The great writers begin their stories with a killer hook which migrates into distinct blocks of text which section out a larger piece of writing – paragraph(s) —making it easier to read and understand. These blocks of text aid readability, setting the pace of the narrative, generating mood and helping to make characters three-dimensional.
“Call me Ishmael. Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul...” Herman Melville, Moby Dick
There are some major strategies that those writers used to create compelling opening paragraphs - They can help you too: Create a mystery; Describe the emotional landscape; Build characters; Bring the energy; Start with an unusual point of view; Dazzle with the last sentence and Set up the theme. Melville has used at least six of them in his prelude to Moby Dick.
A scene can be constructed in any number of ways – it is up to the writer to break it down to the most dramatic effect – managing content.
“Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know. I had a telegram from the home: ‘Mother passed away. Funeral tomorrow. Yours sincerely.’ That doesn’t mean anything. It may have been yesterday.” Albert Camus, The Stranger
How a writer’s narrator sounds and thinks affects the rhythm and even the design of the paragraph – amplifying voice:
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys’ house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him.” Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
A paragraph can set mood; Ask yourself, is mine introspective and thoughtful, or hurried and staccato? The length and type of the paragraphs can maintain or change the mood in a scene:
“The future is always changing, and we're all going to have to live there. Possibly as soon as next week.” Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide
“It
was a pleasure to burn.” Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
"Take
the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it
through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice.”
Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
A writer’s first line should open up a rib cage. It should reach in and twist the reader’s heart backward. It should suggest that the world will never be the same again. Then, remembering that paragraphing is more an element of individual style than of grammar, and, it’s you who’s in charge of what a paragraph should do or what shape it should take, think holistically: What preceded this moment, and what must happen next.
We know that we can’t write like Tolstoy, Bradbury, Adams, Bronte, Baldwin or many of the other prolific scribes, so, how can we learn to create great openings, transporting them into even greater paragraphs? Well, a piece of advice that I hold dear was that motivation runs out pretty soon once we get to the nuts and bolts of the grind, but discipline, on the other hand, is about doing the task no matter what. Read and listen to the masters, then sit yourself down and write every chance you get – because, as Jodi Picoult said, “you can edit a bad page but not a blank one.” How will you orchestrate your story, using the paragraphing techniques above?
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