Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The single, shortest, best opening

sentence of a novel in my opinion is "Moby Dick."

And those three words are "call me Ishmael."

So what's packed into those three words?

His name isn't Ishmael.

Why does he want you to call him that?

You have to think about then who Ishmael is,

You have to think about then who Ishmael is,

who this character is representing himself as.

Ishmael is an outcast.

But he is an outcast who is favored by angels.

Okay, so that's two things about Ishmael.

Call me Ishmael.

Who's he speaking to?

He's speaking to the reader.

He's speaking in the present tense

so that we know whoever else goes down with the ship,

it's not going to be him.

He will survive the story, which he does.

He will survive the story, which he does.

He's the only person who survives the story.

We don't know that yet because we haven't read the book.

But it's packed into those first three words.

Another famous one is "A Tale of Two Cities."

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

You can't do better than that about any time.

We can say that about our time as well.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Let us do a thought experiment.

You are a new writer, and you've actually finished your book.

You finished it.

You've edited it.

You have found an agent.

The agent has placed it with a publisher,

and the publisher has published your book.

So close your eyes and imagine the cover.

So close your eyes and imagine the cover.

That's the cover of your book.

It has the killer title that you have given it.

And you walk into a bookstore.

This is real life.

It's different from somebody telling you

that you've got talent.

Your book is actually in a store.

It's right there.

And now you're going to switch roles,

and you're going to be a bookstore customer.

and you're going to be a bookstore customer.

You see this striking new book by somebody

you've never heard of with an interesting title.

And maybe there will be a little bookstore recommendation

by one of the employees.

I loved this, says Nancy.

So you pick it up.

What's the first thing you do?

Well, if you're like everybody else,

you turn to the inside front flap.

And there will be an account of the book.

And there will be an account of the book.

So you read this enticing inside front flap,

and then you turn to the first page.

And if you cannot get that reader through the first page,

they will never read the brilliant insights into life

that are on page 75.

So what you want on the first page

is something that is going to beckon the reader in.

The first page is a gateway.

The first page is a gateway.

It's a door.

It's a door into the book.

There's a sort of pre-door, which is the cover,

and then the secondary pre-door, which is the title page.

But the real door is the first page of the book.

And that's why the first page-- in fact, the first five pages--

have to be a good entryway into the book.

Tell me more.

This looks like a really interesting setup.

This looks like a really interesting setup.

Tell me more, but don't tell me too much more.

And don't overload me with information in those first five

page pages.

Lead me through the doorway.

And leave enough hooks there so that I will want to read on.

So finding that moment, finding those first five pages--

it can be immediate.

You may have had them right away.

Or it may be a bit of a search.

And as I say, if you write your way into the book,

those pages may appear maybe around page 20, 30.

You find what really ought to be the beginning of the book.

And then you use your cut and paste function,

whether those are scissors or scotch tape

or whether it's on a computer, and you move that block of text

or whether it's on a computer, and you move that block of text

to the beginning because that's your doorway.

Every reading of a book is a journey

of discovery and surprises.

You're going to find out things that you were not

told on the first page.

And you're going to find out that some

of the things that you think you know in the first 20 pages

are not as you thought they were.

are not as you thought they were.

That is certainly what I'm looking for in a book.

Surprise me.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

This is the very first handwritten manuscript

of "The Handmaid's Tale," which is called a holograph version.

I can see that I was writing it with a fountain pen.

And I was writing it on a lined notebook, which I often

have used.

have used.

And here we are.

My original beginning then turned into chapter 2.

"We turn left at the corner and continue along.

To our right is the wall, red brick,

with its sentried gates and the barbed wire and floodlights

and broken glass set in concrete along the top

and the electronic alarm system.

These sentries have dogs.

These sentries have dogs.

No one goes through those gates willingly."

The beginning beginning got written a bit later

and stuck onto the beginning.

And what you often find working with students' manuscripts

is that they have the wrong beginning.

You can look at maybe the first 20 pages,

and their real beginning might be on page 10.

And finding that moment to begin is pretty important.

And finding that moment to begin is pretty important.

But it often doesn't happen until a certain amount

of the novel has been written.

So you're writing your way into the material,

but the real beginning may not appear right away.

There's various ways of beginning stories.

But looking at this one, I can see

that the beginning of the writing

is not the beginning of the novel.

is not the beginning of the novel.

Another beginning then appeared.

I quite frequently have a lot of crossings out.

I quite frequently have a number of arrows.

When you're editing on a computer,

you don't see those anymore because, of course,

you delete and add in.

But you can see them quite easily on manuscript material.

And I also quite frequently have arrows that point

And I also quite frequently have arrows that point

to the back of the page and marginal notes.

I can see some of those.

So that's how it goes.

I can see I cut some of it off.

I obviously moved something from this page to somewhere else.

So I cut it off, and I actually pasted it.

And that's where we get that cut and paste function

on a computer.

We used to actually cut things with scissors

and paste them with glue, which is what I did there.

It's quite odd to be looking at all of this.

It's quite odd to be looking at all of this.

And I can't say that my handwriting has improved

any in the intervening years.

It's worse than ever.