It's never too late...

Hi, here's Jo with a New Year's illustration to start of this blog. I'm not sure why it's a New Year's illustration, or what those two tykes are doing with the champagne, but then, we know the Victorians were weird. *G*

This blog about beginnings is a pretty easy one for me because I just talked about this in my Christmas newsletter, referring to last year's book, Lady Beware. As part of that, I put up the unused prologue that I wrote fairly late in the game as I struggled to find the right beginning for the book.

That's where the title up there comes from. It's a line I  always use when talking to writers about beginnings, a play on the old one about never getting a second chance to make a first impression. In writing a book It's never too late to make a first impression until the book's in print.

We all love to have a great beginning laid down. It's orderly and it makes us feel secure. It isn't necessary, however. As long as we know more or less what happens in the beginning  then we can, and should, leave that mess as placeholder and come back later. We may have to wait until we've finished the book to find -- or dig out of the salt mines -- the right beginning for that book.

Certainly there are some elegancies of beginnings, such as motifs that open and close a book, that we can only find when we reach the end. I did that with Devilish, where the book opens in darkness and danger, and ends with brightness and joy.

Sometimes beginnings do come fairly easily. The beginning of To Rescue A Rogue, with Mara scurrying through the nighttime streets of London seeking help was there from the beginning. One factor here was that while the hero, Lord Darius Debenham, has a lot of backstory, Lady Mara St. Bride doesn't. To start in the POV of the character with little backstory can be very useful.

In Lady Beware, I had a similar situation, in that Lord Darien's backstory was complicated but Lady Thea Debenham's wasn't. Therefore, it seemed idea to start out in Thea's POV and let her and the reader discover Darien.  Unfortunately, however, Thea was loaded with her brother Dare's backstory, which was crucial to her motivations, and Darien's motivation was tied into it, too.

As Susan said, in a romance it's very desirable to start with the hero and heroine. I know that; I just rarely manage it. I did start Lady Beware with the scene where Thea encounters a threatening man in the deserted corridors of her father's house during a ball. It was a very powerful scene, but coming without any preparation it disturbed. Darien seemed overly unpleasant, and Thea's reactions felt off.

I tried inserting necessary details into the scene in Thea's thoughts, but that slowed down a fast and dramatic scene. So in the end I moved back to the scene where Thea is changing her stained dress, which allowed reasonable thoughts of events plus dialogue with the maid.

You can read that opening, the published one, here .

In chapter two here, you can see a variant on my original opening.

So, what was the discarded opening? That was a prologue. Some people hate prologues. I don't, but I prefer not to use them. However, late in the writing of the book I felt that a prologue in Darien's POV of events some time before the ball would be an even better opening. It would, I thought, set up his character and motivations more strongly, and also introduce the antagonist early on, which is another very good thing.

It is, in my opinion, a very strong scene. I like it a lot, especially in showing the darker side of post-Waterloo England. In the end, however, I left it off and for one reason -- it set a very dark tone that wasn't in keeping with the book. There are dark elements in Lady Beware, to be sure, but anyone reading the prologue could expect a grim novel rooted in economic depression and political crises.

So that's what I put up over Christmas. The prologue.

I invited comments from my readers and they generally agreed that I made the right choice. What do you think?

With all best wishes for 2008, when I'll have two books out in April! It feels close, because I'm going over the page proofs for ALS now. In fact, you can read a little of the beginning of that if you'd like. That was one that came fairly easily. I knew what the opening scene was from the first -- just had no clue about the rest of the book!

The rake and the nun meet.

The other is my two-fer trad regency reissues -- The Fortune Hunter and Deirdre and Don Juan.

Jo :)

Comments

[JOYE]

There are so many books out there that I want to read that I have become more selective. I read the first 2 pages and if it doesn't grab me, I go on to another book. So yes, first lines and paragraphs are really important.

[maryjoputney]

Beginnings are rough, and your approach of going back later in the book to polish and tune the first few pages is right on. Those first few pages really do have a lot to do with selling the book.

