First Chapter POV Character

Your 3d language fluency is better than my second language fluency in anything.

 

I learned English when I was about 4-6.
At 9ish, I was all caught up and more to others my age.
So, I basically had my whole life filled with English.

 

It doesn't matter. Commercial fiction both shapes and responds to reader's tastes. And like it or not our readers will judge our work against that of the professional fiction they read.

Think of it in terms of music. That hopeful band you're listening to at an open mike night is going to be judged against your current musical tastes. My kids have been involved in music for a long time, so I've attended a lot of live venues over the years where some of the bands made what little hair I have left stand on end. I don't doubt their sincerity and dedication, but still, I'd probably be a lot more receptive had I not heard better.

Our goal is to please our reader. We want to be seen as serious about our work. We spend hours here talking about writing. Doesn't it make sense to invest a fraction of the time we spend here listening to what the people who can get readers to pay to read their work say about the subject?

We can't point to a given writer and hold them up as an example of someone who didn't study writing technique because, in reality, we have only a superficial overview of their lives and how they learned writing. Look at Hemingway. He got his training as a working newspaper man. He hung out in Paris with the literary giants of the time, and I'm certain questions about technque came up. And of learning to write he said, “It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.”

And Joyce? To write like that I think you might have to have a life like his, and that's scary to even think about.

 

I actually went to kindergarten in Holland and was fluent in Dutch, but my mom never spoke it to us growing up so much of it has been forgotten. Interestingly, when I go to Holland a lot more of it comes back than I thought I remembered.

 

Seems to me that if something isn't seen, and is recommended against by the people who decide what will and what won't be seen,—and even teachers of the subject—it just might be a good idea not to send it to a publisher and expect a contract in return. And since my point was that opening with a dream is a bad idea, yup. Yes it does back up my point. But only if you hope to sell your work to a publisher, of course. If someone is only writing for their own pleasure, or to self publish there are no restrictions or even rules.

The points I make are only aimed at those hoping to get a yes from a publisher, of course.

You seem in a testy mood. I hope it wasn't something I said.

 

@JayG
Companies don't shape consumer tastes.
They sell to the lowest denominator which in turn spreads into mainstream.
Then, consumers expect to get this and that and don't question what else they could get as what they got was good enough.
"If everyone else likes it, so will I" mentality.

Over time, rubbish becomes the norm.
Just look at MTV or popular video games.
Most of it is utter crap but, guess what? Everyone buys it! So, obviously the giants of the world will market the same thing over and over again as apparently people like it enough to buy it.

Not saying mainstream books are crap, mind you.
Lots of it is actually more than acceptable or good.
However, publishing houses are business and are either run by people of certain mindsets who hire even more of similar mindsets.
Then they buy MS written with the same mindset.
Why? Because they know that to be quality and that it sells.
And if you look at other publishing houses, typically smaller, are run by a different mental frame and do the same thing as the bigger houses but with that different mind frame.

The smaller house is no worse than a bigger house, just one sells a certain one and one happens to be either more powerful or sells to a wider audience.

Take for example World of Warcraft in gaming.
Millions of subscribers, half the population whining that MMOs changed too much and everything is now a theme park copying WoW.
Smaller games, or even older ones, like Astonia 3, are raved by those who know it because it beats whats out there today.

The one flaw of capitalism is that the lowest denominator sucks but that's where the money is.
And that's where the norm and expectation will shift in any venue of arts, services, or enterprise.

 

I'm not testy, just highly argumentative to a fault.

But which publisher? They aren't all of the same age or idea.
Not every publisher will have the same standards, obviously, but those that make them worse or better than the other?
Maybe they seek a different style or their target audience isn't as wide or needs to be as numerous?

 

Things evolve in writing.
Heck, look at the sort of books that are allowed to be published and even in high demand.
YA are now especially popular and so are real crime.
Before, anyone would call a real crime writer as someone sordid and messed up.

I will also admit I don't miss underlining my italics or believing when someone tells italics are a poor writers tool

Markets evolve, business evolves, and consumers get new good things little by little.

Edit: oops... this was meant to be an edit. lol.

 

@A.M.P. Contemporary Moldovan poetry - living example that commercial value is secondary in literature. And did you know there are people in the indi gaming scene still making games for ZX Spectrum?! (if you don't know what a Specie is, I'm too old ) And there are people playing medieval music in Budapest subway stations! They are all crazy...

 

I don't know what that is.
Do you know what a TGFX is? I'm old too

Speaking of Indy games, like Terraria, Starbound, or Minecraft.
They certainly didn't have a niche until recently and suddenly they're the most popular games around despite going completely against "what works".

I love too many musical artists that play "unpopular" music but still make a more than decent living off it.

