In today’s Words In Progress with Paula Munier, we continue our series where we speak with writers and writing professionals about a specific aspect of the craft of writing. Today’s episode focuses on Dramatic Openings.
Paula is a writer, editor, teacher and agent. She has three books on writing: The Writer’s Guide to Beginnings: How to Craft Story Openings That Sell; Writing With Quiet Hands: How to Shape Your Writing to Resonate with Readers; Plot Perfect: How to Build Unforgettable Stories Scene by Scene.
She’s also written three novels in the Mercy Carr series: A Borrowing of Bones; The Blind Search; The Hiding Place (Just Released!!).
Today she taught us about Dramatic Openings and how important they are to selling a book! She took us through her Top Ten (Plus One) list of why story openings don’t work.
Top Ten (Plus One!) Reasons your story opening doesn’t work:
- Not enough happens.
- The story’s genre is not clear.
- It’s not clear what the story is about.
- It’s not clear who the protagonist is.
- There’s nothing unique enough about the story to set it apart.
- The story is not grounded in setting.
- The protagonist is not likable or admirable and readers can’t relate to him/her.
- The story does not engage the reader’s emotions.
- It’s all showing and no telling.
- The story is not told in a strong voice.
- There’s no narrative thrust.
She gave us information and examples for each and she even found an printing error in one that will be fixed during the next printing. Can you tell which one is wrong?
Paula suggested, as an exercise, we read the openings of ten books in our genre that have been released in the last three years. This is what we call a fun exercise … book store here we come!
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