kavalier’s greatest creation, that back when he was a boy, sealed and hog-tied inside the airtight vessel known as Brooklyn, New York, he had been haunted by dreams of Harry Houdini.

Chabon is known for sentences like these, a dog pile of clauses and colorful prose sorted in something long and textured and clean. These opening lines push us back a step at a time from the now-ish to Chabon's mysti-historical, 1930s Brooklyn. Chabon establishes a sense of distance, one that not only reinforces the fundamental structure of a novel of such scope, but that will also be iterated in the lives of the titular characters. He brings us to the beginning, when the escape artists still believed the audience was only one being fooled. 

Josef Kavalier, having escaped from Prague, arrives in New York City circa 1939, a refugee staying with his 17-year-old cousin Sammy  Klayman. Between Sammy's ambition and Joe's talent as an illustrator, the two create The Escapist, a wildly popular comic book featuring the exploits of an anti-fascist amalgam of Houdini, Captain America, and The Scarlett Pimpernel, among others. The story that follows spans nearly fifteen years, as the duo's success is met without proper recompense or recognition; as Sammy struggles with his sexual identity and Joe attempts to help his family flee Nazi-occupied Prague; as loves are built, broken, and puzzled back together. In a book of escapes, literal and metaphorical, spectacular and disastrous, Chabon promises, from the first sentence, something big and enthralling, something that we will be able to disappear into for a while.

The Hook #4: An Analysis of a Favorite Dedication

 by Jacqueline Fauni

We’re switching things up for today’s “Hook” post with Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner. The author’s first line,

“Here, I practice, and you practice,” 

is enough of a gold mine on its own, and I could easily go into raptures over how perfectly its parallelism and simplicity set the tone for Vaclav and Lena’s granted, intimate, just-us-two-in-the-world relationship. But for me, the real hook happened a little before I even read the first line--in the author’s dedication. In fact, I have never been so hooked by any first line I’ve ever read as I was by this:

Gavin, my partner in crime, my lovely assistant, 

my comrade, and the very best husband a girl could have, 

you are still my rising sun. 

You fill my life with wonder and joy and 

possibility every day. 

You were always on every page of this book, 

and now you’re part of the big, wild, gorgeous universe, too. 

I know you’re having fun out there, I can feel it. 

I love you.

Before we even get into the story, we are immediately swept away by Tanner’s unabashedly romantic, refreshingly earnest style, and are filled with the sense that we are about to witness something wonderful and profound. The graceful diction, lyrical movement, and overwhelming tenderness in Tanner’s dedication to her husband--who passed on after a six-year fight against cancer--pervade the light and whimsical, yet dark and intense love story that is Vaclav & Lena.

Vaclav & Lena is the story of two young Russian immigrants who met in an ESL class in Brooklyn at age six and have been incredibly close, destined-to-be-together-forever friends ever since. They go to Vaclav’s house every day after school and practice for their big magic show at Coney Island, proclaiming themselves to be Vaclav the Magnificent and his assistant, the Lovely Lena. Life for Vaclav and Lena seems as magical and pitch-perfect as their act, and Lena is drawn from her empty, unhappy home into the open arms of Vaclav’s warm, loud, and loving family. But everything changes the day Lena doesn’t show up for school and disappears from Vaclav’s life. His love endures, despite the probability that he’ll never see her again--but time, fate, and unyielding faith work their magic to prove how deeply connected Vaclav and Lena are, together and apart.

This sense of destiny, juxtaposed with whimsicality and a natural flow, carries over from Tanner’s dedication to small, poignant moments between Vaclav and Lena, like the first scene where Vaclav is practicing his introduction:

“Ladies and gentlemans, I give you, I present to you, I warn you in advance of his arrival, so that you may close your eyes or put your hands on your face if you are afraid, Vaclav the Magnificent, Boy-Magician.”

“Eh,” Lena says in a grumbly voice.

“Lena, what we are having here is perfect introduction to the act. It is long and perfect and made of only the best and longest thesaurus words,” says Vaclav.