Mary Jo, going off to see how the rake and the nun meet :)

[Patricia Rice]

I'd be interested in knowing why some people hate prologues. Often, they are necessary to "show" the setting and conflict. Are romance readers only interested in reading about a couple with no strings attached?

[Jane O]

I recall reading once that the ideal opening sentence would be something like:
"Damn," said the duchess as she puffed on a black cigar.
But as a reader, I generally give a book a few chapters, not just an opening sentence or a few pages. And sometimes I'll try something more than once, since my mood varies and what appeals today may not tomorrow. I don't have any strong feelings one way or the other about prologues or any other devices — except , of course, that they have to work. Personally, I have always enjoyed openings on a train — probably because I want the book to carry me off on a journey.
Ultimately, what I want is convincing characters inhabiting a convincing world, by which I do NOT mean the world I inhabit. I can read about that one in the newspaper, and I am constantly amazed at how unbelievable this world and its inhabitants can be.

[Jo Beverley]

Jo here.

Pat, I don't think it's that readers don't want the characters to have a past, but that they prefer to discover it as they go rather than have it up front. Generally, I'm like that. In most prologues I'm only interested in the characters when the main storyline begins, so the prologue is a bit of a slog. Or, I'm so interested by the prologue that I resent being wrenched ten years or whatever into the future. But of course some prologues do work perfectly.

Joye, I think that's the other trap with prologues if they aren't very much wound up with the main book -- a reader who checks a few pages can be not pulled in, but they would be by the main storyline. Or they can be hooked, then find the book is something other.

I remember one book, though not the title, which began with dramatic adventure, beautifully written. The story, however, was more about the protagonist dealing with the trauma and wasn't the same at all.

Jo

[Jo Beverley]

Jo again.

"Ultimately, what I want is convincing characters inhabiting a convincing world, by which I do NOT mean the world I inhabit. I can read about that one in the newspaper, and I am constantly amazed at how unbelievable this world and its inhabitants can be."

LOL, Jane, that's so true! I prefer my fiction otherwhere and otherwhen, too. It's also why I can't write contemporary.

Jo :)

[Carol]

I like prologues. They can help set up the story. Sometimes there is a need to let the reader know about something that happened in the past.

[Estella Kissell]

I enjoyed reading about the start of your books.

[Georgie Lee]

Thanks for the insight into beginnings. They can be a challenge.

[Pam P]

I, too, find prologues help at times, either as a setup, or as said, something you need to know from the past to make sense as you go along. It all depends on the story.

Jo, I did like that prologue for Lady Beware but think you were right that it would have set the wrong tone for the back.

[NinaP]

Hey Jo --

Really liked your insight on starting the book in the POV of the character with little back-story.

And thanks for the reminder that I don't need to have a perfect beginning to move on to the middle.

:-)
Nina, trying to move on

[Jo Beverley]

Jo here.

On prologues, I have one for the MIP and I'm pretty sure it's there to stay.

It was what first came to me -- one of those flash scenes that just zap into my mind with no context. Young soldier (17) blunders into a mess and ends up married.

The book picks up 11 years later. My working title is A Lord's Forgotten Bride. Think the publisher will go for it?*G*

Jo

[Marissa]

+JMJ+

Jo, my favourite of your opening and closing motifs is from The Devil's Heiress. We start with the hero's point of view as he surveys his home and wonders what it means to him; and we end right after the wedding, when he is about to bring his bride into their new home, the word finally having become meaningful. =)

[Jo Beverley]

Jo here.

Marissa, I forgot that one. Yes, that was very consciously bookended with the home. That whole series -- The Demon's Mistress, The Dragon's Bride, and The Devil's Heiress -- was about home. But home is also a continuing theme in my books. It's very important to me that at the end the characters have a rooted home.

It's even in the novella, The Trouble With Heroes, which ends with "The trouble with heroes is that they want to come home.
But home is also their just reward."

Jo

[Patricia Rice]

A LORDS FORGOTTEN BRIDE works for me! If you've got to have a Bride title, make it interesting. "G"

I hadn't thought about the difference in "feel" between a prologue and the book. Must go back and take a look at some, but it seems to me the author's voice ought to carry through enough to make the leap--if it's done right, of course.