And Suddenly I'm a Genius

I had no idea the buzz my "MacGregor's Equation" would create. Suddenly I have become a genius in the minds of some. (Please don't bother correcting them.) I've been fielding all sorts of emails and questions about it. For those not in the know, in my last post, I offered a mathematical formula for determining when an author should consider moving from part-time to full-time. It looks like this:
24m(n) + 4b(r) = RJ

The short version is that you need to have four books earning you royalties and 24 months of book contracts paying you a livable wage. (Feel free to scroll down to my previous post for more detail.) Just for clarity's sake, there's one thing I want to be sure you understand: The starting place is to figure out what you think a real job is. Or, to put it another way, how much money do you think you need to make in a year in order to justify this writing gig? You have to make that decision for yourself -- nobody can make it for you. Start with that personal decision, then move forward.

On to questions. Sally wrote and asked me if I'd be willing to share some of my favorite first lines from books. Happy to!

"As clowns yearn to play Hamlet, so I have wanted to write a treatise on God." -J.I. Packer, Knowing God. A brilliant opening line. Strikes a balance between digging into something deep, while at the same time recognizing the author's own limitations. Love this one.

"I daydream all sorts of unwieldy Arkansas fantasies. My fantasies are mostly about watching him sleep and finding a church with both incense and pariahs, about carving out a life in Arkansas amid all the chicken plants and political scandals, about converting that side room he never really uses into a place where I could have a desk and a bookshelf and yellow curtains on the windows." From Lauren Winner's Girl Meets God, it gives you a taste of her talent. The unexpected word choice, the various images, and the fun that is inherent in all her writing that makes me such a fan.

Thomas Pynchon starts his amazing novel, Gravity's Rainbow, with the words, "A screaming comes across the sky." It's about living in England during the blitz. But it's his second paragraph, describing what it was like to sit in a bomb shelter during that time, that really grabs me: "Inside the carriage, which is built on several levels, he sits in veleveteen darkness, with nothing to smoke, feeling metal nearer and farther rub and connect, steam escaping in puffs, a vibration in the carriage's frame, a poising, an uneasiness, all the others pressed in around, feeble ones, second sheep, all out of luck and time; drunks, old veterans, still in shock from ordinance twenty years obsolete, husbands in city clothes, derelicts, exhausted women with more children than it seems could belong to anyone, stacked about with the rest of things to be carried out to salvation." It's the imagery, the fine description, the recognition of others that grabs me. There is foreshadowing, a sense of awkwardness, and things not yet understood in that sentence. Pynchon is a genius.

And one more: "One of the Falcon's crew must have wedged himself against a bunk in the fo'c'sle and written furiously beneath the heaving light of a storm lantern. This was the end, and everyone on the boat would have known it. How do men act on a sinking ship? Do they hold each other? Do they pass around the whiskey? Do they cry? This man wrote; he put down on a scrap of paper the last moments of twenty men in this world. Then he corked the bottle and threw it overboard. There's not a chance in hell, he must have thought. And then he went below again. He breathed in deep. He tried to calm himself. He readied himself for the first shock of the sea." This is from Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm. A strong piece of writing -- it has longing and sorrow and the obvious sense of foreboding. There is a univesality to the experience he describes, since he is asking questions all of us who grew up by water wonder about. He had the good sense to start with the end, since we already had heard this was going to be "a book about a fishing vessel that sank in a storm." The fact that Junger can add mystery to it is remarkable.

Well...there are a few examples. Feel free to send in your own favorite first lines.

Along a similar vein, Deanna wrote to ask for who some of my favorite writers are. It's a long list, but it would certainly include Mark Twain (his writing still feels contemporary), Tom Pynchon, Ross Thomas, William Shakespeare (really!), Saul Bellow, Sebastian Junger, Brennan Manning. I still think Nostromo is the best novel I ever read. Sorry...I'm a bit of a classicist when it comes to favorites, I guess.

And Ashley wrote to ask, "As an agent, do you suggest a writer follow principles and formulas, or write purely from the heart? I find that when I follow formulas for 'good' fiction writing, I wind up with a dead end."

I have two answers for you to consider... First, keep in mind "the myth of spontaneity." The myth claims that true genius happens spontaneously -- a musician simply sits down at a keyboard and creates something beautiful. It doesn't happen that way. A pianist has practiced her scales and arpeggios repeatedly, and understands how music works, how notes flow together, how to create beauty. Any spontaneous craftsmanship she displays is built on the discipline of practicing the basics over and over again. In fact, it is her ability to master the basics that allows her to spontaneously create great music. So it is with the writer. Sitting down and creating great words requires understanding the basics of writing -- how to craft a strong sentence, what makes a good paragraph, what is the difference between the right word and the almost-right word, how to build a story arc. So in this sense, great writing comes from following the basic principles of writing.

However, I find many novelists relying on formulas and creating dull, predictive fiction. So there is a second principle to hold in balance: that little great fiction has grown out of formula. I don't believe Dickens or Twain or Austen ever created an outline before they began writing. In fact, I could argue that we have a tendency to over-edit writers these days, in order to create a "sameness" to many novels. While I love writers' conferences, I fear one of the weaknesses they foster is the notion that there is ONE way to craft a novel, and it always begins with a master outline. That may work well, but I still go back to history and find that most truly great fiction sprung not from some overall masterplanning document.

