Jen
02-01-2009, 10:15 PM
I've been trying to rewrite my third novel, as you may know, and have had a few complaints about it. The first was about beginning with a murder, the second was that in my rewrite, I didn't explain the sci-fi elements of the story before I got into it.
In the first version of the book, I began with a psychiatrist talking to the girl who has been accused of murder. During the course of the conversation, she is asked to explain where she lives, which explains the fact that Americans in big cities now live in two storeys, with the poor on the bottom and the rich on the top, and the fact that most upper class people do not reproduce normally, but instead purchase clones, either as embryos or babies.
In the new version, because I get right into the action, I don't have time to explain it, and, with no intervention, might not until the second or even third chapter.
Would you mind being confused for two chapters of a book, or should I work in some sort of narrative explaining? Or, do you mind when books have quotes at the beginning of each chapter? I was thinking I could have some very short fake interviews as quotes.
In the first version of the book, I began with a psychiatrist talking to the girl who has been accused of murder. During the course of the conversation, she is asked to explain where she lives, which explains the fact that Americans in big cities now live in two storeys, with the poor on the bottom and the rich on the top, and the fact that most upper class people do not reproduce normally, but instead purchase clones, either as embryos or babies.
In the new version, because I get right into the action, I don't have time to explain it, and, with no intervention, might not until the second or even third chapter.
Would you mind being confused for two chapters of a book, or should I work in some sort of narrative explaining? Or, do you mind when books have quotes at the beginning of each chapter? I was thinking I could have some very short fake interviews as quotes.