A Little Rant About Intros

As I mentioned earlier, you have to select details to carry your story along and that won’t overwhelm your reader.  In this same essence, you must also choose an Intro worthy of your reader’s interest.  Though I will go over making an interesting Intro later, I would like to first point out this very ESSENTIAL fact that will help your writing greatly.

 If your begging to your story is a summary with lots of telling, you are doing yourself a disservice.  You do not need a prologue to start your story, you just need a story.  Chapter Ones are very fine starts.  I, like many readers, enjoy the mystery of what’s going to happen.  But if you have a beginning like this:

            It was terrible what they did to me those years.  I needed an escape.  No one was there to help me then.  They will pay.  They are called Emperor Meng’s Sorcerers.  For the last year they have tormented me.  This is my story.

Unless you have a journal thing going on, which I do not suggest for it is not as easy as you would be led to believe, this intro is unneeded.  Everything that is said is not only distracting by its telling, but it is all the details that your readers will find out later through story.  Just jump into a scene and stop trying to summarize what will happen or has happened.  Keep your readers in suspense and they will follow your story.  If you simply mention the name of Emperor Meng’s Sorcerers with some connotation that they are not good guys and have caused some sort of conflict, that will be enough to draw your reader into reading more.  But you cannot do this with a summary for an intro.  It would work best if the name was say, mentioned in a piece of dialogue between your main character and his fellow conspirator.

 Selecting details can be vital to whether a reader may continue reading or not.  Some have more patience than others, but with overwhelming details, or just summary of details to come, you may lose many of your readers.

The Thing About Selecting Detail..

 So, let’s say that in your planning of your story, whether it be on paper, electronic, or in your brain, and you have several details about your character.  Actually, you have a list.  I’ll give you one of my lists as an example to use throughout this post.

Name: Annabel Winston

Eyes: Hazel-brown

Hair: Burnt red/auburn

The Physical: Generally wears torn blue jeans / raggy shorts to show off long legs.  Likes to wear violet or navy colored clothing.  Has some breasts, but not big enough in her opinion.  Wears little to no make-up. Has freckles on nose, under eyes, on arms. 

Likes: The sun, her boyfriend who’s obviously not human, hands, painting, her mother’s studio, and chocolate

Dislikes: Black cats with yellow eyes, running, when there’s no A/C, vegetables.

 

I don’t usually do personality because, well, if you couldn’t tell already, I believe the physical and likes/dislikes do enough to give a general idea about who this girl may be.  Plus, this keeps me from trying to put an adjective to a Feeling or Inward part of my character.  In other words, it keeps me from telling her personality instead of showing it.  Doing this may or may not help you if you plan, but that’s for you to discover, not for me to tell you.

So now you have this list of things that you know that you want your readers to see or know about this character.  But, of all these details which do you really need? 

First off, though you may not like to hear it, you might have to write quite a bit to actually learn from this lesson.  Sometimes its just hard to tell if a detail is so needed that if you delete it, it may take away from your story.  But, this generally happens when you have to debate what amount of words, paragraphs, or pages of your draft that you can delete without destroying the story’s essence.  We have yet to get that far, but this post will give you a general idea of unneeded details.

All right, the only way we can learn about what we can delete is to write it.  Lets try to begin with a short scene where Annabel is leaving her house and happens upon a cat.  Let’s see how many details we can jab into this one scene, shall we?   ( Also, as a side note, I’ll be using third person limited point of view ( POV ).  I’ll try to make my next post about POV so that we can learn what the differences are, when to and when not to use it, as well as what it entails in our writing. )

 

“See you after school, dear!” Annabel’s mother called as the girl rushed out her front door.  She pulled her burnt auburn braid out from under backpack’s strap as she began to run down her drive and to the sidewalk.  Her bag slapped against her back as she grimaced.

“No good boyfriend,” Annabel muttered.  He was usually her drive to school, but unfortunately he had other errands to run that morning.  Though she herself had a license to drive, and was a senior in high school with a twenty-one year old boy, she had yet to gain the money to buy herself a car.

Feeling the strain of her torn blue jeans on her long legs as she ran the sidewalk, Annabel cursed under her breath again.  God, she hated running. 

Rounding the first corner of her two mile run, a black cat with golden eyes peered up at her as it lazily stopped to watch her.  Annabel yelped as she stopped as fast as she could, slipping on the concrete due to the least amount of friction her shoes held. The cat watched her for a moment and Annabel scooted away from it, or tried to as her shoes kept slipping from under her, causing her to slide.  The cat’s tail twitched.

“Get away from me!”Annabel screamed as she slipped off her shoe and threw it at the cat.  It hissed as the shoe flew near it before running off.  Annabel grabbed her shoe.

“Damn cat,” she muttered as she slipped it back on, realizing she was later than ever for her first class.  There was a reason she hated cats.

 

Okay, so a little extreme with the cat, but you get the point.  Now let’s look at it and see if there are any details that I could probably do without.  I purposefully wrote a few to elaborate my point on them, plus there’s always that extra bit I just throw into a draft for fun.  I’ll bold all the details that I see as possibly excessive or unneeded for this certain scene.  Some can just be deleted, while others can be added to a different scene much later or earlier.

 

“See you after school, dear!” Annabel’s mother called as the girl rushed out her front door.  She pulled her burnt auburn braid out from under backpack’s strap as she began to run down her drive and to the sidewalk.  Her bag slapped against her back as she grimaced.

“No good boyfriend,” Annabel muttered.  He was usually her drive to school, but unfortunately he had other errands to run that morning.  Though she herself had a license to drive, and was a senior in high school with a twenty-one year old boy, she had yet to gain the money to buy herself a car.