Vaclav’s bright, garrulous personality is delightfully contrasted with Lena’s quiet brevity, and it is this effortless establishment of their voices and dynamic that lets us in to their own little world, and compels us to really care about them and invest ourselves in their fate.

* Moral of the day: Don’t skip over the dedication! You might miss a real gem. *

The Hook #3: An Analysis of a Favorite First Line

As we continue to post our favorite first lines, we encourage you to share yours. Next Wednesday, September 19th, we will compile your favorite first lines into a poll on our Facebook fan page to decide the favorite of favorites. Not only will the contributor of this quote receive a $10 Amazon Gift Card, but they will also be crowned Grand Champion of Quote Contribution.

Next up in our countdown, brought to us courtesy of John Steinbeck:

 "To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth." ~  The Grapes of Wrath

Steinbeck has managed to compress the thematic thrust of the next several hundred pages into all of  25 words. Destruction. Migration. Rehabilitation. The sentence is a declaration of movement, delivering us to a world that is anything but still. The Joad family, uprooted from their Oklahoman farm (escaping this, among other things), migrates west to California, spurred on by a stubborn optimism that pervades the novel. Their story is that of hundreds of thousands of Midwestern migrants forced from their land by merciless banks and the (even more merciless) Dust Bowl. As often happens, such shitty situations only get shittier: grandparents die, labor is exploited, goodhearted people are met with rancor and spite, fiances and brothers disappear, and babies are miscarried. For all that, though, Steinback leaves us with hope - and not the weak kind that's mostly a halfhearted lie. It is a feeling that echoes from the first words on the first page, carried on simple, rhythmic prose, engaging us from start to finish.

 

The Hook #2: An Analysis of a Favorite First Line

by Jacqueline Fauni

For those of you just tuning in, we’re sharing our favorite first lines of all time as we count down to the announcement of our First Page Contest winners. What are some of your favorite first lines? What exactly makes them so compelling?

*** And here’s another contest for you! Comment on any of the “Hook” posts with one of your own favorite first lines by Wednesday, September 19^th, and we’ll include it in a poll on our Facebook fan page, where people can vote for their favorite out of all the first lines submitted. The line with the most votes by Monday, September 24^th, wins a $10 Amazon gift certificate! ***

The next first line in our countdown is not a classic, but intriguing nonetheless:

Once upon a time there was a young psychiatrist called Hector who was not very satisfied with himself.

François Lelord’s first line in Hector and the Search for Happiness sets the playful, yet profound tone of his delightful parable. As the title suggests, Hector is the story of a psychiatrist (named Hector) who goes on an adventure around the world to find the secret to happiness. Along the way, as he travels from France to China to (an unspecified country in) Africa to the U.S., he meets many different people and learns many valuable lessons from them. Hector records his observations throughout his journey as numbered lessons in happiness, which are as remarkably insightful as they are beautifully simple, e.g.: 

"Lesson no.1: Making comparisons can spoil your happiness."

"Lesson no. 2: Happiness often comes when least expected."

In these lessons, and as he does in the book’s first line, Lelord uses minimal diction and concise phrasing to highlight the common, yet deeply philosophical sense in Hector’s observations. In doing so, Lelord makes us realize simple truths that we often overlook and would do well to be more conscious of.

From his first line, Lelord illustrates how Hector questions the worth of his profession as he works with patients who don’t necessarily suffer from any psychological disorders but are clearly unhappy, and then goes on to touch upon such topics as the economic disparities in society and the lack of access to mental healthcare for those who really need it, but can’t afford it. Pretty heavy stuff, but what’s interesting about Lelord’s approach to these issues is that he uses a lighter tone, and describes the state of society in general terms, e.g.

“Because, although everything worked better than in most of the world’s big cities, there were still some people who had only just enough money to live on, and some children who couldn’t stand school and behaved very badly, or didn’t even have parents to look after them any more.”

