The Book's the Thing

L.G.C. Smith

First lines. Sometimes I hear them in my head, but I never seem able to work them onto the first page. The first line I heard for the book I’m working on now was “Where the hell is my warlord?”

Not bad. Spoken by a British intelligence bureaucrat who can’t find the Anglo-Saxon warlord he’s spent millions dragging fifteen hundred years out of the past, it’s fairly punchy. Not subtle or nuanced, but this isn’t a subtle novel.

Alas, I’ll be damned if I can get it smack at the beginning. It would be a decent first line if it weren’t on page 11.

I don’t worry about this too much anymore because I realized I don’t remember great first lines from the books I love. I appreciate them when I read them, but they aren’t sticky. Whoosh. Off they go into the blue.

Visual images stay with me: the faded map of Cornwall from a shop in Truro, the name Frenchman’s Creek handwritten alongside a narrow finger leading to the Helford River; Pip in the churchyard on the edge of the tidal marshes, caught by a filthy man in leg irons, threatening to eat him; Ruck on the road to Avignon with a troop of pilgrims, desperately trying to hush his hysterical young wife, Isabelle, before the other travelers turn on them. Stella Hardesty getting ready to plug an old trailer full of bullets.

I know Sophie’s “A Bad Day for Sorry” opens with a killer first line. It would be nice if I could remember it. As for du Maurier’s “Frenchman’s Creek,” Dickens’ “Great Expectations,” and Laura Kinsale’s “For My Lady’s Heart” -- well, none have compelling first lines, but I’ll never forget those opening images. I can’t count how many times I’ve reread them, or measure the enjoyment they’ve brought me.

That said, a zinger of a first line never hurt a reader, especially when followed by a top-notch read. Karen Marie Moning begins “Darkfever,” the first book in her current paranormal series, with the hard to ignore “My philosophy is pretty simple – any day nobody’s trying to kill me is a good day in my book.”

Like my own example, we’re not talking subtlety and nuance here. This is a conk-you-on-the-noggin, you-want-to-buy-this-book-don’t-you first line designed to slam straight into your story-lusting heart. It’s the sprinkle of toasted pecans on a black and tan sundae. Not necessary, but really nice.

That killer first line is always the ideal. In my imperfect reading practice, however, I don’t need one, and I won’t remember the gems I do find. I drive myself crazy searching for them in my own work, but in the end, I reconcile myself to the best I can manage. Then I make sure the book gets better as it goes.

Good Morrow To Our Waking Souls

L.G.C. Smith

I’m the kind of writer who…

.. experiences every story I write as a pilgrimage. I write to learn about other times, places, cultures, and ideas. I write to know myself and other people, other ways of being in the world, and perhaps, ultimately, to learn what, if anything, might lie beyond the confines of our mortal lives.

Each book, each story is a journey into the unknown. I have a goal in mind – a completed tale—that can seem as far distant as Jerusalem was to an Anglo-Saxon monk at the turn of the last millennium, as impossible to imagine as traveling to the Andromeda Galaxy is today.

The journey starts with a place and time: The Plains of Hatti in 1150 BC. A ring fort near Crenver in Cornwall, 397 AD. A battlefield near Chester in 616. The Black Hills in 1881. A defunct rocket base in Cumbria in 2012. My early steps are rooted in a particular landscape. I seek the history, geology, flora and fauna, the people who’ve lived there, their languages and cultures, the names of their farms or buildings, photos, local newspapers, anything and everything I can lay my hands because this information will sustain my characters and plot as I move forward.

Even though most of this information will never make into my books, I couldn’t write without it. Research makes the path I follow on my journey. I lay it down before me block by block, from first to last. It becomes a sacred text, leading me forward, challenging me, comforting me, teaching me.

As I inch my way along the road, I listen for names. Through them I will call my characters and learn their hearts. The tales and songs they sing tell me of their passions and cares, their strengths and secrets. When I know what they most dread, and what they most desire, I have my plot.

I write slowly now, though I used to zip through pages. Both are good. I hold to whatever works. I write every day. Sometimes with joy, sometimes in despair. I read and study every day. Essential, these center me, and keep me moving when I don’t know what to write. Throughout my day, I see and hear my characters in my mind. They become companions on the road.

I am the kind of writer who writes with my whole being. All I am I bring to my stories. Every day I try to build my resources. Writing skill. Compassion. Strength. Courage. Discipline. I try to face my fears and be honest with myself and in what I write. I learn to live with my failures, of which there are many, and to notice my successes without discounting them.

Finally, I try not to take myself, or my writing too seriously. Chaucer knew well the value of wit and insouciance in pilgrims. For me, burdened as I am with far more earnest sincerity than seems strictly necessary, this can be a challenge. That’s all part of the pilgrimage.

I am the kind of writer who can’t imagine a more satisfying journey.