Making an Impact.

I am currently proof-reading The Cragstone Affair.

I first published this in 2015 as the Craigsmuir Affair and decided to unpublish and re-publish in e-book format with a new cover because the spelling of the original title always seemed to puzzle Amazon. (I haven't decided if print format is worth all the effort) As I've gone through the stages, I've removed a thousand or so words and improved the prose - as you do. Is editing ever really finished? This led me to consider the opening lines and wonder if they were good enough. Have I improved on my first lines, or not, in the last five years?

The truth is, I'm not sure. I knew what the story question was before I began - could a young Victorian woman achieve her dream of going to art school AND get happily married? I solved that one positively by the end of the story and gave her a mystery  to solve and a few adventures along the way.

I read somewhere that a mystery does not need a murder in the first few lines. A romance does not have to have to begin with a kiss, but the killer thing to remember is that most mysteries have a dead body at the end of the first chapter. (Believe me or not, that pun was unintentional.)

I had my mystery planted before the first chapter ended, so that was OK. But  when I begin a new story I now spend a long time thinking what the first line might be. Looking at the line I wrote way back eight or nine years ago, I don't think I did. If anything, I thought of the bigger picture, the fact that in paragraph two she falls down the stairs and lands in the arms of a stranger. I liked that, and still do. It is a visual beginning and readers might not like it, but it pleased me and I guess I'm stuck with it now.

Inciting Incidents and Keswick

A new story demands thought about the Inciting Incident. A story can be divided into rough blocks, called The Inciting Incident, Progressive Complications, Crisis, Climax and Resolution. It’s good to remember that the Inciting Incident (II from now on) must be relevant to the character and directs what is about to happen to him/her. It should not be some dramatic event that is simply witnessed. (That may be where I made my mistake in a romance I’m struggling with now. Sigh.) The II should not happen in back story.

So – the II upsets the protagonist’s life, puts forces out of whack, and the protagonist must respond. Usually he focuses on doing something to bring the balance back to normal, or the way he wants it to be. This sets him off on a quest to gain what he wants against the forces of antagonism, which may be inner and personal or outer and extra-personal. Sometimes, he refuses to respond, and reacts by inaction, and that too causes or brings about reaction. In decided what to do (or not to do) the protagonist should reveal some long held dream or unconscious desire, and the reader should pick up on it. The Spine of the Story, the long arc that carries through the entire story, has its birth in the II. The Bond films were an example – the arch villain made a move that upset the status quo, and Bond’s focus was to defeat him. Until recently, Bond never had an unconscious desire, but with the Daniel Craig stories, he has, and that is to revenge Vesper’s death. Sometimes the unconscious desire becomes the story spine, or merges very closely with the major story, and then makes for a more complex hero and story arc.

We’ve had four days of glorious weather, and the pictures are from a trip to Keswick on Friday.