I Know I Should Care, But Do I?

In this post, we look at why we should care about a book, but don’t.

The cover leapt off the shelf at you crying, ‘Buy me, buy me.” The blurb was enticing, riveting even. You couldn’t wait to get started. You carefully opened the cover and read the first few lines of the book. A moment later, a sinking feeling smothers the excitement. You read on, but then a dullness creeps upon your mind. You wonder if it’s too late to get a dirty chai latte from the coffee shop down the road. It’s beginning to rain. Not too hard yet, but you should really go now. You slide the book back into the space on the shelf and leave the bookshop, hunching down into your raincoat, flipping up the collar to keep the rain from your neck.

The book may have revealed itself to have had scintillating, sympathetic, witty characters, glittering dialogue, cliffhanger chapter endings to rival the best of them, and the plot of all plots. It may even have had oxford commas! And yet, you didn’t get to page two. Heck, you barely made it to the third paragraph.

While we all have our own favourite genres and authors, we can find ourselves lost in a new book by an author we’ve never heard of thanks to the first paragraph of their book.

Books matter. They are important. Through them we can learn so much. Most of all about how dissimilar, while at the same time exactly the same, we are to characters completely unlike ourselves, from different eras, and geographical locations.

But how do the authors spirit us away to these places, fill our minds with an atmosphere so enticing that we are embarking on chapter two before we realise it, and time passes without our knowing it?

And there’s the rub. Before a reader can wax lyrically about your book in a review, they have to be captured on page one, in paragraph one, in the first sentence. The first sentence? I hear you exclaim. That may be asking a bit much. Is it though?

Skilled writers can develop atmosphere in one sentence, they can reel you into their world at the end of the first paragraph, and yet you might still find yourself reshelving the book. Why? Because the one person that really mattered as far as the book is concerned didn’t care. And who was that?

Hint: It’s not the protagonist.

It’s the author or the narrator. And yes, I know, not having the author and narrator intrude on the work is something that is drummed into writers from the get-go. But unless the author or narrator cares or has something to say about which they do care, the book can fall flat. Here are some examples of those books and their authors or narrators.

Sumptuous first lines

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. – Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen. Jane Austin’s wicked wit is evident in this line. It’s completely tongue-in-cheek. The book goes on to highlight the absurdity of the line and the fact that, as far as Jane is concerned, a good fortune, is not the primary motivator of a good marriage.

Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls. – Titus Groan By Mervyn Peake. If you’ve ever read the Gormenghast trilogy, you’ll know that it is a work of immense creativity and insight into human nature, as well as the madness many of the characters exhibit. Those living in the castle have a very twisted opinion of themselves, from the Earl down to the lowest servant. They believe they are above those that live in the ‘mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic’. Peake died from Lewy body dementia. A frightening ‘ponderous’ form of dementia whose symptoms ‘circumfuse’ the sufferer ‘like an epidemic’ of confusion, forgetfulness, paranoia, hallucinations, anxiety, personality changes, and difficulty with movement, making one’s own mind a ‘mean dwelling’ in which to live. A book doesn’t have to be an auto biography to reveal what matters to the author.

Revelatory first paragraphs

Mabel had known there would be silence. That was the point, after all. No infants cooing or wailing. No neighbour children playfully hollering down the lane. No pad of small feet on wooden stairs worn smooth by generations, or clackety-clack of toys along the kitchen floor. All those sounds of her failure and regret would be left behind, and in their place there would be silence. – The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. If a woman wants children but is unable, for whatever reason, to have any, they choose to cope with that in different ways. In The Snow Child, the main character chooses to live with her husband in a cold, remote location. And isn’t that a good description of what can happen inside someone with a broken heart? They may be surrounded by people, but inside are in a ‘cold remote location’. The need for inner silence in which to heal can also be the place from which others can be hurt. And the reader just knows that for this character, the silence is going to shatter. But it was vital for the writer that the reader had empathy for the character from the start.

Sam Vines sighed when he heard the scream, but he finished shaving before he did anything about it. Then he put his jacket on and strolled out into the wonderful late spring morning. Birds sang in the trees, bees buzzed in the blossom. The sky was hazy, though, and thunderheads on the horizon threatened rain later. But, for now, the air was hot and heavy. And, in the old cesspit behind the gardener’s shed, a young man was treading water. Well…treading, anyway. – Night Watch by Terry Pratchett. Sir Terry Pratchett’s writing made it clear that the narrator was not going to leave the reader alone. Nearly every story was a ripping roaring ride of laughter – often out loud – and irreverent imagination, redolent with Pratchett’s own personal annoyance in the ridiculousness of life. There were no sacred cows. Everything was questioned and mocked. Sam Vines is the perfect personification of that, especially in this paragraph. Sometimes you’re the one fishing people out of cesspits, and sometimes you’re the one treading ‘water’.

The demanding first page

On the morning of that day in March, in the Year of the Boar, when the ugly stranger came to Tsin Kai-feng, I opened my eyes at dawn and felt a pang of despair to find nothing had changed. I suppose this was foolish of me, for I learned long ago that troubles rarely just disappear during the night. Mine were most unlikely to do so.

I had fifteen girl-children and Miss Prothero to feed, and the small cellar we used for a larder was empty but for some potatoes and a few pounds of millet. There was only one answer to the problem. Today I would once again have to make the journey into the town of Chengfu and steal some money.

I shivered, pulling the worn blanket up about my shoulders and huddling down on the lumpy straw mattress which lay between me and the scrubbed floorboards. I knew from experience that it was useless for me to go begging in the streets of Chengfu. The people were generous and considered begging an honourable occupation because it gave them the opportunity to show charity, but the Beggars’ Guild was very strict. They would never permit a young female person to engage in casual begging, especially one like me, for they counted me among the yang kwei-tzu – the foreign devils.

I had tried begging a year before, when I was sixteen, soon after Miss Prothero was first taken ill, but three men of the guild caught me. I spoke Mandarin Chinese as readily as they did, for I had been speaking it all my life, and luckily I managed to say something which made them laugh, otherwise they may have cut off my ears. As it was, they only gave me a good beating with canes.

I remembered now how stiff my shoulders had been, and how I had told Miss Prothero lies when I got back to the Mission, pretending I had fallen in a ditch and hurt my back. – Moonrakers’ Bride by Madeleine Brent. Who cannot relate to the opening paragraph of Moonraker’s Bride? While many women in the West have not had the problems the main character in this book have faced, you’d probably be shocked at how many have. I can’t speak for women in the near, middle or far East, but I would be surprised if this page didn’t reflect the daily life of many of those women even, maybe especially today. And it comes across as something the author cares about. Which is doubly interesting as Madeleine Brent was the pseudonym used by author, Peter O’Donnell. Something I’ve only just discovered. The first page of this book pulls you into the story, and you want to find out how the main character survived. We all need to find ways to survive the hard times in our lives.

The reason the reader begins to care about the characters, the story, is that the narrator cares, the author cares. We are persuaded that something important is happening. When the narrator or author make that universal and intimate at the same time, the reader is hooked.

If you are writing a book, or even a short story, a drama or a comedy, what are you making us care about on page one?

The Last Word

If you would like to learn how to write powerful stories, sign up for a course with Writers Write It’s the perfect place to learn.

by Elaine Dodge. Elaine is the author of The Harcourts of Canada series and The Device Hunter. Elaine trained as a graphic designer, then worked in design, advertising, and broadcast television. She now creates content, mostly in written form, for clients across the globe, but would much rather be drafting her books and short stories.

I Know I Should Care, But Do I?

Sumptuous first lines

Revelatory first paragraphs

The demanding first page

The Last Word

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