Voltaire is my favorite example

 

Never begin or end anything with a dream?

How about Newhart? That whole series turned out to be a dream in the finale and it's gone down in history as one of the best SF's of all time. Hmmm...

I think I'm going to go back and write a prologue which is all a dream sequence just for the hell of it.

 

You might want to do some actual research before posting things like this. First line of the Wikipedia entry: "Accounts of true crime have always been enormously popular among readers."

Saying that all those writers are "messed up" seems a bit inaccurate.

I think this thread has outlived its usefulness.

 

If it's on Wikipedia, it HAS to be true.

 

I like how you focused on just the one thing.
Never mind anything else

"Have always been popular" since like forever, you know?
Never once in history has something like this been deemed wrongful.
Thank you, Wikipedia.

Same goes for harlequin novels or anything that was deemed immoral or somehow wrong.
Or why would there be very little, if any, crime novels out there that are very old? And I mean like 300-400 and older.
Sure, not as many books back then as today, but there was lots of romance and god knows what else. Not much erotica or crime. Hmm.. it's like such things weren't polite or okay to publicize.
Things of that nature weren't written as stories.
In the same sense why would anyone read about something so sordid.
They'd wail it twists the mind of the reader somehow.

 

@Thornesque so, what happened with your first chapter?

 

Well, this argument aside, the forum seems to be pretty well clear on the issue-they don't think that it's the best idea in the world to not come right out and introduce the character. Unfortunately, this particular character is... Well, there's an interesting detail about him, and one which shan't be revealed immediately, as it would detract from the impact, and make more an interesting "Hmm..." then a "JEEZ, HOW DIDN'T I SEE THAT?!" That being said...

The story was original split three ways, between three characters who each play a crucial role in the plot of the story. I think I'm going to, temporarily, nix this character's perspective, until such a time as I can make him interested in what's going on around him, to a degree where he'll play an active role in it. 'Cause, at this point in time, it's honestly just, "There's nothing in here for me to pay attention to, except dead bodies, and these idiots over here, talking."

The dead guys can easily be put into the other scene with the other character, and still hold the same impact. The only reason it was where it was, is that I have the whole fight scene played out in my head, and it happened in that room with that character. But, upon writing the scene, I realized that there was a lot of emphasis placed on those three men and what was going to happen to them, and I didn't like that. As I've said before - they die. That is their purpose in this story. To die, immediately upon their entry, to give a feeling as to why the important characters feel hopeless upon the onset of the tale.

So...yeah. I'm starting from a different character's perspective. She can play a more active role in the chapter.

 

At the risk of fanning the flames, I have to ask Jay, do you have any opinions of your own on the subject of writing? You cite article X, book Y and Wikipedia Z so much I really can't tell.

 

You're backstage, and we're not customers, so if it matters, and there's somethig we might be able to help with, you can talk about it. If you're still in the "I have a great idea and I won't reveal it because someone might steal it," mode you can forget it. If ten people took the same idea and wrote it you probably wouldn't find much in common between the stories, because no two people approach telling a story in the same way.

 

Of course I do, on all aspects of it. I have thirteen articles on the various aspects of it in my blog. As might be expected, a lot of them mirror my teachers. I don't generally mention them, or give my own view as advice for several reasons. First, if you followed all my advice you would write like I do and the world isn't searching for another me. Second, my feeling is that saying, "This is what I do" is only valid, as advice, if you regularly sell your work. And finally, there's:

“Michaelangelo did not have a college degree, nor did Leonardo da Vinci. Thomas Edison didn't. Neither did Mark Twain (though he was granted honorary degrees in later life.) All of these people were professionals. None of them were experts. Get your education from professionals, and always avoid experts.” ~ Holly Lysle

 

I'm not concerned about anyone stealing. I haven't got that big of an ego to assume that my idea is so good that the members of this forum are going to jump on the opportunity to use it as soon as they hear it. In fact, one of the two reasons I have is quite the opposite: that many may consider the idea ridiculous and childish and I don't particularly care to listen to anyone bash it, because it's what I've determined works for the story. The other is simply that I didn't care to tell anyone at all, because it wasn't necessary.

I wasn't asking for help, as it were. Burlbird asked if I had come to a conclusion on how to handle the first chapter of my story, and I was explaining that I had, by means of using another character. To be less "obscure," the "interesting detail," leads to a large amount of apathy in said character, which makes it difficult for me to show him getting involved in anything, as he doesn't particularly care to get involved.

So, no, JayG. Much as I'd like to give you another excuse to help derail an entire thread in your quest to explain why every other writing process is incorrect and yours - which isn't really yours, but rather, many someone else's - is right, I'm going to have to decline.