Lelord explains the world of his story as something that his readers are not familiar with -- only we find that we are, which creates a greater emotional impact on us. And by removing specificity from his descriptions, Lelord makes that impact universal (which might explain why Hector is an international bestseller). What is magical about the land of Lelord’s “once upon a time” is that it captures the realities of modern life on a basic human level. What is magical about Lelord’s first line is that it establishes our sense of that and of our relation to it, and ultimately compels us to immerse ourselves in Hector’s familiar world and idyllic, yet relatable quest.

Writers Blogging about Writers Talking about Writing #1

John Irving

 

Admittedly, we've been a bit negligent about updating the blog. But, with our new featured post "The Hook" counting down to the announcement of our First Page Contest winners, we've broken the inertia. So, in the spirit of momentum, we introduce the first of Writers Blogging about Writers Talking about Writing. 

A bit of background: In 1953, The Paris Review, newly established, published an interview with E.M. Forster that became the seed of what is now known as Writers at Work. This series of author interviews has preserved nearly sixty years of writers talking about...well...writing. So, we bring to you bits and pieces from these talks with the hope that they might be helpful, or at least pleasantly distracting.

John Irving - the be-scarfed New Englandy gentleman pictured above - was interviewed by The Paris Review in 1986 in the midst of working on A Prayer for Owen Meany. On whether or not Irving has fun writing, he says:

"...Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties." 

If they aren't already, it may be time for your characters to suffer. Kill them, betray them, rob them (physically, emotionally, or both), let them descend into ruin and despair of such magnitude that recovering even the most broken version of their previous reality is impossible and they are left to cower in the fetal position, weeping, collecting their tears in crumpled Dixie cups so that they might hold on to their sadness a little longer before naught remains of them but a hollow, shriveled vestige of a person. Or, ya know, something along those lines.

In any case, if you would like to read the rest of the interview (and hear Irving dish on J.P. Donleavy, among other things), then place your cursor here and click.

The Hook #1: An Analysis of a Favorite First Line

by Jacqueline Fauni

As we count down to the announcement of our First Page Contest winners, we’ll share some of our favorite books’ first lines, why they work, and why we’re compelled to read on.

First up is a classic and -- fun fact! -- inspired the first line of our call for submissions:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Interweaving her astute observations of society with her signature style and wry wit, Jane Austen is renowned for her mastery in the comedy of manners genre. The first line of her most beloved novel, Pride and Prejudice, is a perfect example of how succinctly she makes fun of her characters and their archetypal follies. In just one line, she captures the common plight of Regency era mothers in finding suitable husbands for their daughters, and smoothes the way for the introduction of Mrs. Bennet -- who is, arguably, one of the silliest mothers in all of English literature. By using such absolute terms as “universally” and “must,” Austen embodies the 19th-century mother’s narrow-minded determination and highlights the errors in her rationale.

That being said, Austen’s third-person omniscient narrator is more of an amicable spirit, who tends to poke and tease rather than jab and scorn. By establishing a voice that has a subtle, agreeable tone, Austen’s readers are more inclined to trust its authority and enjoy its censure all in good fun. And though the narrator claims a distance from mothers’ (and daughters’) fixation on acquiring an advantageous marriage, it is worth noting that Austen’s happy-and-successful-marriage endings for the eldest Bennet sisters subscribes to the very thing that the narrator pokes fun at.

The question of what we look for in a marriage is timeless, and however readily we may care to admit it, wealth is a factor we dream of and take into consideration. Perhaps the reason why Austen’s first line is so amusing is that -- to a certain degree -- it really hits home.

5 Tips and Tidbits from the Book Publishing Today Panel

by Jacqueline Fauni

We had a fantastic time at The Junction's first book publishing panel, which was moderated by the lovely Colette Sartor, and featured one of our own members, Panio Gianopoulos, co-founder of Palindrome Media and Backlit Fiction, as well as literary agents Michael Bourret of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, Jennifer Rofe of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, BJ Robbins of the BJ Robbins Literary Agency, and Wendy Rohm of the Rohm Agency. For those of you who missed out, here are some of the insightful tips and tidbits we picked up from the panel:

1. First and foremost, you must finish your manuscript. Sure, it's standard practice for most agencies to require only a sample chapter when you query and then (if you hit that sweet spot of luck, talent, and preparedness) to request a partial, but before you send off that query letter, make sure you have a complete manuscript to back it up! And while most agents will work with you in an editorial capacity, you should do everything in your power to whip your manuscript into the best shape it can be before you approach them. Get feedback from people you trust to give you honest, constructive criticism (no, your pets don't count, no matter how remarkably intelligent they are), and rewrite, rewrite, and -- this is key -- rewrite until you're confident and ready to submit. That being said, you still need to be open to feedback from the agents you're contacting. Of course, getting any feedback at all is promising!

