What can we learn from the first pages of beloved books?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ก.ย. 2024
- Sometimes the best way to learn to write is to study the best books out there. I asked my viewers to suggest books to analyze and dig into what makes these first pages work so well.
Patreon: patreon.com/use...
Substack: lidiyafoxglove...
Instagram: / lidiyafoxglove
Read my books & support this channel! Thank you so much!!
Amazon author page: www.amazon.com...
(also available on Apple, Google, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and other retailers and libraries)
I recommend starting with a book set in my main fantasy world:
The Sorcerer's Concubine: books2read.com/...
Doll Girl Meets Dead Guy: books2read.com/...
The Broken Queen: www.amazon.com...
Inquiries: fabulousfrock@mac.com
That first paragraph from Hill House is a banger.
For the first time in a long time, I feel very inspired to tackle my book again thanks to this video! And yes, please do a deep dive analysis like you suggested. 😄
I definitely love the opening of Howls Moving Castle the best. The humour sets it up so well and that is something I struggle to write myself. I'm not funny...
If you want to do a deeper dive I think that would be great but I would also recommend not doing more than two books in a video like that.
THANK YOU!
Yes, as I saw how long this one took (when I first start making a video I just have NO clue how long it's going to take) I think a deep dive might be hard. It would get really long and for just one book. I'll probably stick to this format for the most part.
From hearing howls moving castle read out loud it immediately reminded me of pride and prejudice, it’s is a universal fact that a man must be in want of a wife. it’s quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three. Everyone knows they’ll fail first and worst. Just are very similar. Here’s an established fact that someone in this universe believes
It's a very "tell a tale around the fire" way to open a story. Common among fairy tales, and many early novels still retain this quality. They were usually read aloud, and novels were still fairly new in Jane Austen's time, as these things go...older novels are more likely to have an omniscient narrator who just states things.
Thanks for the video! I love it when a book hooks me in the first page, such a thrill!!
Keep mixing these in with user submissions, the contrast keeps my attention and critical thinking active 😊
Always so insightful, thank you! Love the craft talks - would be interested to hear more about your revision process
Very informative content. Thanks for sharing!
Whoa! That was so entertaining and very enlightening. Super!
This was so nice. Please do more of these.😊
Super interesting analysis thank you 😊 I love how writing styles can be so different yet perfect for their genre
We enjoyed this! Thank you! I’ve got to get my hands on Haunting of Hill House now.
For me, the Handmaid's Tale isn't as strong as the others. I read and enjoyed it, but I find the other mentioned openings way better.
Loved the video, looking forward to more!
The Handmaid's Tale was definitely the most literary, and I think that can be hit or miss just as much as a very commercial voice, but in a different way. I deeply struggled with the prose of The Book Thief, for example, which a lot of people loved but I could never seem to forget "this is a book! these are words!" Sometimes it's a little too much. I do think all of these openings are good for what they are. Howl's and Hill House would be the ones that I would be more likely to stick with, but then I'm not really a dystopia reader.
❤ Beautiful video
The wizards first rule, terry goodkind might be a good one
As terrible a story A Handsmaid Tale is, I found myself wishing it was twice the length because I just love Atwood’s writing style.
Great video.
So my takeaway from these is that your writing has to be really voicey and you need to be good with metaphor. 😅 I hate the writing of Hill House and Atwood, way too many commas and semicolons for my brain, but I can see where others would like the colour in the writing.
I reached that point you mentioned at the start, of getting lots of requests that all came back as very complimentary passes from agents and not knowing where to go from there. Voicey and metaphor doesn’t come naturally to me (and I don’t really love heavy metaphor anyway), so I’m looking forward to your video on DaVinci Code and similar commercial stories. Thanks for this!
It really depends! The Hunger Games is quite a commercial voice, and if you were writing a very commercial book it would be very odd and distracting to write it like Hill House or Handmaid's Tale. Personally I like SO many different styles. I think these are all good openings, but very different.
I got such a range of suggestions, and I'd say these four are far from comprehensive as far as showing what a good opening looks like, so...more to come! But...yes, voice is important. Metaphor, I don't think is necessary.