5 Days of Beginnings: Day Four
Day four, here we go again!
A lot of editors, myself included, are volunteers. We do it because we love it. And we keep doing it because of the amazing people we work with. I’ve had the extreme pleasure of working with Sara Cutaia at Arcturus since 2016. She started as Managing Editor and was on top of everything— very responsive and reliable, with a killer editorial eye. And she’s a really nice person, the importance of which, as a volunteer, can’t be overstated. She’s now Editor-in-Chief, and Editor-at-Large for Chicago Review of Books, and is Director of Signature Programs for StoryStudio Chicago. She also happens to be a phenomenal fiction writer.
Here’s what Sara wrote about openings:
Writing a beginning is, quite possibly, the hardest part of writing. Take me for example, thinking of where to start this blurb. Do I say something snappy, to get you hooked? Do I say something universal, so that you relate? Do I lay out a few sentences that explain who I am, what I do, how I feel, so you're oriented? I went back and forth numerous times, and decided to settle on direct and subjective: Writing openings can be the hardest part of writing.
And it's not just because there are so many different craft ways to go about it. It's also because the blank page is really terrifying. For me, I try to hold my breath and just write a sentence or two, telling myself I can always rewrite it later, I just have to get the wheels rolling. And yet, inevitably, I write the two sentences, am unhappy with them, and rewrite them right away. As you can imagine, this does not help me get past the blank page stage. I'm just continually stalling at those opening sentences. It's also why I wrote this blurb for Rachel the night before it was due.
Sometimes I comfort myself by saying there are few opening lines I remember, even from my favorite stories and novels. I always think of the whole of a story, of the way the language made me feel, and the metaphors subtly hidden in the narrative, and the crisp dialogue. If I thought the narrator could be my friend. When I recommend a book to a friend, I rarely say, "The first line/page/chapter blew me away." And yet! I still find myself obsessing over my own openings. I want to be snappy, universal, and orient you all at once. I want to write the memorable first line that goes on the literary coffee mug in 50 years. I want to convince the person who grabbed my book off the shelf in the store to buy it just from the one page.
I guess I don't have the answer, except to say that you can't fix what isn't written (I'm paraphrasing someone much smarter than me who said this first). You should just write something, anything, so there is something concrete to fiddle with, to mend and mold into the opening that actually works. This is true of all writing, but especially the beginning. Like magic, once you've bested the activation energy to get words on the page, the rest of the words tend to follow.
Thank you, Sara!
And I think her song recommendation could also work as a prompt:
Hope you get something concrete on the page you can mend and mold into an opening that works! <3