The King Is Dead

Like "you have to begin in the middle of the action! your first line has to be a 'hook' that draws the reader further into the story!"

This is the bullshit responsible for the amount of books that begin in the middle of some sort of pointless fucking action scene that I care nothing about because I just got here.

Like I guess this makes books easier to "sell" or whatever on some level of the process, but it's garbage storytelling advice because setup and establishment of the Way Things Are is almost always necessary.

On some level I don't think it's actually possible to begin a story right on top of the "inciting incident" because...you don't have the raw materials to "incite" anything with. If you have to set up basic things about the characters and world after the "inciting incident," it's not really the inciting incident anymore, is it?

The event that "launches" a character into their plot line is something that follows from the character's established situation, desires, traits etc. It's a follow-up to a situation that makes a Story of some kind inevitable.

It is, by definition, an event that makes no sense and does not matter to the reader at all unless the "setup" already exists.

If you try to begin right in the middle of the event that "sparks" the plot, you're going to end up including a second, "real" event that actually does the job, because you can't do the job if the character, the stakes, the rules, etc. are not there yet.

I used to read SO MANY articles, books etc. talking about beginning a story and how a good "hook" works, and all of them talked about, like, introducing something so weird or exciting sounding or inexplicable that the reader is curious about the rest, and it's so stupid thinking back on it that I want to cry, because literally none of them seemed to take into account that readers know that they're reading a story.

When you start reading a book you're automatically paying attention to specific things—interesting characters to connect with, hints of the kinds of things that might happen. You are not an idiot and you know that there is more book after the first page. You will be looking for stuff that looks like it will grow into something exciting, things that set up an interesting plot.

Your reader is already capable of projecting in their head the kinds of things that might happen in your story. It's actually kind of fundamental to being a reader. Start with the bomb, not the explosion!

No one is opening a book like "Hmm, there is no extraordinary, dramatic event happening in the first sentence...I think I can safely conclude that nothing exciting happens in the entire book!" Like. Readers know how plots work. Dumbass.

I've said before that good first lines are the ones that have that "sit down, I'm telling you a story" effect, and I haven't been able to explain it until now. A good beginning to a story is something that provides the "ingredients" for something cool.

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

This is a very good beginning. Readers instinctively recognize that "they were perfectly normal" isn't, like, telling us the whole book is going to be boring. It's the bomb.

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.

We begin chapter 1 with Prim's missing-ness. That's the bomb.

But it has been misunderstood not only by writers, but by half the people that recommend using one, for 15+ years, and the singleminded obsession with a "hook" has stopped writers from making the best decisions about storytelling.

Here's the first line of one of my favorite YA novels, Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray:

In three weeks, Noemi Vidal will die—here, in this very place.

I hate beginnings like this. I despise them. I hate how the "hook" is reduced down to "loudly announce something SHOCKING and DRAMATIC in the first line so readers will pay attention."

This may somewhat fit the "start with the bomb" advice, but it's a bomb readers can immediately tell is a dud. We know she's not going to die—or at least, we don't have enough information to believe it when the story tells us this. It's not going to explode. We can sense that, immediately, and it's not a source of mystery because some level of Plot Armor is standard for protagonists.

The opening scene is a training sequence, training for a suicide mission the main character is supposed to be involved in. Openings like this are very common in YA, I assume because of blind adherence to the idea that "action-packed" scenes are better to open with.

By page 3, the book has launched into info-dump, which is, ironically, a side effect of starting the story at a point where there's little room for dialogue or more natural unfolding of information.

It's also a side effect of how quickly the book launches into the "inciting incident." By pages 20-25, we've already "hit" the spark of the main plot line. That's in chapter 3, which is standard for YA novels and a troubling amount of general SFF published in the last few years. Before that happens, we have to establish:

Noemi being a soldier, and her relationship with Esther

That she's fighting for a planet humans colonized, after Earth became polluted and uninhabitable (this is a future world)

Enough basics of the setting and technology etc

The details of the mission she's training for, what it's supposed to accomplish, etc.

There are robots, and they're incredibly human-like, but humans view them as completely inhuman

And all of this could have been shown, instead of dumped, if we didn't have to get through it so fast.

Emotional connections are damned hard to establish in small spaces focused on external things. Since Esther is dead by like page 100 and her death is a major plot point, the fact that we barely get to see her interact with the protagonist in a normal setting isn't good for the story.

