Sunday, August 4, 2013

First Page

Dear Lord of Words,

Can you please explain the need for myself to spend hours contemplating, writing, reading, and stressing over the first page to my novel?

It's a bit of a drag, if I can be even more frank (don't call my Shirley?), that such a small portion of my story be an impressive consuming sink of brain-power, eye muscle scanning, and typing experience. The fairness of it all escapes me.

Yes, I understand that the first page is what most readers will see when they open the book, well, after they've gotten past the credits, copyright, etc, or are done reading the last page. Of course the beginning should be good -- it has to catch the attention of the reader, setup the character and world, and maybe something else, although I'm not sure. But really, my quality of writing shouldn't need to be substantially more professional or re-worked because of this, right?

Okay, I know what you're thinking. How can I think the first page doesn't need to be perfect? What if it's like the rest of my crappy novel? You've got a point there. But, in that case, shouldn't I just write in the same vein as the remaining content so that I'm not fooling the reader into thinking I'm talented or that they might enjoy the story? I don't want to be sued for false writing-ability.

Shouldn't the cover do more for me? I mean, it's got to be awesome, too!

Right, I'm missing the point, I'm sorry. Then could I at least try less and less from paragraph one on until the end of page one? By then I'm sure my writing will just go seamlessly to normal and the reader won't be caught in the turbulence that is my attempt at providing them a story.

I haven't received your answer yet.

Oh, you were reading my first page? What'd you think? Lord of Words? Mommy...?

So you want to watch it as a movie instead? Crap.

-JK

Search This Blog