CHAPTER BEGINNINGS: Turtle in Paradise (Post #4)

Dear Sleuths,

My intention for today’s post was to write about the way Jennifer Holm incorporates historical details such as references to Shirley Temple and Little Orphan Annie into Turtle in Paradise. Author of six historical novels, including two Newbery Honors, Holm has mastered the fine art of balancing enough detail to set a scene while not overwhelming readers with too much research.

However, we have written a lot about historical fiction over the last few months, and as I flipped back through Turtle in Paradise, something else caught my eye: the way Holm begins each chapter with a short transitional paragraph before launching into action.

Chapters are an interesting element of structure and form in that they exist in all novels, but they warrant minimal discussion in craft books. When chapters do show up in a writing book as a subject, it’s usually in reference to chapter endings. Here’s an example from the book Scene & Structure by Jack Bickham:

You end chapters at places which will hook readers. You do not devise your chapters to provide convenient blank spaces in between them for purposes of transition. (p. 118)

Multiple writing experts reiterated the fact that chapters should not end when characters go to sleep! A hook must be in place at the end of a chapter to propel readers forward. (For more about suspense and chapter endings, refer to Allyson’s April post about Blackbringer by Laini Taylor.)

But what about those chapter beginnings? What is their function? Is it the same as the opening of the book? Allyson’s last post on the narrative hook analyzed how the first chapter of Turtle in Paradise hooks readers with the Four Ws (Who is the story about, where is it set, when does it take place, and what is going on?). Jessica Page Morrell, author of Between the Lines: Master the Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing, has a slightly different take on beginnings:

All beginnings matter. Stories, scenes, and chapters cannot simply commence; they must create a tingle in the reader, pique curiosity, and thrust the story and readers ahead with potency and punch. (p. 39)

The chapter openings in Turtle in Paradise both pique the reader’s curiosity and propel them forward. Let’s take a look at an example from chapter eight.

Maybe it’s because it’s only ever been Mama and me, but I don’t understand what’s so wonderful about having a big family. Someone’s always fighting, or not talking to someone else, or scrounging around trying to borrow money. Far as I can tell, relations are nothing but trouble. (p. 72)

What are the elements at work in this paragraph?

1.     Character development. The first thing that strikes me about this paragraph is how much it reveals about character. It gives me a clear sense of how Turtle feels about living in close quarters with her extended family.

2.     Voice. Here is another example of narrative voice in action, complete with attitude, opinion, and patterns of speech (“Far as I can tell…”).

3.     Pacing. The paragraph provides a moment of pause, a break between the action that wrapped up in the previous chapter and the action that’s about to start.

4.     Creating questions. Turtle’s attitude makes me wonder why she feels this way. What’s happening with her family? What kind of trouble are we in for?

And so I keep on reading, quickly transitioning from Turtle’s thoughts to the action taking place in this chapter. My curiosity is piqued, and off Turtle and I go.

All but two of the chapters in Turtle in Paradise begin in similar ways. And what’s really neat, if you’ll forgive the term, is the way I as a reader start to feel the rhythm and style of the story. After a while, I can’t wait to hear Turtle’s latest thoughts, such as this one from chapter thirteen:

In my opinion, the fellas who make Hollywood pictures are really just salesmen. Instead of peddling girdles, they sell thrills and chills, and folks eat them up. Not me, though. I’m no sucker. I know there’s no such thing as giant apes climbing skyscrapers or mummies walking out of tombs. But just try telling that to the boys. (p. 123)

Another revealing opinion. Another great transition.

I want to return to the question of chapter endings and the hook or question that propels the reader forward. Some books, such as the Goosebumps series or the more recent 39 Clues series, end chapters with big cliffhangers. Readers flip the page, dying to know who’s behind the door or what happened when the lights went out.

But some books don’t have big cliffhanger chapter endings. Books such as The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate tend to be more episodic, keeping action contained within chapters. On the scale between Goosebumps and Calpurnia Tate, Turtle in Paradise probably falls toward the middle: sometimes the action ends with the chapter, and sometimes the chapter ends without resolving the conflict, leaving the reader to wonder what happens next.

When chapters do end with resolution (the cat is banished, Slow Poke pays Turtle), then the next chapter opening absolutely must act as a hook to pull the reader into a new scene and new set of action, as happens in Turtle in Paradise.