I say this is one of my favorite YA novels, but it almost wasn't, because I almost quit reading around page 50 because what I had seen was just not good. It was only on a whim that I decided to keep going. It's very much a book, and series, being suffocated by the conventions of the category, or of publishing in general. It reads like the author is being forced into a tight box by the powers that be and is making the best of it. The publishers or editors were like "get to the plot as quickly as possible" and to hell with the rest of it.

Part of what I mean here is demonstrated in the third sentence:

Noemi wants to pray like the other soldiers she hears around her.

This is a hook. This is what a hook looks like, if your brain isn't fried into goo by capitalism. The other problems would remain, but this is SO much better as a first line. The threat is still so potent in the image of soldiers praying, but it's not like, screaming in our faces, "THE MAIN CHARACTER MIGHT DIE. AREN'T YOU INTERESTED? DON'T YOU WANT TO READ MORE?"

Because Readers Know That Bombs Explode, readers will smell a rat if you open your book like "Look! Look! It's a bomb! It's going to explode! Isn't that scary!"

The alternate opening (with the soldiers praying) makes the danger feel far more plausible and real, because it trusts me to fill in the blanks myself.

People act like novelists are competing for your attention with social media and clickbait and, honestly, they’re not always wrong.

On a related note, the other day a tutor advised me that if there’s a line in my work that not everyone can understand, I should rework it. Like, everyone. Everyone in the class understood it, but he said that hypothetically someone somewhere might not. When I said I didn’t believe it was possible to be universally understood, he said I should try and make my writing ‘accessible’, even if it meant sacrificing style or the impact of what I was writing.

As a tumblr blogger who has had many posts exceed 20k notes I can GUARANTEE you that it is impossible to write a sentence that successfully conveys its meaning to everyone, no matter how simple or clear.

Star Wars, as it was released in 1977, was an attempt to science fiction with three other classic film genres:

Westerns

Samurai movies

World War II movies

Everyone sort of understands that Star Wars is a space western (even if you forgot this fact, the recent release of the Mandalorian should have served as a good reminder), and most people get that the Jedi are space samurai.  (They have a strict honor code, and at least in the early episodes they held their lightsabers with both hands like a samurai, rather than holding them in one hand like a European medieval sword that was meant to be held with one hand while you held a shield with your other hand.)

However, I think nearly everyone has forgotten the reason that the first 1977 movie was simply titled “Star Wars.”  Most Star Wars movies since the original (even Empire and Return of the Jedi) have a third-act action climax that is resolved through some confrontation involving a lightsaber.

Luke didn’t have a lightsaber duel with anyone in the first movie.  Instead, he gets together with a bunch of his fighter pilot buddies for a dogfight in space. Luke’s big climactic third act victory is not winning a lightsaber fight, but being the last remaining pilot and, guided by the words of the wise Obi-wan, he trusts in the force and his instincts as a pilot in order to blow up the enemy aircraft carrier death star.  And you can’t have an air squadron without ground support, which we frequently cut to on both sides.

“Enemy fighters coming your way.”

We remember the glory and triumph of Luke’s victory.  What fewer people seem to remember is that the rebel squadrons were getting picked apart and the battle was nearly lost before Han Solo came in and played a critical role in helping Luke save the day.  It is dogfighting in space, using the same language as the World War II cinema that came before it, something that becomes apparent if you look at how the scene is shot: we don’t see just ships from a distance as they blow up in space in a grand spectacle of effects, we see shots of the pilots inside of their cockpits.

Storm Over The Pacific (1960)

Star Wars (1977)

This is a war being fought by individual airmen.  They might not have fleshed out backstories, but the mustached Red Three is distinct from the bearded and portly Red Six who is distinct from the clean-shaven Red Ten.

The movie makes a point of introducing us to Luke’s squadmates before they fly into battle: we have a roll call so that everyone can report in.  These aren’t just faceless characters: we’re given their callsigns and each of them gets multiple shots that clearly focus on their faces so that we get to know them as individuals before they fly into battle.  When an x-wing goes down goes down, we see the pilot reacting inside of his fighter before we cut to the view from space that shows the ship exploding into pieces.

Luke actually gets a very small portion of the screen time during the rebel run on the death star, and when he does, nearly every line of dialog he speaks reinforces the fact that he is part of a team. “Blast it, Biggs, where are you?” “Thanks, Wedge.  Good shooting.”

Even in the climactic battle, the movie doesn’t forget one of the most important thing about war, which is that it’s a process that is approximately 1% sheer adrenaline-pounding terror, and 99% grisly anticipation as you wait for things to happen.  This is true even when you are in a battle.

