using i to start a book in three sets of early pages
our first first page is rebecca yarros’ fourth wing. praise for it includes:
A #1 New York Times bestseller • Optioned for TV by Amazon Studios • Amazon Best Books of the Year, #4 • Apple Best Books of the Year 2023 • Barnes & Noble Best Fantasy Book of 2023 • NPR “Books We Love” 2023 • Audible Best Books of 2023 • Hudson Book of the Year • Google Play Best Books of 2023 • Indigo Best Books of 2023 • Waterstones Book of the Year finalist • Goodreads Choice Award, semi-finalist • Newsweek Staffers’ Favorite Books of 2023 • Paste Magazine’s Best Books of 2023
“Suspenseful, sexy, and with incredibly entertaining storytelling, the first in Yarros’ Empyrean series will delight fans of romantic, adventure-filled fantasy.” ―Booklist, starred review
“Fourth Wing will have your heart pounding from beginning to end… A fantasy like you’ve never read before.” ―#1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout.
let’s get into part of why. we start with …
first paragraph. we get a bit of worldbuilding with conscription day — and capitalized words convey importance, so right away we know something important is happening. but in the way writers do these things, no sooner do we get the notion that something bad is about to happen than are we greeted with something good: beauty. we also get “it’s morning,” and it’s paired with that beauty, so in quick order, we’ve been craftily given key information. then we get the final hit of stuff: “i know” it might be my last.
lots is going on here. i could write for pages about how all these pieces fit together. but i want to focus on one thing overall with this page: the author’s use of the main character to link all the worldbuilding.
why? because so very many writers start with a hit of the character, then fling themselves into “let me tell you the history of my world.” rebecca yarros does that — but she does it in a character-centered way:
i tighten. my. i call home. everything relates back to her. my chest heaves. my lungs, i reach. has given me. and then the entire ability language is about her.
everything relates to her. instead of being informed of some training regimen everyone does, she focuses on what she’s doing.
now:
again, her. for all her triumph, she’s still not there.
she then takes us away from her to the others. we get three lines of worldbuilding, but then she pivots back to herself. everything relates back to her. we have had four paragraph so far, and each has been about her partly if not fully. in making them about her, rebecca has centered her worldbuilding on her character, so that she can keep revealing facts, but always while helping us understand why they matter to the character.
next:
here we get more worldbuilding in disinterested guards and more place, but again, how they relate to her, and if that matters. and then it matters in that something isn’t happening. also, because one of my things i loathe is when we say what isn’t happening rather than what is, please note “avoid my eyes” rather than “don’t look at my eyes.” we’re not told what isn’t happening, which is almost always useless. we’re told what is happening. not looking isn’t a thing that happens. someone is looking, but elsewhere. avoid is the elsewhere. and by not saying where they are looking, rebecca isn’t pointing us at something else, because the specifics of that something else aren’t the point. the point is they’re looking at not-her. and that’s the best possible scenario for her. again and again we’re relating all this information back to the character. everything is in her frame of reference. and it’s all different stuff. in other words, she is advancing the plot and such while doing this.
also, a key thing here:
we got i and my in the first paragraph. i and my in the second. i in the third. i’ve had in the fourth. i pass and for me in the fifth. i’ve had is still mostly her, bubt i pass and for me — especially as they’re about other things — are slightly less about her. that’s about to matter, because next:
we get more worldbuilding in basgiath, but our hit of her in this paragraph is “those of us,” which draws us away emotionally from the character, and then “whose mothers are in command,” which takes us away from the character and to some other power. we get no reason to doubt or otherwise have uncertainty about that, so we’re invited to trust it even as we know this character is about to be suffering or whatever.
crucially, what happens next:
lots and lots of worldbuilding, but again, we get only two lines (and only three in the other big worldbuilding paragraph) before we get another hit of the character: “our mountainous.” “our” is emotionally close, whereas “the” is not. and then we get a more distant hit of the character: “the weak.” we know she perceives herself as weak. next:
again, we get one line of worldbuilding, then the character. everything relates back to her.
it’s a little hard to see, but the last line of this first section again has some thing happening and a hit of character. every paragraph in this relates to the character. and meanwhile, here’s what we know:
- it’s conscription day.
- it’s morning.
- there’s a sun, and it rises in the morning.
- we’re tightening a heavy canvas rucksack.
- there’s a wide staircase.
- stone fortress i call home.
- we’re used to breathing hard, but it’s still effort.
- stone corridor.
- general sorrengail.
- six months of training.
- six flights of stairs.
- thirty-pound pack. (why didn’t we get that detail before? because we need the numbers six and thirty together. we don’t need to be distracted by having to hunt for thirty pounds from that previous mention.)
- this achievement — barely — is insufficient.
- thousands of twenty-year-olds.
etc. there’s a ton we’ve been given, but because we keep getting the character, and in many cases at least a mild action, we don’t feel like we’ve been dragged through backstory.
fourth wing is buyable here and, in my view, studyable as a way to keep that backstory your critique partners want you to kill because it’s not doing anything. as long as you’re relating things back to an active character, you can survive.