StorySleuths Tip #95: A strong chapter opening is so much more than a simple point of transition: it can reveal character, develop voice and, like a hook at the end of a chapter, propel the reader forward.

Post #5: A Word from Jennifer Holm

WORD CHOICE AND ORAL LANGUAGE RHYTHM: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon Post #1

Dear Allyson and Heather,

We are in for a delicious treat this month as we get to savor the tasty writing and rich story of the book we've chosen to focus on: Newbery Honor winner Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. This is a book that I can almost taste as I read. You know that kind—where you want to speed up to get to the next page and slow down to savor each word? That’s Grace Lin’s gift—she leads me deeper and deeper into the web of her story while at the same time enticing me to reflect on her language and images. What a feast she has written.

There’s so much to look at in the first chapter, where Lin:

• establishes a vivid setting
• introduces a feisty main character
• includes the first of 16 stories set apart from the narrative and main characters while concurrently interweaving with them
• identifies the central story problem, and
• propels readers headlong into the next chapter: “Maybe,” Ba said, glancing at Ma, “I should tell you that story tomorrow.” (p. 10)

But I’m not going to focus in this post on any of those elements.

A common thread in the two starred reviews of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is the description of Lin’s writing as particularly noteworthy. Jennifer Rothschild in School Library Journal says, “The author's writing is elegant…,” and Andrew Medlar in Booklist says, “With beautiful language, Lin creates a strong, memorable heroine and a mystical land.”

I, too, felt Lin’s language pull me into the story and engage me with the characters, so I decided to take a look at the choices Lin makes with respect to word choice and sentence structure--the building blocks that we, as writers, use in creating our stories.

ALLITERATION

Lin uses alliteration to bring harmony to her writing, starting off with the title, which includes 3 words with initial m’s: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. In addition, both Mountain and Moon have final n’s, giving the title unity and resonance. The main character’s name also begins with an initial M, linking her alliteratively to the title of the story. Minli’s impatient mother is referred to as “Ma,” another initial M. And the person who Minli decides to seek by the end of Chapter 1 has two initial M’s in his name:

Whenever I ask something important, people say, ‘That is a question you have to ask the Old Man of the Moon.’ Someday, I will ask him. (p. 9)

The predominance of the initial M’s in the names of all these characters introduced in Chapter 1 gives Minli’s mission a feeling of intentionality and purpose.

WORD CHOICE

Whereas alliteration gives Lin’s writing the feeling of flowing liquid, contrast gives her writing punch and bite. In the first sentence Lin selects hard words to emphasize the harshness of the setting:

Far away from here, following the Jade River, there was once a black mountain that cut into the sky like a jagged piece of rough metal. (p. 1)

Nothing could be harsher than the landscape described as “black,” “cut,” “jagged,” “rough.” But to top this harsh landscape off, it is smothered in dullness:

Crowded into the corner of where Fruitless Mountain and the Jade River met was a village that was the shade of faded brown. This was because the land around the village was hard and poor….Over time, everything in the village had become the dull color of dried mud. (pp. 1-2)

Nothing could be drearier, sadder, or more hopeless.

Yet in the midst of this dull brown village there was a brightness that Lin conveys initially through her selection of the image that describes the house where Minli lives, even before we meet Minli herself:

One of the houses in this village was so small that its wood boards, held together by the roof, made one think of a bunch of matches tied with a piece of twine. (p. 2)

Lin chooses the word “matches” as an image to describe the house, with the association of “matches” as something that ignites, that lights up, or enlightens, just as the child who lives there will add her own light to the dullness, the hardness, the poorness, of where she lives. Lin states this contrast clearly:

Minli was not brown and dull like the rest of the village. (p. 2)

Lin then selects words that connote light to describe Minli: she has “shining” eyes and a smile that “flashed” from her face. When Minli hears the stories her father tells her every night at dinner she “glowed” with wonder and excitement. She reflects some of her father’s light as he tells her the stories:

Ba seemed to drop his gray and work weariness--his black eyes sparkled like raindrops in the sun when he began a story. (p. 3)

and

...as he set down his chopsticks his smile twinkled in a way that Minli loved. (p. 4)

"Shining," "flashed," "glowed," "sparkled," "twinkled"—Lin chooses words foreshadowing the light that Minli will bring to the poor villagers in the dull brown village at the bottom of Fruitless Mountain, where “nothing grew on it and birds and animals did not rest” (p. 1).

