Tuesday Tidbit: Why should you wait to write your memoir’s opening?

Reading time: 50 seconds

Consider waiting to write your memoir’s opening until after you’ve completed your rough draft. Most people do.

Why?

Because crafting the lead (the hook, the opening, the beginning) can be challenging—or even exasperating—so, many writers pin it down after they’ve composed most of their piece.

Two reasons to wait:

First: Sometimes within the writing of a story, it evolves into a different story. You didn’t set out to tell that story, but it’s good, it’s important, it’s a keeper.

In that case, if you had created an opening at the outset, you’d have wasted your time. That’s because a different story needs a different hook.

Second: Often an idea for the lead comes from within already-written paragraphs and chapters. Be alert—watch for it! When you find it, go to work crafting your beginning.

In the past couple of weeks, we’ve covered two types of leads:

The Quote Lead, and

The Scene-setting Lead

(Click on those links if you missed those posts.)

But there are more!

Be sure to come back Thursday and I’ll tell you about additional types of leads—

• The Action Lead,
• The Anecdote Lead,
• and The Statistics Lead.

There you have it, your Tuesday Tidbit.

Related posts:

Does your memoir’s beginning pass the test?

Does your opening make your memoir a must-read?

If you don’t get this right, you’ll lose readers.  

If you don’t get this right, you’ll lose readers.

Reading time: 2 minutes, 32 seconds

After dismantling your scaffolding, it’s time to design a catchy opening for your memoir.

(You did remove your scaffolding, didn’t you? If not, you should! “Don’t think the reader will be patient with you until you can get around to the actual story,” writes Matilda Butler. If you need to brush up on what scaffolding is, click on Whether you’re building a castle or a memoir, the scaffolding must come down.)

Today we’re talking about leads, a term I use because of my journalism background. Sometimes the lead is called a narrative hook, or simply a hook.

The lead is the first thing people read. It catches their attention. You hook readers by making them curious and drawing them in. A well-crafted beginning motivates people to (1) buy your book and (2) read it all the way to the end.

A captivating lead is a crucial component in newspaper and magazine articles.

It is a must for blog posts, sermons, talks, and devotionals.

A top-notch lead is vital for a memoir (and for each chapter as well).

Think for a minute about your memoir. When people consider buying it, they’ll check out your opening.

Does that make you a little nervous?

If so, get used to it: Readers will compare your beginning to those of other writers.

After all, when you browse the shelves looking for a good book, before you purchase it, you open it and read the beginning, right?

Before you order a book from Amazon, you click on the “Look Inside” feature to see how it begins, right?

And if the opening doesn’t grab you, you don’t buy it, right?

It makes sense, then, that when people consider spending money on your memoir, they’ll check out how it starts. That’s why you need to craft a humdinger of a beginning.

So, let’s look at openings. But first, a word of clarification: Writing a memoir is not the same as writing a paper in Composition 101 in college.

Do you remember Comp 101?

If not, here’s a reminder of what your professor drilled into you:

Paragraph One is your introduction—a few sentences familiarizing readers with your topic. Here’s an example of a topic: How you decided to work as a nanny in Scotland.

In English Comp format, you follow the intro with the main body: Paragraphs Two, Three, and Four, each explaining one step in your decision-making process.

Then in Paragraph Five, you write your ending, your conclusion—you more or less rephrase your introduction.

But in writing your memoir, do away with the English Comp 101 format. Instead, begin by intriguing readers with your lead, your hook.

Today we’ll look at two types of leads—and in coming days we’ll study even more kinds—so be sure to come back!

The Quote Lead: Use a quote, poem, or proverb to make people curious about your story.

For example, you might use this Martin Luther King, Jr., quote: “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

Here’s another example of a quote lead, this one by Elisabeth Elliot: “When you’re in a dark place, you sometimes tend to think you’ve been buried. Perhaps you’ve been planted. Bloom.”

The Scene-setting Lead: Describe your story’s setting so your reader feels she’s standing beside you, hearing, seeing, tasting, feeling, and/or smelling the place or event.

For example: “Suited up in a knee-length tuxedo jacket, 15-year-old Nathan Heintz bowed slightly to the seated girl, held out a corsage and asked, ‘May I have the next dance?’ With a fur stole flung across her shoulders and legs daintily crossed at the ankles, Lindsey Ingalls, 16, smiled and nodded her acceptance. It was enough to make Miss Manners blush with pride.

“With a rustle of gowns, tugging of gloves and twitters of laughter, dozens of teens and pre-teens gathered Thursday night for a winter ball. . . .” (by Hope Brumbach in The Spokesman-Review, January 13, 2007)

Your job is to

write a strong first sentence.

