57 channels...
Kimmie and I had our coffee (I did morning notes: A History of Private Life), then headed off to New Westminster for breakfast at the IHOP. (Kimmie invited Robin, but Robin wanted to sleep on.) We ate big, enjoyable omelettes in the busy diner. It felt like traveling: a small-town feel, as though we were on a road trip outside the city.
We parked by Moody Park and waited in the car while rain fell thinly. Then we went strolling under the inky canopy of cloud that covered the district, while blue sky and sun shone to the west. Hydrangeas are in bloom, and roses, and phlox and dahlia. Massive oak-trees and maples grow by the dilapidated 80- and 90-year-old houses. The streets slope steeply down to the elevated SkyTrain tracks and the Scott Paper plant, while traffic rushes by the curve of highway there. Plastic toys lay in the little yards amid the noise. We climbed back up to Moody Park and watched workers'-league softball: young, blue-collar men and women in motley clothes, smoking cigarettes while their tiny children ran on the grass. The outfielders shouted continual encouragement and praise to their teammates. They played well.
Next we drove to Park Royal so Kimmie could shop for fabric to make a new summer dress she's excited about. I went to Coles Books. I perused the History section--the best shelves in this store, in my opinion, but there was nothing there I wanted. I headed to the fiction section, which is wrapped around the three walls of the store. First: science fiction--maybe something there. I was a little interested in A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but thought I'd be better off borrowing it from the library.
On to the main section. I worked my way alphabetically backward, pulling out the odd title to give it the first-sentence test, first-paragraph test. Then I'd put them back. Long stretches of Danielle Steel, Belva Plain, Larry McMurtry--the usual suspects. I sampled a few of the green-and-pink-covered "chick lit" titles, to see what all the fuss is about. Sentence fragments. Straining to be amusing. Is there any writer here, I thought, who does not regard life as a trivial waste of time?
Backward through the infernal machine I crept, subvocally humming Bruce Springsteen's "Fifty-Seven Channels and Nothin' On". Here I am, a book-lover with money in my wallet, looking to buy--I spend thousands a year on books, but now mostly used, since I can't find any new publications I want. I'm stymied right here in the store: chagrined. Curses! Foiled again.
Hm. A bunch of books by Dan Brown. Isn't he supposed to be something special? I picked up one, something to do with the ultimate code. But the opener was stale, cardboard: I think some guy leaning down lovingly over a woman, proposing to her. Or maybe it was a declaration of love. Either way, what would usually be a peak moment in most people's lives is dispensed with in paragraph 1 as a kind of throwaway. The writer may have started with a bullet-point in his outline that said, "character happy and in love", and just penned something that suggested happiness and being in love. Back to the shelf it went.
Everywhere, a blight of prologues. It's become canonical: your novel must have one. I've talked about this before. The prologue shows you the crime, or life before the story starts, then comes chapter 1, often a gush of sentence fragments frantically trying to grab the attention of the reader. Maybe if only 1 or 2 writers did it, it would be OK. But the herd mentality has taken over. Writing should not be a herd activity.
I reached the beginning of the alphabet. Star "by" Pamela Anderson. Then the erotica on the top shelf, before the As. I'd struck out.
I left the store, bookless and depressed.
We parked by Moody Park and waited in the car while rain fell thinly. Then we went strolling under the inky canopy of cloud that covered the district, while blue sky and sun shone to the west. Hydrangeas are in bloom, and roses, and phlox and dahlia. Massive oak-trees and maples grow by the dilapidated 80- and 90-year-old houses. The streets slope steeply down to the elevated SkyTrain tracks and the Scott Paper plant, while traffic rushes by the curve of highway there. Plastic toys lay in the little yards amid the noise. We climbed back up to Moody Park and watched workers'-league softball: young, blue-collar men and women in motley clothes, smoking cigarettes while their tiny children ran on the grass. The outfielders shouted continual encouragement and praise to their teammates. They played well.
Next we drove to Park Royal so Kimmie could shop for fabric to make a new summer dress she's excited about. I went to Coles Books. I perused the History section--the best shelves in this store, in my opinion, but there was nothing there I wanted. I headed to the fiction section, which is wrapped around the three walls of the store. First: science fiction--maybe something there. I was a little interested in A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but thought I'd be better off borrowing it from the library.
On to the main section. I worked my way alphabetically backward, pulling out the odd title to give it the first-sentence test, first-paragraph test. Then I'd put them back. Long stretches of Danielle Steel, Belva Plain, Larry McMurtry--the usual suspects. I sampled a few of the green-and-pink-covered "chick lit" titles, to see what all the fuss is about. Sentence fragments. Straining to be amusing. Is there any writer here, I thought, who does not regard life as a trivial waste of time?
Backward through the infernal machine I crept, subvocally humming Bruce Springsteen's "Fifty-Seven Channels and Nothin' On". Here I am, a book-lover with money in my wallet, looking to buy--I spend thousands a year on books, but now mostly used, since I can't find any new publications I want. I'm stymied right here in the store: chagrined. Curses! Foiled again.
Hm. A bunch of books by Dan Brown. Isn't he supposed to be something special? I picked up one, something to do with the ultimate code. But the opener was stale, cardboard: I think some guy leaning down lovingly over a woman, proposing to her. Or maybe it was a declaration of love. Either way, what would usually be a peak moment in most people's lives is dispensed with in paragraph 1 as a kind of throwaway. The writer may have started with a bullet-point in his outline that said, "character happy and in love", and just penned something that suggested happiness and being in love. Back to the shelf it went.
Everywhere, a blight of prologues. It's become canonical: your novel must have one. I've talked about this before. The prologue shows you the crime, or life before the story starts, then comes chapter 1, often a gush of sentence fragments frantically trying to grab the attention of the reader. Maybe if only 1 or 2 writers did it, it would be OK. But the herd mentality has taken over. Writing should not be a herd activity.
I reached the beginning of the alphabet. Star "by" Pamela Anderson. Then the erotica on the top shelf, before the As. I'd struck out.
I left the store, bookless and depressed.
Labels: novel openings, prologues
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