RHYTHM

Even before Ba’s story begins, Lin writes in the rhythm of oral language. The first sentence itself echoes the rhythm of a fairy tale: “Far away from here…once…” (p. 1). The place and the time of the story are far away and long ago, and the story opens with a storytelling voice. Elizabeth Law said in her First Pages breakout at the Western Washington SCBWI Regional Conference a few weeks ago, “Get into the voice of your story on the first page.” Lin does.

A storyteller’s voice tends to run on without using commas to separate the words in a series, as is accepted practice in written communication. In this first chapter, Lin repeatedly writes without using commas in a series. Take this sentence:

The villagers had to tramp in the mud, bending and stooping and planting day after day. (pp. 1- 2)

And this one:

Working in the mud so much made it spread everywhere and the hot sun dried it onto their clothes and hair and homes. (p. 2)

How different those series would sound if punctuated: “bending, stooping, and planting,” or “clothes, hair, and homes.” The rhythmic storytelling voice continues into “The Story of Fruitless Mountain.” Describing the Jade Dragon’s four dragon children, Lin says:

They were large and strong and good and kind. (p. 4)

Although the stories that Lin includes within the context of Minli’s adventure are set apart by their titles and different typeface, they flow seamlessly together because the whole narrative is written in a clearly oral storytelling voice. As a storyteller myself, I’m intrigued and impressed by how beautifully Lin captures the sounds and rhythms of oral language and expresses them on the printed page. It’s a pleasure to read them silently, to feel them flow, and to “listen” to them echoing as I read.

StorySleuth’s Tip # 68: One way to write elegant, beautiful language is to use the sounds and rhythms of oral storytelling language.

FIRST CHAPTER: Charles and Emma

Dear Meg and Allyson,

I’m not sure how to begin this posting other than by confessing my complete admiration for the first chapter of Deborah Heiligman’s award-winning book Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith. In the first chapter, Charles Darwin ponders a question of critical importance: to marry or not to marry. A true scientist, he draws a line down the middle of a piece of paper and begins listing support on both sides.

Under Marry, he writes “constant companion (& friend in old age).” Under Not Marry, he writes, “freedom to go where one liked.”

As the chapter proceeds, and Darwin adds support for both sides of his list, Heiligman draws the reader step-by-step into Darwin’s world.

In just eleven pages, the first chapter of Charles and Emma:

• Provides background information
• Introduces the primary character
• Establishes setting
• Introduces the central problem
• Builds tension, and
• Hooks the reader.

Of course, all of these items, with the exception of the first, are critical elements for any first chapter. First chapters have to work hard—every word counts!

So let’s pause for a second on that issue of background information. Charles and Emma is a work of non-fiction (winner, in fact, of the first ever YALSA Award for Excellence in Non-Fiction).

While most readers probably know the basics of Darwin’s life and his theories, they may not know the particulars, such as how long exactly the voyage on the Beagle lasted or how England was changing due to industrialization. Heiligman needs readers to understand Darwin’s world and character before moving on to examine how his marriage impacted his scientific work.

The first chapter includes a wealth of background details, which fall into four primary topics:

1. Biographical details, including Darwin’s age, physical description, his father and brother, his extended family, and the death of his mother.
2. Life in London in 1838, including friends, the changes brought by industrialization, current religious debates, possible romantic interests, and Darwin’s apartment.
3. Work as a naturalist, including the voyage on the Beagle, specimens, discoveries, colleagues, theories about transmutation (evolution), and his encounters with native people in South America.
4. General concerns about marriage, including the joy and burden of children, fear about illness, financial issues, potential dislike of in-laws, desire for companionship, and loss of time.

Despite the numerous and specific details that appear throughout the first chapter, the narrative never slows down.

How does Heiligman manage to maintain pace and interest?

First, Heiligman uses Darwin’s Marry, Not Marry list as an organizing principle.

She shows Darwin writing the list in real time. Each item on the list provides a jumping point to introduce relevant backstory or character details. For example, under Not Marry, he wrote, “Loss of time.” Heiligman explains how much time Darwin’s work requires. 