2. Do your research. Your goal is to find an agent who will be your greatest advocate. Don't know where to begin? Almost everything you need to know to write the best query letter to your dream agent will most likely be found on his or her agency's website. Read up on the submissions guidelines for each of your prospective agencies, and look into which agents might be the best fit for you and your story. Here's a nifty tip from Panio that can get you started on pinpointing those agents: Pick up one of your favorite books, or a book that's related to yours, and check the acknowledgments for the author's agent, who will (hopefully) be thanked in there. Keep doing this with more books and you can start to get a sense of which agents tend to have long-term and particularly fruitful relationships with their authors. Then go ahead and Google them!

3. Be proactive in building your platform. So often we hear about how authors can't solely depend on their publishing houses to promote their books. Nowadays, it's not enough to just write the next great American novel -- you have to market it yourself! What is the publishing world coming to?! However, if we stop being such Debbie Downers about it, we'd see the fountain of fun and potential in this reality. In an age where social media is the norm, connecting with an audience has become a real time phenomenon -- one that is more direct and can feel more personal. Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Figment, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc. have made it possible for authors to find themselves just a click/tweet/wall post away from their readers. And today, according to the ever-reliable source of my own experience, most consumers will do their research before buying your book. Get yourself social media and SEO savvy so the first results they come across are what you want them to find about you and your book -- like your official website or fan page featuring sterling reviews, rather than mortifying videos of you doing God-knows-what seven years ago.

4. Amazon is your biggest frenemy. Amazon's got lovers and haters, and some that are on the fence, but there's one undeniable truth -- everybody knows about it. Whether you're a proud Prime member and see Amazon users' book reviews as a go-to resource, or refuse to buy any books from Amazon because they're responsible for putting a lot of bookstores out of business and you're disgusted by news of them taking over with all their acquisitions and new imprints, you have to (at least reluctantly) acknowledge that Amazon is a formidable contender in the book market. There are two things that mainly account for Amazon's tremendous success: (1) it's cheap, and (2) it's convenient -- two things that top the list of priorities for most consumers. What does this mean for authors? The success of your listing on Amazon can make or break your sales. And on another note, with Kindle Direct Publishing, self-publishing has become more accessible to both first-time and seasoned authors, but of course, any success from it is relative. In any case, Amazon can be an author's best friend or worst nightmare (or both).

5. Miracles happen in publishing, too. For those of you who marvel at how Fifty Shades of Grey ever became mainstream, let alone optioned by Universal, you may be enlightened to know that such publishing phenomena have occurred in the past (e.g. The Bridges of Madison County -- according to one of our panelists who I will leave unnamed in case there are any die-hard Bridges-of-Madison-County fans out there that may want his blood), with no other conceivable explanation than that it just happened. Seeing these distasteful things that shouldn't even be called novels at the top of the bestseller list can be frustrating, but for those of us who see these strange occurrences as miracles rather than blasphemies, it can be a pretty encouraging sign. We know the chances of making it big in the publishing world are rather slim, and we can be depressed by the winding, fickle road of publishing trends and how it's paved with downtrodden books that never see the light of day, but here's another way to look at it: If magic can happen for that book, who says it can't happen for my incredibly awesome, life-changing, out-of-this-world, beyond-the-scope-of-anybody-else's-imagination novel?

And with those humble (and arguably self-delusional) thoughts, I will leave you. Many thanks to our wonderful panelists, moderator, and attendees for making it such a fun night!