Movement, from Arcs to Silences
I read Jeff Vandermeer’s Wonderbook last year, which had some great little trees of wisdom within the twee forest. He discusses opening scenes early in the book, walking the reader through his stages of construction of the opening lines of Finch. (I haven’t read Finch itself, and I also don’t have Wonderbook in front of me, so bear with me on the details of this recollection.)
The titular Finch, investigating what I believe is an alien murder, is called to the scene of the crime to work with his nonhuman partner, around whom he is uncomfortable. There are a number of ways Vandermeer wrote this scene before settling on the final version. He breaks down the phases this scene went through to demonstrate how it opened to early and too late before he finally found the place where the story began.
At some point in development, the book began with Finch waking up in his apartment. In this version, Finch went through his morning routine before arriving at the scene. This is in violation of commonly held advice to almost never start a story with someone waking up, and Vandermeer shows us why: it started the book too early. The hook was buried. There wasn’t enough action or intrigue early enough to draw the reader in. It frontloaded Finch’s character backstory instead of telling us anything about the impetus of the story—world and question—that made those details interesting.
At another point of development, the book’s opening lines saw Finch already standing over the body, already in the midst of his discomfort with his partner. At another point, Finch had already evaluated the scene and was looking out the window over the city in the opening scene, which served to develop this setting. These, Vandermeer reflected, started the book too late. Now there was not enough set up—not enough establishment of the world before putting the reader in it.
Vandermeer ultimately settled on Finch opening a door, and walking through it—quite a literal crossing of the threshold—for the first line. The second Finch walked through the door of the crime scene was the second his life changed; and it was here the story actually began.
He had found his natural beginning.
I retained this idea that stories often do “start” at a particular moment; but more than that, I think often about the language Vandermeer used about motion/movement/momentum when explaining why he chose this scene to start the book. Finch turns the knob and walks through the door. Then he moves through the crime scene, meeting the body and his partner along the way. Then he moves to the window and looks out over the city. We begin with a small lens—Finch, a single character committing the single action of opening a door—but Finch’s literal movement through the scene expands the scope. We start with Finch alone; then move to Finch, another character, and small elements of the world; then move to Finch overlooking the literal world in panorama. If we think of a third-person narrator as a camera, Finch’s movement through the scene permitted a gradual widening of the lens.
This advice isn’t universalizable to every book, and certain aspects of this chapter were more widely applicable than others. But I am always thinking about this advice when creating both opening scenes in books and chapter arcs in general, especially in plot-heavier genres like fantasy. In the opening line of a trilogy, for example, I have the main character focus on a bird that flies close to his head. The way the bird is described immediately indicates something weird about the world: a microcosm of the question the trilogy focuses around.
Once my character dismisses the bird, I describe him walking along a path and focusing on the immediacy of his surroundings before expanding the scope to consider the world as a whole. This protagonist’s story arc is an incredibly literal, physical journey, both on a book scale and a chapter scale: he starts every scene in one location and physically ends it in a different place. It’s a bit Hero’s Journey, but his emotional evolution occurs with every step outside his comfort zone he takes. Other times, the movement of an arc is more figurative. In one of my romance novels, the opening chapter sees one protagonist sitting in the same chair for the whole chapter; but the information he learns leads him to walk into a club he otherwise never would have walked into, where the atmosphere is described as though he’s walked into another world.
Lately I’ve also been playing with movement, somewhat ironically, to denote stasis. A lot of my crutch phrases have to do with silence and stillness: “He paused.” “For a moment, nothing happened.” One writing tip I read recently—and I wish to God I could remember where I read it—was to completely replace these ‘pause’ words with description, either of an action or a movement that the characters observe. (This is especially true when it’s the POV character who needs a moment to think.)
This approach is a slightly improved take on an old trick. A number of writers, myself included, make sure to set discussion-heavy scenes in a place where idle actions are easy—notably the kitchen, or while eating a meal. That way, it’s easy to cut up dialogue with discussions of doing the dishes, taking a bite, or putting on the kettle to make the conversation feel more organic and lived.
But even so, I was still focusing too hard on the characters’ observations of the conversation. Instead, I should have been focusing on a character’s experience of their surroundings as a whole, engaging more senses to give a more holistic idea of the moment. Focusing on movement puts life in a scene, adds more of the senses than simply the talking and listening of conversation. And it can still often impart the impression of time passing without naming it—in other words, without killing the scene’s momentum.
“For a moment, Franny didn’t reply” can be replaced with atmospheric observation: “Franny studied the falling snow, watching a flake fall as it appeared in the window to the moment it disappeared.” Seoras no longer “pauses,” but wonders about his eyeliner: raises a finger to pass over the corner of his eye, checks it to make sure it hasn’t bled, and then gives his answer.
Pauses can still be great to name, especially if it’s a non-POV character pausing. The POV character may have no idea what the other person is doing or thinking, so it makes sense to omit that internal narration then. But recognizing the moving parts of a scene can help the create the effect of experience: it can help the world feel lived in, spice up description, give details about characterization, or kill crutch phrases like mine.
Most of the time in a scene, something is moving. And movement is scaffolding if you believe.
What does movement support in your writing?