Beginnings and Endings
“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.” Graham Greene
I’m almost at the end of revising my third novel - just one final draft to go, and then the last pass through when I read the whole thing out loud.
And I am back to where I was three, four months ago - paying a LOT of attention to the beginning and the ending.
In the Beginning
Looking back, I have re-written the beginning of this novel something like six times.
I wrote three prologues and following first chapters.
Then I decided I could start the story in a stronger place without a prologue - and although I enjoy prologues I know lots of agents and editors and readers don’t. So to give my book the best possible chance, I decided it was better to do without - if I could find a better way in to the story.
Prologues
There are probably good and bad reasons for writing a prologue.
I used one in my first novel mostly to establish that it was a crime novel - that there’s a murder. My first few chapters otherwise didn’t completely fulfil that role - it was too slow a start.
Looking back, I think that’s a bad reason to use a prologue. But it did work in some ways. It established the voice of my main character, and that drew people in to the story.
For my second novel, I started out with a prologue, but ditched it in my last couple of drafts. The mistake I made there was to focus not on my protagonist - but on the villain. One effect of that was that it revealed early on whodunnit which spoils things for readers who enjoy solving a mystery. I was more interested in exploring whydunnit which is a valid choice, but it is possible to do both.
The real mistake there, I think, is that as readers we often imprint on the first character we meet. I have often been disappointed as a reader when I am getting inside a character who seems to be the primary one at the beginning of a novel, only for them to disappear into the background soon afterwards.
What might prologues be trying to do? They might be attempting to start the story with a bang. They could be a dumping ground for backstory -when a better approach would be to drip-feed it naturally through the main character’s experiences. In some fantasy novels I have sometimes seen way too much history and lore and worldbuilding in a prologue.
Reluctantly I have come to the conclusion that a prologue is something I write when I am trying to find my way into a story, and that in general, my work is better when I ditch it and find another way in.
The novel opening
The reason it’s so difficult is because a novel opening has to do a whole lot of work.
What counts as the opening?
I would say the first chapter, or even the first three chapters - although Stephen King seems to be able to do a lot of this kind of work with just one brilliant opening line.
"There are all sorts of theories and ideas about what constitutes a good opening line," he said. "It's tricky thing, and tough to talk about because I don't think conceptually while I work on a first draft—I just write. To get scientific about it is a little like trying to catch moonbeams in a jar."
But the author, who released the mystery Joyland in June and will publish Doctor Sleep in September, does know a good first sentence when he sees one. "There's one thing I'm sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this."
What does a good novel opening do?
It has to tempt readers into the story. It has to establish the kind of novel it is (crime fiction, literary, fantasy, science fiction, humour - or some odd combination.) It has to persuade us to keep on reading, and that’s often achieved by setting up questions large and small - the big questions around the theme of the whole book, and the little ones about what happens next in maybe the next chapter or so.
There are all kinds of elements which can contribute to this, although they don’t have to be deployed all in the first paragraph.
In my view, though, these are essential to keep my interest. Other readers’ preferences may vary!
The first thing for me is voice.
Without that, I just don’t care to read on. When writing, it takes me a long time - as much as forty thousand words - before I know who my main character is and how the voice should be - even when I’ve done a lot of planning and outlining ahead of time.
I need to see enough of the main character to be interested in what happens to her (so far it’s always been her). I need to be interested in the questions the story promises to answer - what might make a good person kill, for instance.
And I need to be emotionally involved in the story - I need to identify in some way with the character - she doesn’t have to be likeable, I just need to understand and be able to empathise. I need to know that the writer will let me know how she became who she is at the beginning of the novel, and that I will be emotionally invested enough to share her journey and learn something along the way.
For me, nothing does this so well as a novel. Reading a good novel isn’t just about watching what’s happening in the story on the small or big screen - it’s about being caught up in the inside of the story, experiencing it for myself.
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”
George R.R. Martin.
The Relationship between the Beginning and the Ending
The ending should make sense of the novel’s beginning.
It shouldn’t be a cheat, either. So the beginning really has to contain some seeds which come to fruition by the end of the story.
In crime and mystery fiction there can also be red herrings of course - but at the end of the novel, it’s important to be able to look back at the beginning and for it to be surprising but inevitable.
What the Ending should do
The most important thing the ending should do, is to fulfil the promise made at the beginning of the novel.
If it starts out as a crime story, it should end as a crime story. I mean, fine, include some romance along the way if you like, but the ending must satisfy the genre criteria.
If there’s a supernatural element in the ending - well, we readers need to know there’s supernatural stuff involved from pretty much the beginning of the novel. we mostly don’t approve of bait and switch.
Perhaps in some cases - Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd comes to mind - we won’t mind a little cheating so long as it’s clever and there are enough clues along the way that it was technically possible to work out the solution.
Some readers like all the loose ends to be tidied up by the end of the story. In some kinds of novel, that’s probably reasonable. In my psychological thrillers, I prefer to have the main mysteries resolved and questions answered - but even though my stories tend to turn into mad romps, I like a certain amount of realism - at least psychologically. That means that I have a high tolerance for loose ends - and also sometimes my readers think I’ve left room for a sequel.
So far, that hasn’t been my intention!
Disappointing Endings
There are several ways an ending can disappoint.
The worst, I think, is simply not fulfilling the promises of the novel’s opening. If we start with a murder, by the end we need to know who the murderer was, and probably a whole lot of other details around the people involved - murderer, victim, family and friends, detectives and so on.
Some people really don’t like stories with multiple choice endings.
I think one of the most well know is John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman
More recently, there was a TV series, a courtroom drama. The title may come back to me! - and it did. It was called You Don’t Know Me.
Again, I think these can be satisfying if they are cleverly done. I think in the courtroom drama it can be interesting because of course, as a jury, people are presented with competing stories about what happened and have to make their minds up about who is telling the truth. It’s good mental/narrative exercise to have our ideas and interpretations and preconceptions challenged and turned upside down - but as writers we must be aware that not everyone will enjoy.
For me, the most disappointing ending is the one which is too predictable. I do like to be able to guess where a story is going, but if I’m not wrong about any of it, I feel cheated. And of course as a writer, it’s the easiest thing to do of all - to write a hackneyed, predictable story.
And yet some people do enjoy those kinds of stories - genre romance or cosy crime. That’s fine too - sometimes when poorly I will spend a few hours reading a Georgette Heyer novel. Comfort reading is fine - but it comes down to the story’s promise. Please don’t tell me there’s a superb twist when it’s something I’ve seen in a dozens of previous novels.
In conclusion
Now I’ve written myself into a funk about Novel 3 and its beginning and ending, I’ll just go and take another look at this draft!
Do please let me know what your loves and hates are - especially about novel endings, I think. If we don’t like the beginnings, we simply don’t read on - but a disappointing ending feels like it’s wasted our time!
Ann
Further Reading
Parade - Stephen King’s favourite Novel Opening Sentences
The Atlantic, on Stephen King’s Opening Sentences
Stephen King’s Opening Sentences, Ranked
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