Feeling the strain of her torn blue jeans on her long legs as she ran the sidewalk, Annabel cursed under her breath again.  God, she hated running. 

Rounding the first corner of her two mile run, a black cat with golden eyes peered up at her as it lazily stopped to watch her.  Annabel yelped as she stopped as fast as she could, slipping on the concrete due to the least amount of friction her shoes held. The cat watched her for a moment and Annabel scooted away from it, or tried to as her shoes kept slipping from under her, causing her to slide.  The cat’s tail twitched.

“Get away from me!”Annabel screamed as she slipped off her shoe and threw it at the cat.  It hissed as the shoe flew near it before running off.  Annabel grabbed her shoe.

“Damn cat,” she muttered as she slipped it back on, realizing she was later than ever for her first class.  There was a reason she hated cats.

 

So, there aren’t that many details that I could change, but sometimes it’s the little things that count.  Now there are other edits that I would make to that scene, but they aren’t involved with this lesson.  I’ll just leave them be and say that this is what it is.

As you can see, what I have bolded are things that are on my list, but they are sorta layered on top of each other.  There is also one detail that I snuck in there about the boyfriend, which could also be added later.  If you read the scene without it, you will notice that its not needed to begin with.  The reader doesn’t need to know the details of the boyfriend just yet, and keeping them in suspense for it will only drive them to read more of your story. 

Anywho, you can see the layered details here, where I was obviously conscience of something that I wanted my readers to know about my character.  Though, when you read it, it almost appears forced, doesn’t it?  The point of this was to show you that if you force details, it could be distracting.  Plus, you don’t have to always put everything on your list in your stories.  If your character has “burnt auburn hair,” your readers will probably get the same image of color if you had just said “auburn hair.” Both generally mean that the character has some shade of dark red hair. 

As for the detail of “torn blue jeans on her long legs,” it’s a little much for one sentence.  Personally, I’d just cut the “torn blue jeans” part and leave the “long legs” detail.  I would do this because of the action my character is performing.  Running has more to do with legs than it does with clothing.  Plus, I can just wait for a moment when my character is sitting and she spills something on her jeans as she eats. 

As another fun fact, you don’t always have to use a mirror to convey what a character is wearing.  Accidents happen, characters get muddy, torn, and soup stained clothes just as much as anyone does.  They just happen to have these accidents at the exact time that you need to describe some article of clothing to your reader.

The first key to selecting details for a story is to not select details that elaborate the same point.  Burnt auburn hair looks the same as auburn to a reader, just as a tiny, cramped Waffle House looks the same as a cramped Waffle House emphasised by size through other details.  Second is to not pile your details one after another.  Spread them out, and let your reader take in your character slowly, just like they would if they had met them in life. ( Only difference is that you get to be a bit more intimate with a story’s character than with a life’s stranger. ) And Lastly, some details can just wait for later.  You don’t have to explain everything about everyone all at once.  I guess the last point kind of goes along with point numba two, only for more general of things. ( like an unnecessary detail about some boyfriend we haven’t met yet. )

Show Vs Tell (in my experience)

Okay, first off is the concept of Show vs. Tell.  I know a lot of newer writers like to say “show And tell.” But, let’s be real, this isn’t kindergarten.  You’re not taking your favorite teddy bear to class and telling them about it.  There is a battle of show vs. tell, and show generally wins every time.   Also, you’ve probably gotten a lot of people telling you to Show more in your story.  (Haha, telling you to show.  I crack myself up sometimes… anywho)

So, what exactly is Showing?  Showing is making a reader see a character’s actions, and through those actions, inevitably, see and understand them.  The best way to show this is to give you examples.

Mindy loved dogs.

This sentence is rather bland, and it is telling your reader how the character feels. Now, let’s change it up a bit and show your reader how the character feels.

 As the dog jumped onto Mindy’s legs, she bellowed a laugh before rubbing the dog’s ears.

See how much better that is?  Not only do you know that she likes dogs, you also see the character reacting to a stimulus.  This is the best way for you to no only grab your reader’s attention, but to keep them enthralled in your story.  Readers like to see the action that’s taking place, verses being told a series of likes, dislikes, and description of a character.

Now, I just did an example on how to portray feelings, but what is the best way to show description?  I have noticed while reading, and reviewing, quite a bit of work that many newer writers like to load up the narrative with descriptions, possibly thinking that this is showing.  I’ll give an example of what I mean.

Lindsey wore a red cap, black t-shirt, and some blue jeans.  Her eyes were blue and she had brunette hair.

This is not only a lot for a reader to take in at once, but if you’ll notice, it’s also a ton of telling.   Telling makes a narration boring if not used correctly.  It also makes writers have a tendency to write a list of descriptors, thinking that they are showing their characters.  I would say that these descriptors are best left on the pieces of scraps that are used to plan the story.  Let’s now show the character.

Adjusting her worn cap, Lindsey gazed into the mirror for a moment longer.  She huffed in aggravation before fixing her eyeliner once more.  At least her unruly brown hair could be tamed with a hat.  Her blue eyes were another matter altogether. 

As you can see, there’s quite a bit more, and I didn’t use all the details from before.   Unless the character is going to prom, or is in a novel where normal clothes aren’t worn, the details of their clothing isn’t really needed.  I’ll do another post on Selecting Details, but basically, only write what carries your narrative along.  You’ll notice that I also wrote a little bit of telling at the end, but it is layered over with showing.  This is the only thing that will make telling acceptable. You have to earn one sentence of telling through many of showing.

Hopefully this has helped you quite a bit as far as the concept goes.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I’ll answer as soon as I can.