Kate Wilhelm writes in Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers' Workshop:
"The first named character is the one the story is about."
I noticed that Robert Reed breaks that rule in his story "Less Than Nothing," the lead story in the January issue of F&SF. I also realized that I'm breaking the same rule in the story I'm working on right now. (The difference? Reed knows what he's doing; I'm doing it by accident. I think.)
I understand why Wilhelm says what she says. Reed's first paragraph consists of nine sentences. The character the story is about isn't named until the ninth sentence. I did have to go back and re-read that opening paragraph to make sure I had everything straight. Considering what follows, Reed made the right choice in breaking the rule and beginning the story the way he did. Sure, I had to go back and read that paragraph again, but so what? It was worth the extra effort. Would it confuse most readers of genre? Maybe. Maybe not. The point is, in this case, what seems to make the story weak actually makes it stronger. (For what it's worth, my main character is named in the fourth of five sentences of the first paragraph.)
Now can a neophyte writer like me get away with breaking that (or any other established) rule? Don't know. Probably not at this point in my writing. I'll go back and look at my story and see if what I've written is confusing.
Of course Wilhelm also writes that professional writers know how to break the rules. Reed obviously does.
Now Playing = The Sidewinder – Lee Morgan
Now Reading = House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski (Yeah, still. It's 700 pages, okay?)
2 comments:
I recently read a book by Sharon Shinn. I've forgotten the title, but it's new, not one of the angel ones she's famous for. Anyway, not only is the protagonist(s) not named for a while, but the first scene isn't from their POV. It's from the POV of a nasty bartender we only meet in this scene, and the scene is used as a way to introduce all the main characters (there's about six, with two being the most important) as outsiders would see them, and how they pick up another character who worked in the bar to add to the party. It worked, I suppose. I kept reading, though Wilhelm's rule did go through my head and nag me about it.
I think in novels you can get away with things like that. In a short story, you have to pare down your verbiage and ideas so that they don't spill over the edges of the vessel. Of course, that brings a whole other set of issues to the fore. In J.V. Jones' novel The Baker's Boy, the first character you see is the bad guy doing his bad deed that sets a great deal of the plot in motion. But the book (and its sequels) are about the baker's boy, obviously. Or are they? Without the bad guy, who cares about the baker's boy? It's like Star Wars. Without Darth Vader, who cares about Luke or Obi-Wan or Yoda?
Wow, that rambled on. You get the idea.
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