Tuesday, March 03, 2015

Third Chapter First



Ask an adult to write a paper on a topic and they often fall back into high school or college mode and pull together a nice chronological study beginning with the Creation and moving on up to the present day.

Such papers are great cures for insomnia.

In relatively recent times, the ground rule for novelists has been "Give the third chapter first." Plunge right into the action in order to hook the reader.

I write this as a confession. While developing a new class on a fascinating topic, I realized that "the hook" was so well hidden that I could barely find it and then the realization arrived: The old term paper chronological approach had claimed another victim.

I slowly got up off the floor, rubbed the back of my neck, and began a new draft. The third "chapter" is . . . .

Well, you know.

3 comments:

Dan in Philly said...

Lead with the punchline is my motto. There is often a fallacy when presenting that the listeners want to enjoy the mystery of what your final point is, and if you give it away too early they might lose interest. I guess that may be a danger, but most of the time they don't want to be entertained, but informed.

I have sat through far too many presentations where I was spending all my time trying to determine what was being recommended, and by the time they got to the point I had lost the thread of the argument as to why.

Wally Bock said...

Patricia Fripp's memorable advice to speakers to "come out punching" works for many kinds of writing. I don't keep statistics on this, but my guess is that I tell two-thirds of my coaching clients that they will improve their chapters or blog posts by crossing out the first paragraph or two.

Michael Wade said...

Dan and Wally,

Those are very good examples. I like writers and speakers who seize my interest early and hang onto it.

Michael