And powerful first paragraphs.

And a brawny first chapter.

Otherwise, you’ll lose readers.

Come back Thursday!

I’ll share with you more types of leads

to use in your memoir!

Share your memoir’s first seven sentences with us

Memoirist Kathy Pooler tagged me and several others on Facebook recently, inviting us to share the first seven sentences of our WIP (work in progress). That was fun!

Today we invite you to share your openings, as well.

But first, for inspiration, read four brief sample openings, below:  

Here’s an excerpt from the Prologue of Kathleen Pooler’s second memoir, Daring to Hope: A Mother’s Story of Healing from Cancer and Her Son’s Alcohol Addiction:

For as long as I can remember, it has always been my role to mother my children whether that meant jumping in to fix every little mishap or showing love for their hurts and boo-boos. Eventually as they grew up, I would need to learn to let go and let my children navigate their lives on their own.  

This has been by far, the hardest lesson for me as a parent to learn. As a mother of an addicted son, my understanding of mothering was fearfully tested. 

I always loved my son but hated what he was doing to himself with his drinking which time after time left him foundering and me wringing my hands in angst in an endless series of self-defeating activities.
          
When he was a toddler, I could just pick him up and remove him from a dangerous situation. I could protect him. But as he grew, he tested my limits. I could not have known that the seven-year-old who screamed, “Look Ma, no hands” at the top of the pine tree would one day as a young adult find himself stranded, homeless, jobless and utterly alone.

Below are the first few sentences of my soon-to-be-published memoir, working title Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go!

I sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Roland, a seasoned bush aviator, as he piloted the custom twin-engine toward a Colombian airfield. I’d flown in our planes several times, but this was a first—watching the landing from the copilot’s seat. 

Dipping low, three or four seconds from touchdown, the wing on my side catapulted into the air and the plane veered to the left, lopsided and convulsing. Red lights flashed in the cockpit. A buzzer blared. Roland jerked levers and slapped switches and punched buttons.  

Please, God! I prayed, but I couldn’t say more—I couldn’t breathe. Of all the potential dangers I’d worried about for that trip—kidnapping, murder, and guerrilla activity aimed toward U.S. citizens—I’d never imagined a plane crash.

The next excerpt is from the beginning of Abigail Thomas’s A Three Dog Life: A Memoir:

This is the one thing that stays the same: my husband got hurt. Everything else changes. A grandson needs me and then he doesn’t. My children are close then one drifts away. I smoke and don’t smoke; I knit ponchos, then hats, shawls, hats again, stop knitting, start up again. The clock ticks, the seasons shift, the night sky rearranges itself, but my husband remains constant, his injuries are permanent. He grounds me. Rich is where I shine. I can count on myself with him.

And his is from the Prologue of Richard Gilbert’s Shepherd: A Memoir:

Childhood dreams cast long shadows into a life. As if the strong feelings they stir prove their validity, dreams propel the dreamer through an indifferent world. Which explains how I, a guy who grew up in a Florida beach town, find myself crouched beside a suffering sheep in an Appalachian pasture. 

“Richard, I think you should call the vent,” says my wife. Kathy and I flank the ewe’s prostrate body. 

Our third lambing has just begun this spring of 2001, and Red is in trouble. I’d found the little ewe in distress and had urged her up and nudged her inside an old shed, where she’d collapsed and resumed straining, panting as if in labor. But nothing happens; no lambs, hour after hour.

Okay, now it’s your turn! Post your first few sentences (up to ten sentences) below in the comments, or as a comment on SM 101’s Facebook Page, or in a private message.

The following posts will help you craft your memoir’s opening:

First lines    

Readers don’t want us to dilly dally around   

Openings: the hardest part

Tuesday Tidbit: Spotting major flaws in your memoir’s opening

Here’s your 15 seconds of inspiration,

this week’s Tuesday Tidbit:

Prolific author Cecil Murphey said, “I once read more than one hundred of the entries for Christmas Miracles, a compilation book. The major flaw in at least a third of them was that they told us the ending before they told us the story.”

How are you doing on your memoir’s beginning?

Matilda Butler offers brief but oh-so-practical tips on making your memoir’s opening sparkle. Check out her writing prompts at Now It’s Your Turn.

Related posts :

Excellent resources for your memoir’s opening

Tips for writing a top-notch opening

First lines

Openings: the hardest part

Sharon Lippincott’s tips on writing your opening paragraph

A writing contest over at Women’s Memoirs

First Paragraph contest winners

Silver Award winners

Tuesday Tidbit: Excellent resources for your memoir’s opening

Many thanks to Pamela Jane Bell, Matilda Butler, and Kendra Bonnett for hosting the First Paragraph Contest over at Women’s Memoirs, and for honoring me with a Silver award.

