In a new post on Writer Unboxed, Kathryn Craft analyzes the openings of three novels to examine how the writers used different types of movement to draw in their readers. “Character movement can create the sense that the reader is merging into a story that’s already in progress,” she says.
The first example, The Girl in the Stilt House by Kelly Mustian, features a character in motion, but not hurried. In her opening, Mustian shows her character in pursuit of a goal, engages the senses to create questions, compares past to present to show that the story is already in progress, and introduces complications and a character arc.
The second example, The Rosie Project by Graeme Simonson, uses the risky gambit of starting in the protagonist’s head. “Even authors can get stuck in the convoluted twists and turns of a protagonist’s gray matter, unable to find their way out,” Craft notes. Simonson works through this challenge by immediately presenting the protagonist’s story problem and putting him into action solving it. The protagonist’s thoughts are orderly; he doesn’t meander through interiority but gets right to the point.
In the third example, Bonnie Garmus’s Lessons in Chemistry, story movement is created by raising questions, beginning with big picture declarations before tightening the focus to a specific protagonist action, the use of rhythmic language, unexpected details, and character agency.