—
now, the next first page: jumata emill’s the black queen. praise for this book includes:
“A murder mystery with much to say about modern-day segregation, policing, and personal biases.” — Kirkus Reviews
“This chilling narrative adeptly portrays the struggle with balancing competing loyalties, personal safety, and pursuit of justice while operating within oppressive systems.” — Publishers Weekly
“Masterfully plotted and impossible to put down, The Black Queen is a searingly brilliant and bold exposé of the relationship between privilege, perspective, and justice.” — J. Elle, New York Times bestselling author of Wings of Ebony
“At once incisive and chilling, The Black Queen folds hard-hitting truths into a propulsive murder mystery, delivering a story that both entertains and examines. This is Pretty Little Liars for a new generation.” — Tahereh Mafi, New York Times bestselling author of the Shatter Me series
“A bold, fresh, small-town-secrets thriller with sharp teeth. Grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go.” — Alexa Donne, author of The Ivies and Pretty Dead Queens
“An addicting mystery and a razor-sharp social commentary that is as wickedly funny as it is twisty and surprising. Jumata Emill is one of the most exciting new voices I’ve encountered in a while. I couldn’t put The Black Queen down.” — Kara Thomas, author of That Weekend and The Cheerleaders
let’s look at why, starting here:
the character is the third word. solid start. having it be the third and not the first tells us we’re not necessarily subordinate to anyone but that we are in concert with them, and in unison is a good second hit of that. it’s also a little more ordered than together. couples walk together. forces walk in unison. we then get worldbuilding in the crowd, the building name (the lack of further place proper nouns invites us to think the setting doesn’t matter further), and then a vague but clearly bad noun phrase: what’s about to go down. whom with? why? not sure. then we get another hit of i. a bit more worldbuilding with some apparent gossip or news. another hit of i. a hit of nova. other people — the crowd? we’re not sure. moving on: a name. and then for the rest of the paragraph, we’re subordinate to, and invited to trust, tinsley and nova. the message i get from this is we’re safe. also, i want an early hit of i from the next paragraph, because we just got two and a half lines of not-i.
boom. i, first word. and while, yes, this is filter language in i see, it’s tolerable, to me. then it’s more world, showing a breeze we didn’t get before, not sure why, but we’re invited to move on because that description yields to more crowd and more following, and if you think the repetition of following is a mistake, you’re informed otherwise a few words later. then we get another hit of i, with more worldbuilding.
that’s the first page. but we went a bit further with fourth wing, so let’s keep going some with the black queen:
this continues the paragraph, and we continue to get not-i because not-i is the story and we’re being invited to be okay with that. nova is the thing here. nova was the first word and is used twice in this paragraph. we get nova and tinsley, tinsley, nova, then her, then my homegirl, which is a baby hit of i. it gets us back to the character while relating all this worldbuilding to that character, then ends with tinsley again.
next:
i do not mean to downplay the skill required to do this, but this is a standard way to follow a long paragraph. it is also incredibly hard to do. it’s done in lessons in chemistry, and it’s done here.
why is it hard to do? because in the previous paragraph, you seemed to be opening the floodgates of detail. every other detail in your book world sees so much stuff leaving and goes “pick me pick me pick me pick me pick meeeeee!”
but you can’t. that’s not the work. so jumata here has skillfully dammed the flood.
also, please note we have a short paragraph with no i. that’s going to matter soon.
next:
an instant hit of i! yes! then more action — not backstory — and the conflict: black versus white.
also: please note, anyone who has an issue with predominately, that words are tools. twain used them to establish dialect, character, etc. emill is doing the same thing. if you have no problem with twain using feller and warn’t in the first story of his that hit it big (page 8), but you grimace at predominately here, check your bias. words are tools. they show things.
anyway. we get a hit of i, then the conflict, then another hit of i.
next, and last, because i don’t go deep into books with these things:
no i. second paragraph in three with no i. we are being transitioned fully to spectators. witnesses. support.
i — we — have not spoken. we have breathed only to support. we have moved to support. we are part of something. we are subordinate to nova. the closest we get to a hit of i here is the fact that we know about nova’s pendant. we know months of nova’s history. we know semesters are of no broad import beyond existing.
this was written to convey just enough agency to get us here, buying into letting nova drive. doing this well is hard.
the black queen is buyable here.
—
now, the last first page: s.e. reed’s my heart is hurting. (disclaimer: s.e. and i are friends. we co-run a feedback group. we are in an anthology and likely to be in more, we have collaborated on projects, etc. nobody should see me as unbiased. however, i didn’t publish this book, and if i thought it was weak, i’d say so.) praise for this book includes:
“Author S.E. Reed takes the reader for a roller coaster ride in this YA coming-of-age story. “My Heart is Hurting” will have you cheering in spots, and crying in others. But it always makes you care. Highly recommended.”
“There’s enough grittiness in this book to make a year’s supply of sandpaper. Jinny is super intelligent, but had been browbeaten and brainwashed by her mother for years. Mom goes ballistic whenever Jinny tries to talk about an accomplishment or a future involving college.”
