Openings and Closings.

 

RHYS BOWEN: I have never been good at opening things, or closing them, for that matter: Back in the days when I had little children at home and cakes from cake mixes were a regular treat I could never work out how to open the cake mix box. Usually I had to dig a knife in, have a generous amount of mix cascade to the floor before I read the words “Open other end.” Cans, beer bottles all present problems. Interestingly enough I am a whiz at opening champagne, having been taught the trick by my brother. You put a cloth over the cork, hold the cork firmly and twist the bottle. Perfect every time ! 

Perhaps I needed someone in my youth to teach me all the tricks of opening things. And closing them. When I was a student in Germany I worked in a grocery store and sometimes we had to gift wrap boxes of chocolates. Other employees produced these neat and lovely wrapped boxes, tied with ribbon. Mine was—well, sorry looking. 

Let me confess that for Christmas these days I buy bags and tissue paper. So much easier and they can be reused. My daughter actually made a batch of fabric bags one Christmas. I still use them. Another thing I’m useless at is strapping packages with sticky tape. First I can never find the end of the tape, then it sticks to my fingers, curls onto itself and I need at least three tries before I can do any wrapping.

 But this makes me think of my writing. Openings and closings. So vital to know where to come into a story and where to leave it. Too many writers make the mistake of coming in too soon, giving us lots of detail in the first chapter before we get to anything important. Or of introducing too many characters so that we are confused about Paul and Peter and Frank and Richard. Who the hell are they? And where are we? No sense of place. 

I work and rework the opening scene in my head for ages before I actually start a book. Where do we come in to this person’s life? I know many mystery writers start with the dead body. I like to bring a group of characters together, let us watch their interactions and think ‘no good can come of this’ and then one of them is killed. So sometimes I don’t have a murder in the first hundred pages. (It’s against the rules, I know. But the books do win awards so I guess I’m allowed to break the occasional rule). But knowing exactly where to start is important. 

In Murphy’s Law I chose to start AFTER a major event has happened. Molly is fleeing after she kills the landlord’s son when he is trying to rape her. We know she is running away but we only find out the details as the story unfolds. I think it worked well. She says that her dress is sticky at the back, but “about the state of the front of my dress I chose not to think”. I also toy with the first line endlessly until I am satisfied. I don’t think I can ever do better than “That mouth of yours will get you into trouble one day.” 

And definitely not better than Julia’s “It was a hell of a night to throw away a baby!” Brilliant. Brilliant. 

 I also liked the first line from The Tuscan Child: He knew he was going to die. That much was obvious. 

It’s great to tease with the first line.: If Helen Barton hadn’t stepped out in front of an omnibus, I might have still been sweeping floors and lighting fires at an ostentatious house in St. John’s Wood. So instantly the reader asks who is Helen Barton? And they want to know what happened next. 

 That is actually the secret of every novel WE WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED NEXT! IT begins when you read to a small child and say “One day a little chicken found the gate open and wandered out into the forest. In that forest lived a hungry fox.” And you have to turn the page… 

Obviously in many of my books setting the scene is important. Our first page captures the essence of Venice in the Venice Sketchbook. We like to know where we are—time and place. 

But when we come to closings, I’ve had readers complain I’ve ended my books too soon. I was satisfied I’d solved the murder. They want to see the characters happy, moving on, going back to normal lives. They need time to process the shocking events they’ve witnessed, just as the characters themselves need time. Sometimes I like to end on a twist, or a provocative thought. IN Evanly Bodies Evan has solved three murders and found three women who met at a shelter for battered women and each provided the alibi for the other. Brilliant as they didn’t move in the same circles or know anybody in common. But Evan solves it. His superior congratulates him. Evan says “But she won’t go to prison, will she? He was abusing her.” And his superior says “Not at the moment she pulled the trigger.” And Evan realizes he’s condemned these women to jail. 

So how do you like your stories? Do you expect a body in chapter one, or can you take the slower pace of setting the scene.  And do you like the book to go on after the crime is solved? Do you need a satisfying ending? How about you Reds? Do you agonize over your openings and closings?