We all can benefit from studying those paragraphs, so click over to last week's Silver winners, and this week’s Gold winners, just announced today. You’ll learn good tips for crafting your own smashing first paragraph.

P.S. I’ve changed my working title to Winded and Scruffy and Brimming with Tales.

Openings: the hardest part

Your opening is the most important part to write well—whether you’re penning a book, a vignette, an article, a blog post, or an opening paragraph for the Women’s Memoirs contest. (The contest is open to men, too.)

If you don’t hook your readers from the beginning—if you don’t create curiosity, if you don’t present your story as a must-read, they probably won’t keep reading.

Besides your opening being the most important part, it will probably be the hardest part to write well.

Hardest, you ask? Yes, read on….

Brian Clark drives home that point: “Master copywriter Gene Schwartz often spent an entire week on the first 50 words… Those 50 words are the most important part of any persuasive writing, and writing them well takes time. Even for the masters.”

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been working on an opening paragraph for the Women’s Memoir contest, and I’ve revised it at least 20 times. I’m not sure yet if the current draft will be the final one.

How are you doing on crafting your openings? Even if you’re not entering the contest, your openings need to sparkle.

Here are a few tips:

First, be sure your first paragraph is the correct one! Remove your scaffolding.

Next, be sure your opening doesn’t give away your story’s ending.

That might seem like a no-brainer, but too many of us goof on that.

Prolific writer (over 135 books) and New York Times bestselling author, Cecil Murphey, says, “I once read more than one hundred of the entries for Christmas Miracles, a compilation book. The major flaw in at least a third of them was that they told us the ending before they told us the story.” He gave this example: "The worst Christmas of my life became the best Christmas ever."

Instead of giving away the ending, intrigue your readers, make them curious, and entice them to keep reading so they’ll discover how your story pulls together at the end.

Learn the difference between effective and weak openings. How?

On Facebook recently, Cec shared a good tip: “One way to learn to write good beginnings is to see how the professionals do it. Although some do it better than others, I learned a great deal about beginnings by reading only first paragraphs of half a dozen books every day for a week.”

So, scrutinize first paragraphs of six books every day for a week—or whatever works for you—and be sure to read books written by professional writers. (There’s a lot of junk out there.)

Note openings in everything you read: articles, blog posts, sermons, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Some will work well, others won’t. Ask yourself, “Why do some entice me to read on—or not?”

Be sure to check out links below about leads. You’ll find a lot of good stuff there!

Next, examine your opening, your beginning (sometimes called lead, lede, or hook) and revise, revise, revise.

The opening is probably the most difficult part to write well.

Your beginning can make or break your story:

An effective opening can persuade a person to keep reading—

but a weak opening can make a person close the book and walk away.

Put in the hard work needed to make your opening zing.

Related posts:

A writing contest over at Women’s Memoirs

Remove your scaffolding 

Tips for writing a top-notch opening

Leads, Part 1

Leads, Part 2

Leads, Part 3

Leads, Part 4

Tuesday Tidbit: First lines

Here’s your 15 seconds of inspiration

for this week’s Tuesday Tidbit.

If you’re polishing an opening paragraph

for the contest at Women’s Memoirs,

keep this in mind: Openings require a lot of work.

Sprinkle gold coins in the middle

Your stories are important. But will anyone read them? All the way through? A few gold nuggets could make it happen.

Your potential readers have countless distractions and they all compete with your memoir.

Just think of it: the Internet, iPhones, movies, athletics, TV, hobbies, texting, exercising, magazines, Twitter, Facebook, friends, chores, other people’s books—and more.

Twenty-some years ago, I read one brief sentence I’ve always remembered:

“No story has a divine right to be read.”

(Peter Jacobi)

You cannot force anyone to read your stories, no matter how important they are. 

You know what it’s like to sit down with a book or magazine anticipating—even craving—a good read, only to be bored.

And you know very well that story does not have a divine right to be read. You feel no hesitation in dropping it and looking for something better to read.

You don’t want readers to do that with your stories. What can you do?

First, hook them with a killer lead.

Throughout your manuscript, make ‘em laugh, cry, and wait.

Your stories are important. To keep readers reading, pay special attention to the middle of your stories.

Keep them reading by “placing gold coins along the path.”