“Jinny Buffett is one of the most memorable YA characters I’ve read in a long time. She feels so real and it’s hard not to immediately sympathize with her. She’s an extremely bright girl who wants to get out of her current horrible situation with her abusive mother. You can’t help rooting for Jinny as her life spirals out of control and it seems like everything is stacked against her. The secondary characters also pop off the page and I want Thomas to have his own book! A heartfelt, gritty debut that would appeal to both teens and adults.”
“I give My Heart is Hurting a resounding, five-star recommendation. This novel is a gripping, gut-wrenching, and beautiful story that will stay with the reader for days after putting it down. The main character, Jinny, a brilliant young student, comes to life through sheer grit, resilience, and determination. The novel does not shy away from issues and deals with mental illness, poverty, and adolescent emotions in a truly authentic and beautiful way. You will laugh along with Jinny’s saltiness, cry with her struggles, and cheer her on from the sidelines as she learns to navigate teenage life.”
let’s look at why, starting here:
my! and the name. double hit of i, basically.
there’s really only ever one reason to do a name reveal like this: when people fuck up your name. and in the next paragraph …
yup. this is an early show of an identity issue. we get another hit of i, and then we get other names. and …
we started the previous paragraph with a noun transition from jinny buffett to jimmy buffett, and we start this paragraph transitioning from jimmy buffett to the area’s understanding of jimmy buffett. but less than two and a half lines later — one sentence, as if s.e. set herself a discrete limit — we’re back to i in my. no sooner do we get that hit of i than we go back to someone else, and soon we’re back to jimmy buffett. this is similar to the move rebecca yarros made in fourth wing in that the hit of i is an incomplete hit to show subordination.
we’ve been chaining nouns so far. we’re ending this paragraph on cocktail waitress and men proximally and jimmy buffett less proximally. let’s see what the next paragraph gives us.
next:
done with chaining, maybe. we get a brief hit of setting for further implied subservience, then i. and then another i. and then more jimmy buffett, with i. and then, as if attempting to using the growth to move on, we get an attempt at someone being subservient to i: shantel greenburg.
next:
we get i-adjacent with the skin, then my, then i, my, my, subservience in the hernandez brothers, i, my and ms. fleming. and whereas some novice writers might note that ms. fleming is or isn’t expected to say something about jimmy buffett, we get fleming-centered language, peaking with going to church. the message here, with the pronoun she repeated and the focus on clothing, is that we can trust ms. fleming.
next:
dialog, then i, then a movement. and we get that further show of trust in whatcha and consecutive unvoiced Gs.
next:
the response lacks a dialog tag, the response is centered in jinny — uses her name, and does so properly — and the action is too. even ends in me.
next:
i, i, i, my, i, my. the my-i-my transitions us from her to her shoes to the seashells in the dialog to more about what the shells mean to her. she is using them, making them subordinate to her. so after she was subordinate to things, one thing is subordinate to her.
but it is inanimate. we’re invited to imagine not being able to control our life, and being approached, and having to lower our age and pick something that can’t pick us so we can enjoy it.
next:
competing Is. first we get a decentered sentence — this, rather than e.g. what i want. but its decentering is also limiting, because ms. fleming isn’t inviting jinny to see herself in something, only inviting jinny to not see a big deal. why? we’re not sure yet. subsequently, we get i, my, i, then your.
another point here: beginner writers can struggle to place each character in their own place in the world, instead making everyone revolving around the central character. by having ms. fleming open with what she was doing before, s.e. shows a touch of her backstory and life. ms. fleming wasn’t sitting there thinking, i wish i could go see jinny. ms. fleming was preparing for the new school year because that’s what teachers do. jinny is weighing her subservience versus her superiority, which is an internal struggle many people engage with. ms. fleming was being a boring-ass adult.
next and last:
we start with an i-adjacent noun: the spelled-out fsa. this tells us what it is, helping us to understand some of why it might matter to a teacher. but even before we get that, we get i don’t care from jinny. then we get a second hit of i don’t care, then t, a word we wouldn’t normally associate with a standardized test, and i again. and to continue that domination, we get a parallel of what happened on that test: jinny finishes discussing her involvement before discussing how her classmates did, and she references them dismissively, which conceptually parallels the swear from before. further, she de-escalates by declining to say whether she’s in her first, second or whatever other year in school.
details like year in school mattering or not is crucial worldbuilding, and deciding to leave out details is the mark of a mature writer.
last note: the dummies in my class. not the dummies in the class. my class. she is subservient to those people in the hallway, where they treat her unkindly, but in the classroom, she’s it.
— — — — — — — — — — — —
a common mistake i see in first page drafts is opening with one line from the character, then flooding the reader with backstory. you can include backstory, but it always has to link back to the character, and as you’ve seen in these first pages, you can’t do more than a few lines of backstory before getting back to story. also, people don’t engage with books for backstory. they engage for story. and if you lose that because you’re drawing a semantic map of a kingdom two-thirds of which we will never see, the character just disappeared. you have to keep coming back to the character.
these writers did, and they’re published.
good luck sigh <3