He felt sure that if he could work it [a new theory of transmutation] through, he would change the way the world thought about creation… He had started the great project already, and he was consumed by it, giving it hours and hours every day (p. 11). 

The Marry, Not Marry list provides shape to the chapter, forcing Heiligman to return to Darwin’s specific concerns about marriage, while allowing her to explore his motivations and experience.

Next, Heiligman focuses on interesting details in her descriptions.

Here is a list of items in Darwin’s apartment:

neatly stacked wooden crates, casks and barrels filled with many of their treasures from Patagonia, Brazil, Chile, and Tierra del Fuego: fossil bones, skins, shells, fish preserved in spirits of wine, mammalia in spirits of wine, insects, reptiles and birds in spirits of wine, plants, rocks, carcasses of dead animals, and beetles (p. 6).

The concrete details show where Darwin traveled, how he worked, and what interested him.

Heiligman takes time to show Darwin’s social life.

Sure, he’s an intellectual scientist, busy with his notebooks and observations, but he also likes spending time with his friends and family. Heiligman even describes three sisters competing for Charles’s attentions. The focus on social relationships is important. Not only does it show Charles’s humanity, but it also provides a connection point between Charles and a teenage reader, who, like Charles, also faces pressure from family and a desire to develop friendships.

The Marry, Not Marry list provides an inherent point of debate.

Should Charles follow the will of society and marry? Or should he devote himself to his work? Will a wife prevent him from achieving his goals? Could he live a life without companionship? These questions are no different than those faced by people today. Young readers may not be considering marriage, per se, but they certainly worry about balancing time with friends, family, school work, athletics, and boyfriends or girlfriends.

Heiligman ends the chapter with a new question to propel readers into chapter two.

As Charles realizes that he wants to marry, Heiligman reveals a new problem, a fear so great that Darwin can’t even write it down. Before committing to marriage, he must talk to his father. What is this big problem? Read on. The answer is in chapter two.

Heiligman’s use of the Marry, Not Marry list is a brilliant start to Charles and Emma. The list provides structure to the chapter, allowing Heiligman opportunities to introduce important people and experiences in Darwin’s life, while staying true to the central focus of the book, the way that Darwin’s marriage impacted his work.

StorySleuths Tip #56: Find an organizing principle such as a list to gave to shape to information and build tension.

CHAPTER TITLES: When You Reach Me

Hi Allyson,

I love a book with chapter titles. Perhaps this dates from my passion for Charlotte’s Web, when as a child I read “Escape,” or “Loneliness,” or “An Explosion,” and I anticipated what would happen in that chapter. I enjoy being given a hint and looking forward to what is about to be revealed. So I appreciate it when an author makes the effort to write great chapter titles, especially because it’s tough to write chapter titles that give readers a clue without giving away the punch line of the chapter.

I started thinking about chapter titles after your latest post about 2nd person POV, because of Stead’s use of “you” in many of the chapter titles in When You Reach Me--15 out of the 53 chapter titles include “You.” I was curious about who “you” in these chapter titles referred to—was it the same “you” as the book’s title “You”? (More about the title in a future post.) And if not, who did the pronoun “you” refer to?

What I discovered is that in the chapter titles, the referent for the pronoun “you” varies. Sometimes it’s Miranda, as in “Things You Keep in a Box” (p. 1) and “Things You Count” (p. 73). Sometimes it’s Miranda and another character, as in “Things You Hide,” (p. 7) in which Miranda and her mother hide the key to their apartment, or in “Things You Wish For” (p. 27) when the wishes of Richard, Miranda’s mom, and Miranda are all clarified. Sometimes “you” is another character altogether, as in “Things You Hold On To” (p. 81), which refers to the $2 bills that Jimmy collects. And sometimes the referent of “You” is more general, as in “Things You Push Away” (p. 71), referring to “some people.” Stead’s use of varied referents for “You” in the chapter titles wasn’t distracting to me, however, because she always made the referent, and the context, clear

Focusing on these chapter titles got me interested in other aspects of Stead’s chapter titles. She accomplishes a lot in her chapter titles.