Don Fry coined that phrase. It goes something like this:

Picture yourself making your way down a narrow path in a thick forest. (I’m picturing one with tangled, soggy underbrush in western Washington’s rain forest.) You’ve been hiking a mile when you spot a gold coin on the ground. You snatch it up and put it in your pocket. You trek a mile deeper into the woods, find another gold coin, and slip it into your pocket. Think about it: Would you keep traipsing through the forest, hoping for another gold coin? Sure! Most of us would hike another mile for another gold coin. (from Writing Tools, Roy Peter Clark)

“Think of a gold coin as any bit that rewards the reader,” says Roy Peter Clark, a master teacher of writing and one of my favorite mentors for decades.

“With no gold coins for motivation, the reader may drift out of the forest.”

Don’t let them drift out of your forest!

Don’t let their interest fade! Scatter gold coins especially in the middle of your stories!

Even the old Bard himself, Shakespeare, gave out gold coins in the middle of his plays.

Clark offers these ideas for developing “dramatic and comic high points,” gold coins to drop within your stories:

• a small scene (the setting)
• a relevant anecdote
• a startling fact
• a significant quotation

I can think of other ideas:

• a quirky anecdote
• a little-known fact
• an intriguing historical fact
• foreshadowing an important twist or turning point or crossroads in your story
• raising a question
• Can you think of others? Leave your ideas in the comments section below.

In his Writing Tools: 50 essential strategies for every writer, Clark offers practical recommendations:

• Study other people’s writing and movies for strategic placement of gold coins.
• If you’re doing research for your stories, recognize gold coins when you stumble upon them and be sure to use them in your stories.
• Examine one of your rough drafts and notice gold coins—“any story element that shines”—and mark them with a star. Note their placement. Are they in the best place?
• Study the middle of your story. Does it include significant gold coins—rewards for your readers? If not, write in some nuggets or move them from other parts of your manuscript.

Related posts:

Jesus replied with a story

Inspiration to keep you writing

Your stories are important

Leads

Leads, part 2 

Leads, part 3

Leads, part 4 

Make‘em wait

Our dysfunctional families 

The “secret sauce”

Send me your Mother’s Day vignettes, Part 2

.

Wednesday I invited you to submit a Mother’s Day vignette by April 30. (You can read that post here.)

Several of you are busily writing, and I’m enjoying everyone’s enthusiasm. I’ll select one vignette to publish here the week before Mother’s Day.

Helpful pointers:

Review Wednesday’s blog post and the definition of memoir.

Character Development:

Remember, every person is complex. Develop your character’s shortcomings, redeeming qualities, beliefs, relationships with others, prejudices, body language, tone of voice, attitudes, and quirks.

Was she sentimental or no-nonsense? Consistent or inconsistent? Gentle or gruff? Did she stand tall or did she slouch? Did she stress the importance of good table manners? What else was important to her?

Was she optimistic? Check out The Bookshelf Muse’s post today about describing an optimistic person. Angela and Becca aim their blog at fiction writers, but we nonfiction writers can discover gems for our writing, too. I hope you’ll take time to get acquainted with their rich resources. (You’ll also find an icon for The Bookshelf Muse here on my blog in the right sidebar.) 

For describing the people, you’ll find inspiration from a recent FaithWriters post, Four Dimensional Characterization, by Cate Russell-Cole.

Include emotions and sensory details:

You’ll find tips from Kathleen Pooler’s blog post, Evoking Emotions: The power of Sensory Detail in Storytelling, and from my earlier post, Method Writing.  (I can't get that link to work, so here it is: http://spiritualmemoirs101.blogspot.com/2011/06/method-writing-helps-your-memoir-come.html)

Polish your lead—your opening sentences:

A lead can make or break a story: It can lure readers into it or send them away. Remember, most writers craft the lead after they’ve written the main body of the vignette.

Here are links to earlier posts about leads:

Leads, Part 1    

Leads, Part 2 

Leads, Part 3   

Leads, Part 4 

Give special attention to your vignette’s conclusion:

A weak ending can make a vignette fall short of its potential impact, but a strong ending is where the beauty of memoir shines.

Here are links to earlier posts about crafting an ending:

The beauty of memoir: your vignettes’ strong endings

Maximize the power of your vignettes’ endings 

Links to mother-related pieces in the blogosphere:

While these are essays—not in memoir format—they will give you ideas:

Over at A Diamond in the Rough, Jessica writes This Holy Work on being a new young mother.   

In The Hum of Something Holy over at The High Calling, two of Emily Wierenga’s phrases zinged right to my heart because my mother’s eyes are almost all that remains of the dear mother I’ve always known. Emily says, “…She looks at me with the same eyes that she’s always had.… And her eyes, they tell me she’s still my mom.… ” 

I Remember My Mom, my green tea-cher, will help jog your memories.  

