Post by account_disabled on Dec 29, 2023 22:58:32 GMT -5
Let's read the first paragraph of the novel Furore (The Grapes of Wrath) by John Steinbeck (in the translation by Carlo Coardi): In the red region and part of the gray region of Oklahoma the last rains had been benign, and had not left deep incisions on the face of the earth, already full of scars. The plows had erased the superficial imprints of the drainage rivulets. The latest rains had raised the head of the corn and established colonies of weeds and nettles on the banks of the ditches, so that the gray and dark red began to disappear under a blanket of green. At the end of May the sky turned pale and lost the clouds it had harbored for so long at the beginning of spring.
The sun began to beat down and continued to beat down harder and harder day by day on the young corn until he saw the edges of every single green bayonet turn yellow. The clouds returned, but left immediately, and after a few days they didn't even try to return. The weeds turned a darker green to hide from view, and stopped multiplying. The earth was covered with a thin, hard crust that paled as the sky paled, and was pink in the red region, white in the gray. I liked it immediately. The narrative continues like this for the entire Special Data first chapter, just 3 and a quarter pages. An entire descriptive chapter. Someone will grimace, the writing gurus will cry scandal, even if it's Steinbeck. Yet that chapter is, in a sense, the inciting incident of the entire story. Yes, because that first chapter talks to us about dust, or rather about the phenomenon of dust storms, the dust bowl that occurred in the 1930s in the central United States. The first thing you understand is like the entrance to your house The first impression is the one that counts.
The care taken in writing and revising the first chapter must be obsessive - in reality it should be for the entire novel. Here is a list of checks to do: Misprints : therefore additions, omissions and exchanges of vowels and consonants. Pace : Does the narrative have the right pace? A look at punctuation doesn't hurt, as does the use of words, at possible "stumbles" in reading. Percentage of adverbs in -mind : I once counted about fifteen of these adverbs in the incipit of a self-published fantasy novel. I felt like I was reading a rhyming poem. Suspense : Does the first chapter keep the reader in suspense? Okay, it may be an introductory chapter, but it should still arouse curiosity. It must hook the reader. It is clear that all checks need to be done for the rest of the novel, but the first chapter must be perfect, because it remains the first part that an editor and a reader will read.
The sun began to beat down and continued to beat down harder and harder day by day on the young corn until he saw the edges of every single green bayonet turn yellow. The clouds returned, but left immediately, and after a few days they didn't even try to return. The weeds turned a darker green to hide from view, and stopped multiplying. The earth was covered with a thin, hard crust that paled as the sky paled, and was pink in the red region, white in the gray. I liked it immediately. The narrative continues like this for the entire Special Data first chapter, just 3 and a quarter pages. An entire descriptive chapter. Someone will grimace, the writing gurus will cry scandal, even if it's Steinbeck. Yet that chapter is, in a sense, the inciting incident of the entire story. Yes, because that first chapter talks to us about dust, or rather about the phenomenon of dust storms, the dust bowl that occurred in the 1930s in the central United States. The first thing you understand is like the entrance to your house The first impression is the one that counts.
The care taken in writing and revising the first chapter must be obsessive - in reality it should be for the entire novel. Here is a list of checks to do: Misprints : therefore additions, omissions and exchanges of vowels and consonants. Pace : Does the narrative have the right pace? A look at punctuation doesn't hurt, as does the use of words, at possible "stumbles" in reading. Percentage of adverbs in -mind : I once counted about fifteen of these adverbs in the incipit of a self-published fantasy novel. I felt like I was reading a rhyming poem. Suspense : Does the first chapter keep the reader in suspense? Okay, it may be an introductory chapter, but it should still arouse curiosity. It must hook the reader. It is clear that all checks need to be done for the rest of the novel, but the first chapter must be perfect, because it remains the first part that an editor and a reader will read.