Beginnings
The calendar in my head begins with September. Therefore, when I was sitting in my hairdresser’s chair yesterday for a cut and color, and she asked me if I had plans for New Year’s Eve, I shook my head. “For me, New Year’s might technically start the next year but it’s the middle of my year.” She nodded. “I guess there are lots of beginnings through the year,” she said. Smart cookie.
The same could be said for books I think. While a great first line, first paragraph, first page, first chapter, first half of the book is focused on so that an author can capture the attention and interest of an agent, editor and reading public, we have to start again and again and again as we’re writing. Even the middle of the story must have its own arc. There are chapters to balance and sub-plots to integrate. There are beginnings of middles and beginnings of ends. Each beginning gives us a new opportunity. I don’t recommend leaving your beginnings by the curbside at any juncture. The beginning of your book will either have your reader vested in the rest of the story, or not, but it’s just as important to pay attention to the the secondary beginnings, I think.
I pay a lot of attention to the beginnings of chapters when I read and when I write. Chapters allow you to jump time and space and lead your reader to your next event or level of emotion. The transition needn’t be seamless, but it must make sense.
Still doesn’t make sense to me to have the new year start in the middle of my year, but it does cut down on my New Year’s Eve costs. I simply shrug my shoulders and go to bed by 10.
What is your most important beginning when you write? I’m at the beginning of my ending right now, and I’m paying close attention to the pace, emotion and even the number of words. It’s one of my most crucial beginnings, I think because it’s a wrap-up of events and emotions and it’s full of twists that need to untwist quickly.
And what’s the most important beginning of your year? Is your year drawing to a close or are you like me, and right in the middle of your personal calendar?
Amy, I love the idea that the beginnings of each chapter are as important as the beginning of the book! I hadn’t really thought about them in this light before. I’ve been more concerned with the flow: Does it make sense to start from here? How much time is reasonable to skip from one chapter to the next? “Chapters allow you to jump time and space…” Brilliant! This takes a lot of pressure off feeling like every year of my mc’s life needs to be accounted for. So what if she’s 16 and then 20? As long as the story makes sense.
As far as my personal calendar, I love New Year’s Eve and the idea of a fresh palette on which to paint the new and improved version of myself. Also, I’ll be back in Denver spending it with my family, so that, in itself, will be a treat!
I love starting new chapters; it opens a door for me, letting me take the story somewhere fresh, even if only to a new character trait, or to set the reader in the middle of a scene with surprise. I’m with you on September feeling like a New Year, but I also get that feeling in January. Not because it is actually a “new year” but because the rush of holidays is behind me, I can take a deep breath and say, okay, back to business now. The cold New England January weather helps, making it enjoyable to be inside!
Debbie: I think you’ve got it. As long as your chapter moves the story along, it doesn’t matter where it starts. It’s different for every writer and every book. When I was writing a memoir I got very stuck on a tight chronology, and that hold on me disappeared when I started writing fiction.
Joanne: Regarding chapters, I agree with you totally, they’re a fresh start each time! I guess I wish the New Year felt more like a beginning to me, but it’s not even the beginning of a new quarter or semester for my kids right now, it’s the middle. We don’t celebrate Christmas, and Hanukkah is a very minor Jewish holiday, so there is no holiday hustle or rush really. Winter is a wonderful time to cozy-up inside…but today in Chicago we’re on storm watch, so the winter weather is arriving even before December!
I stopped doing new year’s resolutions because to me, if you’re going to make changes in your life, you shouldn’t let a calendar dictate them for you. Since college my resolutions were always general – to improve myself – so I finally just stopped. This is my roundabout way of saying Jan 1st is the beginning of my year, but other than the change in date, it doesn’t really signify much.
My current wip has three POVs so each chapter is it’s own little piece. I switch MCs with each chapter so I have to make sure it’s clear what’s going on & there is a mini-resolution in each one. This is my first attempt at multiple POV and I’m having trouble remembering to incorporate the subplots for the different people. I can already see lots of things that will need help in edits. Sigh.
Melanie: Sounds wonderful and sounds complicated. I think that you could write your first draft and if the subplots hold you up, refer to them, make notes in your margins and move on “as if” you’d written it all out. Then when you go back to revise and edit, everything will be in place to flesh out the subplots etc. If you are ever “called” to write it out in one of your chapters though, the book will have progressed the right way if you write “as if.” I know that was some of the best advice I ever received – and my fingers are crossed it will help my rewrite process go smoothly. Ok, maybe I’m delusional!
I find the timing of Rosh Hashanah makes so much more sense to me as a New Year. It fits in with the turning to fall, and remembrances of getting ready to go back to school. The summer is ending, and a new sense of seriousness is in the air. The “Fall Season” begins on TV and the theater. Even the type of movies change in the theaters. That time always puts me in a contemplative mood.
January 1st is just cold.
Neil: Rosh Hashanah makes sense to me too, as a beginning. It is the time that I do much more contemplating than at any other time of year. Birthdays do that to me too sometimes, because that was my beginning I guess. And while we can have many starts and stops along the way…guess I just need a few major ones in my year. Can have many in my manuscript!
Amy, that’s more or less what I’m doing, so it’s nice to hear you say it. Makes me feel like I’m doing something right.
I cannot shake the foolish notion that a date on the calendar signifies a new beginning. I end every year with the thought that the next one will be somehow different and hopefully better. You would think that having been through this sixty something times, I would know better. Forever the optimist, I make a list of things to accomplish and then do what I always do – lose it. You can probably guess what the #1 item is on the list. Get Organized!
Having three older teens, I tend to think of the beginning of my year as August when school starts. Ahhh. Great post, Master. Huggage from Grasshopper.
It’s all over the place. After guild and the recital in the Spring, my studio celebrates a new year of new music, late May. Being a teacher, it’s inevitable that the beginning of school year is a big deal. Then I celebrate Oct.31 as my spiritual and personal New Year. And what the hell, whatever I didn’t get to on my Oct. 31 New year, I join in on January 1.
I need a lot of new beginnings, LOL.