I had a Twitter thread recently about novel openings and people kept dming me being like “write a newsletter about this” and I kept responding “I already did!” Narrator voice: He had not. There’s a bunch of stuff I touch on in the thread but the one I wanted to explicate more is the difference between tension and action. Writers are told to start with action. To start with a character doing something, going somewhere, in conflict with someone. Sometimes this is literally dropping into a gunfight. Sometimes it is opening with a line of dialogue. Sometimes it is a character witnessing a crime.
Thanks for writing this. You've articulated nicely what I've been thinking for a while, and to see it from a quality agent helps eliminate any doubt that this is right. No more screaming in a vacuum.
Thanks for writing this. You've articulated nicely what I've been thinking for a while, and to see it from a quality agent helps eliminate any doubt that this is right. No more screaming in a vacuum.