So it's both. I love the training that goes on at conferences, but I don't want to see author creativity stifled by the belief there is a right way and a wrong way to do fiction. My friend Randy Ingermanson has created the "Snowflake" method for writing a novel, which is a very good system to help novelists create an overall plan for their books. I'm a big fan of his thinking...but I don't want writers coming away with the belief that ALL fiction is to be crafted that way. It's not. Does that make sense?

If you've got a question about publishing, send it my way.

chip

Comments

[Kristy Dykes]

Great posts! I appreciate all the industry insight you give us.

I know you posted about sales figures awhile ago. I think they were general, overall figures for ABA and CBA. Can you talk about sales figures for CBA fiction? Expectations of the publisher? Give actual sales figures of currently selling novels? In Sandra Glahn's book proposal, which you post on your website and which you referred to on your blog, it says three of her novels sold 6,700, 6,943, and 11,781. Of course I know all publishers would like novels to sell 50,000 or more, but realistically, what do they have to see to break even? To contract an author again? Just curious. Thanks in advance.
Kristy Dykes

[Pam Halter]

An intriguing first line of a friend's WIP is: "I used to see in color."

Another friend opens her WIP with: "My mother liked to steal things."

I try to open my stories with dialog, if I can, but it depends on the story.

I agree with you, Chip, about being taught ONE way to write a book. How boring! While I write for children, I enjoy many different adult genres and would be disappointed if each book I read were the same old, same old. Even kids want a variety when they read.

[Nicole]

"In fact, I could argue that we have a tendency to over-edit writers these days, in order to create a "sameness" to many novels. While I love writers' conferences, I fear one of the weaknesses they foster is the notion that there is ONE way to craft a novel, and it always begins with a master outline. That may work well, but I still go back to history and find that most truly great fiction sprung not from some overall masterplanning document."

There is so much truth in this. I've read many (CBA) novels which bear this out.

[mike duran]

The Packer quote is AWESOME! Thanks, Chip.

[Timothy Fish]

I like the comparison between writing and composing music. While a pianist can sit down an hit any combination of note and call it playing the piano, there are several rules that can be used to help determine what other people will think is music. There is no true formula for music, but the composer or musician makes choices from several things that fall within the rules. One of these rules is that any rule can be broken if it makes the music sound good.

I don't know whether to say that it is because people are following the same formula or because a lot of writers are reading the same books, but there are some books that I have read and I knew how it was going to end. It seems like there are an awful lot of books were you find that two people can't get along at the first of the book, so you know they will be planning on getting married at the end. I don't remember too many books where two people didn't like each other at the beginning and truly despised each other at the end, though it could be fun to write.

With all of this talk about opening lines, I might as well mention some of mine. Searching for Mom begins with "Mrs. Gordon was the worst teacher in the world." My current work in progress will probably begin with something like, "'I'm not going to fight you,' I heard Sara Dawson tell Ben Hartline." I may change that because it comes from a scene in the middle of the book instead of at the beginning. My next work in progress will probably begin with the line, "This story is about a ring."

[John Robinson]

Hey, this is fun! Here's some of mine, the first from Until the Last Dog Dies: "Write this down--any phone call taken after 10PM will be bad." The next is from the sequel, When Skylarks Fall: "Death by drowning is never like it's pictured in the movies." Then from To Skin a Cat: "The faces in the wall were back." And last, from my WIP Blind Pig: "Blood steams; many people don't know that."

[Julie]

Okay, I'll play. Here's a favorite:

"He left the coffee-scented warmth of the Main Street Grill and stood for a moment under the green awning.

The honest cold of an early mountain spring stung him sharply.

He often noted the minor miracle of passing through a door into a completely different world, with different smells and attractions. It helped to be aware of the little things in life, he told himself, and he often exhorted his congregation to do the same." - At Home in Mitford, Jan Karon

[Erin]

It's not a first line, but everytime I'm in a bookstore and see "Great Expectations", I pick it up and read the first page. The story begins in a graveyard where Pip is looking at his parents graves. He sums up their character based on the shapes of the letters on their tombstones. I don't know why I love it so much, but I do. To some degree I think we sum each other up essentially the same way - in seconds we form an opinion and tag it to someone for life. In that way, it's like we wear an epitaph our entire lives. I think Dickens was amazing at character development. He seemed to be very interested in the psychology of a person - even his villans are fascinating (and typically, in some way, I feel sorry for them).

Sorry. I'm off topic. :) Another of my favorite novels is "The Time Traveler's Wife" and I love that begining: "It's hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay. It's hard to be the one who stays."

It's not a fireworks show of fancy language and motley metaphors but it's so elegant in its simplicity. I've read the book twice and loved it both times and I love knowing, from the start, Claire is damaged and lonely but also beautiful and strong.

[Tiffany Colter]

I have to say my favorite first line is the opening to Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart":

"TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell you the whole story."

I love how Poe takes you in the mind of the bad guy. That is why when I write my thrillers my bad guys are always 3-D POV characters. No insane person finds themselves to be insane...that truth drives my fiction. That, and the truth of God's redeeming love and power no matter how dark the night.

Tiff

[Renae Brumbaugh]

Great blog, Chip! Very informative. I am mainly a non-fiction writer, but dabble in fiction (really, just can't make up my mind!) Thanks for helping so many of us do what we love to do, and do it better!

Blessings to you today and every day.

Renae

[Linda Harris]

"My grandmother had just gotten out of jail."

It's from When the Game Is Over It All Goes Back in the Box by John Ortberg. Though it's obvious the book is comparing life to board games, and he's talking about playing Monopoly, that line still grabbed me.