Something you might have forgotten from that movie: Luke’s squadron was not tasked with making the first trench run.  Their job was simply to draw fire, making strafing runs on the enemy’s stationary guns while the gold squadron made the first attack run to try to blow up the death star.  The first shot we see of the trench comes from the gold squadron’s perspective.

There’s a moment of sheer terror during the trench run when the death star’s stationary guns stop firing on them.  Why would they stop firing on us?  Answer: because the empire doesn’t want to hit their own ships.  The question doesn’t even need to be asked; the pilots immediately realize as the stationary guns stop that the empire must have ships on their tail, and immediately give the order to stabilize rear deflectors and watch for ships on their tail.  Including a face that you might recognize.

Darth Vadar has scarier weapons at his disposal than a mere laser sword. A lightsaber can remove your arm from your torso, but his TIE fighter can remove your pilot friends from the skies.  Of course, even the terrifying Darth Vadar can’t fly solo: he, too, is part of an army, just one of several TIE fighters who are on their tail.

The Rebels’ first trench run ends in loss and failure as the gold squadron of Y-wings is picked off, one by one.  They have to regroup and come up with a new plan: Red leader will make the trench run with the help of Red Ten and Red Twelve, with Luke, Wedge, and Biggs flying support.

“Just hold them off for a few seconds.  Almost there…”

During the final moments of the second trench run, the tension is so thick that the pilot’s face is wet with sweat.

The second trench run scores a hit!  But…wait, the death star suffers a shock, yet is still standing?  “Negative, negative.  It didn’t go in.”  The look on everyone’s face is pure devastation. 

The Rebels have only one remaining contingency: with Red Ten and Red Twelve gone, it falls on Luke to lead the third trench run, with his old friend Biggs and his new friend Wedge joining him.  But their final attempt seems futile: during the first two trench runs, they had been the ones providing support. With Luke, Wedge, and Biggs all down in the trench, who will fly support for them and take care of the TIE fighters on their tail?  What’s to stop Darth Vadar from following right behind them and picking them to pieces, just like he already did to the other Rebel pilots? And indeed, he and the other TIE fighters start to do exactly that. “We can’t hold them.” They’re on the precipice of defeat.  The John Williams score turns from optimistic and hopeful to to dark and despairing. After several shots on his fellow pilots, Luke is the only one remaining in the trench, and we watch in horror as Darth Vadar lines up the shot on Luke, the one remaining Rebel fighter.

“I have you now.”

Red Five, the man we know as Luke Skywalker, is the Rebels’ last remaining hope, and with no support, he is dead to rights. In order for this to work, they need a miracle.  And indeed, a miracle comes.

“You’re all clear, kid! Now let’s blow this thing and go home!”

In the prequel movies, the Jedi seem like invincible warriors.  Their lightsabers cut through battle droids like hot knives through butter. They make it look easy.  But when Luke and Han are recognized as heroes, it’s not because what they did was easy. It’s because what they did was hard.  They survived incredible danger.  Their companions made incredible sacrifices.  And in the day, their side won the battle at an incredible cost.

This is what Star Wars was about.  By the end of the original trilogy, it had become something else: a heroic epic about a boy with a special gift who was part of a grand legacy.  That is the legacy that is carried forward into the other parts of what is now known as “The Skywalker Saga.”  But in 1977, Luke was the farm boy with a knack for piloting who joined the Rebel army and won the war.  Sure, he had adventures along the way, and he even was in touch with the force, but this was the third act climax: dogfights in space.

In my mind, Rogue One is the only other Star Wars movie to even try to do anything close to this.  There’s a moment some time during the third act when every viewer realizes, “Oh wow, this is actually how things are going down.  I suddenly know how this movie is going to end, and yet I can’t believe they’re really doing this.  Are they really going to let a Star Wars movie end like this?”

Of course, Rogue One echoes the original not just in the fact that it is a war film, but that it is a cocktail blend of several genres.  Star Wars (1977) pulls influence from war films, samurai films, and westerns.  Rogue One pulls influence from war films, Hong Kong martial arts films, and heist movies, replacing the outlaws of the frontier with the outlaws of the heist movie, and replacing the laser sword-wielding space samurai Jedi with a force-sensitive monk played by Donnie Yen, who you might remember from many martial arts movies, including Ip Man.

“The fossil is not the animal. The fossil is not the bones of the animal. The fossil is the stone’s memory of the bones of the animal. And that’s a poetry older than words.”