{"id":396,"date":"2018-11-07T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-07T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/katrina.effexhost.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/07\/wordsmith-wednesday-on-rewriting-introductions\/"},"modified":"2018-11-07T13:30:00","modified_gmt":"2018-11-07T13:30:00","slug":"wordsmith-wednesday-on-rewriting-introductions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/07\/wordsmith-wednesday-on-rewriting-introductions\/","title":{"rendered":"Wordsmith Wednesday: On Rewriting Introductions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nWelcome back to Wordsmith Wednesday! This week, we’re lucky enough to have Leah McNaughton Lederman<\/a> joining us to share with us about rewriting introductions. I don’t want to keep you from her so let’s jump right in!<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n——————<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThat\u2019s just it. You\u2019re going to have to do it. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nEvery now and again, like the mythical \u201cperfect title,\u201d you
\nroll out a first paragraph to half page that makes the whole piece of writing.
\nLike, it doesn\u2019t matter where you go from there because your beginning was so
\nmarvelous. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nBut that\u2019s like waiting to catch Sasquatch with a butterfly
\nnet.  (Not gonna happen.)<\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nMore than likely, your introduction was you getting to know
\nyour piece. Feeling out the character\u2019s voice, getting the tone for the work.
\nShaking hands. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nHow can you introduce a piece of writing you haven\u2019t met
\nyet? <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nSome of you may have outlined and completed character
\nsketches, etc. (I\u2019m a pantser), but even if you have prepared for this piece of
\nwriting for a year, it\u2019s like you\u2019ve been online dating. There\u2019s no substitute
\nfor meeting face to face, which is what you\u2019re doing when you set pen to paper,
\nkeyboard to screen. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nThe first few paragraphs are the two of you saying hello,
\nexchanging awkward smiles and rehearsed-in-the-mirror quips. You\u2019re not
\nfinishing each other\u2019s sentences yet. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nYou\u2019ll get there. Plunge through and get into the rhythm.
\nFeel that satisfaction when you enter the last period. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nFin.<\/o:p><\/i><\/div>\n
\nLean back and enjoy it. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nAnd know that one of your first tasks when it comes to
\nrevision is rewriting the introduction. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nThere are lists out there of things \u201cnot to do\u201d in your
\nintroduction. Like any such set of rules, most of them can be thrown out the
\nwindow. As long as you do something well, the rules don\u2019t matter. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nStarting with \u201criveting\u201d dialogue. The main character is a
\nfemale and she\u2019s running late (and probably dropping things, since us girls are
\nso clumsy). There\u2019s a car crash (with gratuitous sound effect). You have a page
\nlong inner monologue summarizing the character\u2019s childhood. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nCliches exist, yo. And they hurt your writing. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nHow?<\/a><\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nBy making me not want to read your writing. Because I don\u2019t
\ncare about your character or find the story interesting. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nI went to the Indiana writer\u2019s conference back in February (https:\/\/indianawritingworkshop.com\/<\/a><\/span>)
\nand participated in a \u201cChapter One Critique Fest.\u201d<\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nHere\u2019s the deal\u2014you submit a copy of your first chapter
\n(without your name on it) and a moderator reads it out loud to a panel of three
\nagents. The agents pretend they\u2019re reading from their \u201cslush pile\u201d raise their
\nhand at the point when they would stop reading and reject. The modersator would
\ncontinue reading until all three agents raised their hands, then each of them
\nwould explain why they stopped. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nTheir reasons? <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nA clumsy girl running late. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nObnoxious dialogue. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nCar crash. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nBeing a prologue and not a first chapter (lots of agents
\nhate prologues). <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nDeath of a character (we don\u2019t know them well enough to
\ncare, so don\u2019t force us to care). <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nInner monologuing. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nMine was in there, too. The introduction to my cousin\u2019s
\nmemoir that I\u2019d worked on for over a year. The first thing I wrote down
\n\u201cofficially\u201d as part of the book and man, I thought it was gold. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nWe always had bicycles growing
\nup, my Dad made sure of it. His favorite bikes were Schwinn, of course, and
\nwhen I was five, right around the time my parents got divorced, I got the green
\nStingray. Banana seat, the whole deal. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\nThis was the real thing, and I
\nrode it backwards and forwards, hands in the air, uphill and downhill all
\nthrough the neighborhood for years. I rode it down the hill leading to the
\nlake, taking my hands off the handlebars and feeling the breeze against my skin.
\nIt never got old. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\nMan, I loved that bike. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\nI thought about it often well
\ninto my adulthood; it was a happy childhood memory. And, well, now I think
\nabout it knowing that I\u2019ll never ride a bike again. There\u2019s a shadow on my
\noutlook, sure, but it\u2019s still a happy memory, and nothing can change that or
\ntake that away from me. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\nI had a badass, green, Stingray
\nSchwinn. And I conquered the world with it, one Michigan hill at a time.  <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
\nI was relieved to find that at least the agents\u2019 hands
\ndidn\u2019t shoot into the air right away. Two of them held on nearly halfway
\nthrough until the reading was scrapped. In discussion, they noted that while
\nthey enjoyed the writing and the pace, it didn\u2019t lead them anywhere, and there
\nwas nothing tangible in the text, nothing to grab them and pull them into the
\nstory\u2014that\u2019s just it: This doesn\u2019t tell you that the story is about a quadruple
\namputee, and here she is reminiscing about her beloved childhood bike. <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThere
\nwas no story in my introduction.<\/o:p><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAnd that\u2019s the version of the opening I\u2019d already sent to a
\ndozen agents without a single reply, though in face-to-face pitch meetings I\u2019d
\nreceived very positive responses. The story was good; the introduction, or
\nopening, was not. I rewrote it, though it was like tweezing my upper lip (a process
\nI don\u2019t practice and certainly don\u2019t recommend), and that\u2019s when I started
\nhearing back from agents. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\nSitting in on that exercise changed my writing life. It
\nchanged how I read and write introductions by reaffirming what my graduate
\nprofessor once told the class, regarding the introductions to our papers\u2014when
\nyou\u2019ve finished the paper, go back and revise the introduction. It matches the
\npaper you intended to write, not the one that actually came out. <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nLeah McNaughton Lederman<\/a> is
\nan author and freelance editor in Indianapolis, where she lives with her
\nhusband, three children, three cats, and dog. She spends her free time working
\non memoir snippets and short stories, some of which are published. <\/span><\/o:p><\/div>\n

\nIf you like what you’ve read here, please share it with others using these buttons:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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