First, the chapter titles are a hook, baiting me to read on and find out what they refer to. Second, many of the chapter titles (41) focus on “Things,” and those emphasize an important element of the story--the “Winner’s Circle” of the “$20,000 Pyramid” game. These chapter titles were fun--I got to guess, like the contestants would have, what might be some of the specific “things”-- “Salty Things” (p. 84), for example. Or “Things You Pretend” (p. 88). Third, some chapter titles, like “Christmas Vacation” (p. 132), “The First Note (p. 60), and “The Second Proof” (p. 134) alerted me to the passage of time. It’s useful to be told, in effect, “Here’s when the first note appears,” or “Now the second proof’s coming up.” Fourth, some of the chapter titles foreshadow or reinforce important themes; for example, “Magic Thread” (p. 187), in which the “veil” is snatched away; “Sal and Miranda, Miranda and Sal” (p. 196), about the continuation of their friendship; and “Parting Gifts” (p. 197), which includes the resolution of the mystery. And some chapter titles accomplish several of these purposes simultaneously; for example, “Things That Kick” (p. 16) relates to the $20,000 Pyramid game, and it also invites me to guess “things that kick,” and in addition it foreshadows that someone’s kicks will be important to the story.

Storysleuths’ Tip #27: Use chapter titles to hook readers to continue reading, to emphasize an important element of the story, to focus on the passage of time, and to foreshadow or reinforce important themes. Sometimes chapter titles can accomplish several of these objectives at once, but never give away the punch line of a chapter in the chapter title.

Over to you, Allyson.
Meg

NEW!! Go to NEXT When You Reach Me Post.

FIRST CHAPTER ADVICE: My Final Freshman Year Report Card, Remembering, and Talking Like Turtles: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Hi Meg,

At the story's resolution I find myself returning to the very first chapter. Here is a note I jotted in my blog journal back when we were just getting started:


It is important to know what the character’s wants are early on. What problem is he trying to solve? What is the purpose of the journey on which he is about to embark? If I don’t know what a character desires, how can I root for him and hope that he gets it? Here, on page 6 we get his emotional want, “I want the world to pay attention to me,” and we get his concrete want, “I draw because I feel like it might be my only real chance to escape the reservation.”

Alexie seems to be promising us that this character is going to try to get off the reservation, and in so doing is going to be paid attention to. Because I like the character, I am eager to read on and see how he does it.


In these final chapters we are assured that through the course of his journey and his struggles, Junior has indeed succeeded in achieving both his concrete and his emotional wants. Richard Peck, at the SCBWI conference in LA said that the first chapter should be a table of contents for the rest of the book. He went on to say that there is no way to write the first chapter until you have finished writing the rest of the book, because how on earth can you write a table of contents without first knowing what the contents are?

He’s a smartie, that Richard Peck!

I think that so many of us, when trying to write novels, stress at the beginning about the first chapter. Sherman Alexie has artfully written his book so that the first chapter truly does provide a snapshot of how the book is going to end. As a writer the take-away message to me is this: Finish writing the book! Finish that crappy first draft and when you have found the path the story is trying to take, and brought it to its logical conclusion, then you can go back and write a first chapter that truly is a table of contents for the rest of the book.

STORYSLEUTHS' TIP #20: Stop worrying about the first chapter. Let your character tell his story, and then you can figure out how and where that story should start.

How To Fight Monsters: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Hi Meg -

In this chapter I am reminded of some things we've already mentioned that are done so well. The way Alexie  builds suspense by making me as a reader wait all chapter long to find out what on earth the chapter heading was referring to-- fighting monsters? The language, the precise words and phrases that ARE the voice -- "I was emotionally erect."

But the thing I would like to draw specific attention to is something I mentioned a moment ago: the chapter headings, and the ways in which they compliment the book as a whole. The headings draw me in. They match the voice of the character. They make me, the reader, wonder what is coming, and invite me to keep reading. This chapter's heading is a perfect example: How To Fight Monsters. Upon reading that I needed to keep reading and find out what he was talking about. Real monsters? Internal monsters? Another way that Alexie uses chapter settings successfully is as markers of time. Headings like Halloween, Slouching Toward Thanksgiving, and And A Partridge in a Pear Tree give the reader a sense of the chronology of the story. As writers we do not necessarily need to mention within the context of a chapter where we are in time--the chapter heading can do that for us.

Story Sleuths Tip # 7: Chapter headings can serve as an invitation to your reader that they cannot resist--please keep reading!