Three Torpedoes To Sink Your Story

...out from under readers

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Lusitania 

by Norman Wilkinson, 1907

In May 1915, the passengers on the ocean liner Lusitania were not expecting to get torpedoed and sunk. They were just cruising across the Atlantic Ocean, en route to Europe for work or pleasure. But they were torpedoed, and it only took 18 minutes to sink the ship right out from under them. Same for those on the Athena in 1939: just taking the cruise and down went the ship.

Reading a novel is, for many readers, like taking a cruise: they want to get on board, relax, and enjoy the trip all the way to their destination. After decades as a writer, literary juror and editor, I’ve seen a lot of openings. The following common torpedoes have me disembarking before the ship is fully clear of the wharf.

First, a framework: in naval warfare, the first torpedo is generally a range finder, to give the gunner an estimate of distance and angle of fire. Sometimes it hits square on the fuel tanks and sinks the ship. More often, a second torpedo, better-aimed, follows the first. If that one doesn’t crack the ship wide open, it cripples it, leaving a stationary target for that third torpedo. The third one sinks it for sure.

In reading, that third kaboom is the moment your opening sinks. The potential reader, or agent, or editor sets it down, clicks <delete>, looks for a different cruise…. er, story. 

 

What are these torpedoes that sink your opening, and thus your novel, for readers both pro and amateur?

 

1.  The characters we meet are as anonymous as uniformed cabin stewards in a foredeck full of them.

a.       There are no nametags.

                                                               There are very few stories where it’s appropriate or useful to make a mystery of a character’s name. If they’re not the secret stalker/killer/malevolent entity whose identity will be revealed at the horrifying climax, then skip the awkward, faux-suspense tags of ‘the man’ or ‘she’ or ‘the woman with the brown hair’ and give the character’s name.

b.       There’s no memorable feature to help me identify a character when I next see them.

                                                               If you really, truly can’t give the name without ruining the plot (and even if you do), offer readers a memorable description. June should not be described as ‘brown-haired, medium height, in white dress uniform’ unless she’s also ‘lean as a greyhound, with a sharp nose and long canines that imply she’ll bite any hand that tries to feed her.’ Davro might make a fetish out of being invisible in uniform unless (the narrator tells us) ‘one noticed the marginal inward trend of their left knee, that caused a slight hitch any time they ascended the stairs.’

c.       They’re neither one gender nor both nor neither.

                                                              Like it or not, at the moment of introduction most readers still tick off gender on their mental character chart to help differentiate the players going forward. Unless it’s vital to the plot to keep this secret, use character pronouns as well as their names. “Guy’s a macho (or butch) gym-rat escorting Gerry-Lyn, whose piled-high hair rivals Dolly Parton’s.” (Trick question: is GL’s hair naturally big or a wig for their upcoming drag show?) Their getaway driver is Sam, the delinquent daughter of a media mogul.”

If a character’s name, appearance, and gender are left in limbo, the reader questions why they’re hiding it, looks for clues about that, and loses focus on the author’s careful setup of the inciting incident.

Is this one torpedo, or two, or three? 

That depends how tired and cranky the reader is feeling. For some it's just a few waves. For others, when they learn on page 25 that the character they’ve painfully pinned together from random phrases barely resembles the one the author placed on the ship, they’re not just confused but annoyed. Annoyed readers are more likely to sink this story and seek out a different cruise. 

 

2.    I don’t know where this character is.

a.       They’re bantering like a high-stakes ping-pong match but their snappy dialogue might as well be bobbing speech-balloons against an all-white background for all the locating information I have.

                                                              Readers who don’t know whether the character is standing on earth or floating in space soon feel queasy on a visceral level. Then you have work to convince them to stay on board. “This cruise is going to be fun, I promise. See that swimming pool? See that waiter with the tray of umbrella drinks?”

                                                             Avoid reader seasickness from the start by orienting them in the space. Show these characters walking past the pool during their ping-pong fast banter. Better yet, let readers experience the surroundings via the characters: blinking against the glare on the rippling water, speaking over the squeak of floating toys, chilling their fingers on that sweating umbrella drink, feeling the deck shiver underfoot as the engines thrust this cruise ship away from its moorings. Give those readers goosebumps from that chill sea breeze while the characters are talking.

b.       Can I see them and their surroundings?

                                                              Is it morning or night, darkness or full daylight? Candlelight casting wavering, mysterious shadows on their face?  You, the author, might already know there’s a single small light burning in the distance, and what shapes your character can make out by it, but if you don’t show the reader that single small light, they have to try to fit what the character says they’re seeing with whatever other cues are in the text to tell them where the light is coming from and how much of it there is. And then they might find out they’re wrong two pages later.

In summary:                Don’t leave your cruising readers lost in the bowels of the ship, where the light is the same everywhere, the walls are all blank white, the air is all the same temperature blowing from the same style of vent, and nothing shows them whether they’re going in the right direction to find their cabin or not. They'll sink this ship out of sheer frustration.

 

     3.       I have no idea why they're here, doing whatever it is they’re doing.

a.        Why are we here? Did the protagonist win the cruise? Are they taking it reluctantly with the in-laws to avoid marital strife? Undercover and following a suspect? The trick here is to give just enough information to avoid that first torpedo strike while not stalling the ship’s forward momentum. A stalled ship is a sitting target for the next torpedo.

b.       Some authors stop the ship to give us every possibly relevant fact about that character since birth to bring them to this moment. This alone sends some readers signalling the torpedoes. And yes, I know you can name exceptions but ask yourself: would that author get away with that opening if they didn’t already have a huge following? You, as an ordinary aspiring or midlist author, need to treat your readers as if every single one of them is booked into the VIP suite, because they are. Once they’ve sailed on your cruise and enjoyed it, they become your word-of-mouth advertisers to their local bookstore, library, book club, garden store, dog walkers, or social media accounts. Don’t sink their pleasure cruise out from under them by overloading the opening with any backstory that isn’t essential info in the next five pages.

c.       And why are we joining them at this particular moment? Can you wiggle a reason onto this opening page without the cruise sinking under the weight of backstory? It need only be a phrase, a sentence, where the character says to the passenger in the next chaise, or mentally reflects, or is told by the thug who’s just pinned their arms with a life-preserver ring: If only Cousin Benny had kept their fingers out of the till last Saturday…. That's my ex-husband and their new husband propping up the juice bar; they paid for my trip to deflect HER... Well, my cover story is a holiday but my target's that woman with the purse-poodle dyed to match her own hair...Let the readers know there are intriguing possibilities ahead!

To recap:

 

                Torpedoes sink your story when readers can't orient on

1.       characters who have names, genders, and memorable descriptions,

2.       a firm location, including lighting, sounds, smells, or other orienting information,

3.       a reason, however small, to be in this place doing this thing at this opening moment.

 

There is much more to a truly compelling opening than simply giving the reader this bare-bones information. But if you don't incorporate that information as the reader is ascending the gangplank, they may never set foot on the main deck. Then they'll never appreciate the luxury surroundings and many in-cruise activities you have in store. Give them these basics and they’ll set foot on Page 2 already getting their sea legs under them, umbrella drink in hand, ready to enjoy every moment of this cruise all the way to your chosen destination.