My favorite, Pease Please by Donna DeWeerd, was the Grand Prize Winner last December over at Women’s Memoirs. Donna’s subtlety—what she doesn’t say—is very effective. Her message is powerful, too.

You might be interested in the Sixth National Women’s Conference entitled “Pearls of Wisdom: Memoirs About Mothers” which takes place in Austin, Texas, April 13-15. I’ve never attended one of their conferences but it looks good.

When you’ve polished your Mother’s Day story, submit it by April 30 for consideration. I’ll be happy to edit it if you wish.

Your vignette should be 700 words or less in a Word document, sent as an attachment, to grandmaletters [at] aol [dot] com. (Replace [at] with @ and replace [dot] with a period, scrunch it all together, and that should reach me.) Please write “Mother’s Day Vignette for SM 101” in the subject line so I’ll know it’s not spam. Thanks.

I’ll choose one story to publish here the week before Mother’s Day.

Saturday Snippet: Leads, Part Four, the flashback lead

.

Your lead—your opening—pulls your reader into your story.  

It causes curiosity and lures him in.

To keep your reader from meandering away, write a lead that inspires him to stick around and read all the way to the end of each vignette.

Many people create leads after they’ve written the main body of their piece because, “Often, in the process of composing, beginnings do not clarify themselves until endings arrive,” writes Priscilla Long in The Writer’s Portable Mentor, a delightful book I recommend.

She continues, “‘Good leads often show up late,’ writes many-book author Ralph Keyes in The Courage to Write. ‘…I generally find the best opening deep within the narrative. This opening only makes itself known as I read drafts, see what catches my eye, something that sets a tone, that gets the piece up and running. Knowing this, I don’t concern myself with beginnings until the end.”

In previous blog posts we’ve examined several types of leads, and today we’ll look at the flashback lead. (Thanks to my friend Shel Arensen for sharing this material. You’ll enjoy getting acquainted with him. See below.*)

The Flashback Lead: Start with the most gripping part of the action, then flashback to the beginning of the experience; use the word “had” because it moves you back to the beginning.

For a flashback example, here’s this excerpt:

Alone in Amsterdam

by Shel Arensen

I opened my eyes, suddenly awake. An eerie sense of uneasiness crept over me. Had I heard someone moving in the room? It was too dark to see. Then I heard the door click.

I sat upright in bed, straining to see who might have invaded the barracks-style hostel room where I was staying in Amsterdam, Holland. I sat perfectly still, hardly breathing, for several minutes. No one else stirred.

“I must have been imagining things,” I told myself as I lay down again. I decided to lie on my stomach so I could get back to sleep quickly. When I turned over, I noticed what was wrong!

My pants, hanging on the wall near my bed, were twisted, and the lining of my pocket was hanging out. With a frightened gasp, I reached for my wallet. It was gone!

My misfortunes had started the day before when I arrived at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. I was to make connections there for Kenya, where my missionary parents lived.

“I’m sorry,” the voice of the ticket agent had grated in my ears, “but tonight’s flight to Nairobi is full. We can’t take any more passengers…. I will confirm your ticket for the next plane to Nairobi.”

“When will that be?” I questioned.

“Next Thursday—Christmas Day. Here’s your ticket. Enjoy Amsterdam. Who’s next in line please?”

… I was forced to step aside. Stunned and bewildered, I wandered over to a bench to collect my thoughts….

It was Sunday night…. Now I would be unable to leave Amsterdam until Christmas – four days later….

Did you notice where the flashback ended? Where does Shel move the reader back to the story’s beginning? (Paragraph five.)

Feel free to experiment. You can come up with many variations on lead types. Keep in mind your lead’s purpose: to catch your reader’s attention and motivate him to read your story.

Have fun!

*Check out Shel’s novel, The Dust of Africa, at http://www.amazon.com/Dust-Africa-Shel-Arensen/dp/0595497616

Read my two blog posts about Shel:

Germs? Or angel dust? http://grandmaslettersfromafrica.blogspot.com/2010/04/germs-or-angel-dust.html

The Dust of Africa

http://grandmaslettersfromafrica.blogspot.com/2010/03/dust-of-africa.html

Related posts

Leads, Part One

http://spiritualmemoirs101.blogspot.com/2011/07/leads-part-one-please-don’t-get-mad-ive_20.html

Leads, Part Two 

http://spiritualmemoirs101.blogspot.com/2011/07/leads-part-two.html

Leads, Part Three 

http://spiritualmemoirs101.blogspot.com/2011/07/leads-part-three.html