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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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The single,
shortest, best opening

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

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And those three words
are "call me Ishmael."

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So what's packed into
those three words?

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His name isn't Ishmael.

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Why does he want you
to call him that?

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You have to think about
then who Ishmael is,

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You have to think about
then who Ishmael is,

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who this character is
representing himself as.

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Ishmael is an outcast.

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But he is an outcast who
is favored by angels.

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Okay, so that's two
things about Ishmael.

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Call me Ishmael.

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Who's he speaking to?

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He's speaking to the reader.

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He's speaking in
the present tense

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

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it's not going to be him.

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He will survive the
story, which he does.

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He will survive the
story, which he does.

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He's the only person
who survives the story.

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

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But it's packed into
those first three words.

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

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

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

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We can say that about
our time as well.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Let us do a thought experiment.

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

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You finished it.

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You've edited it.

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You have found an agent.

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The agent has placed
it with a publisher,

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and the publisher has
published your book.

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So close your eyes
and imagine the cover.

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So close your eyes
and imagine the cover.

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That's the cover of your book.

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It has the killer title
that you have given it.

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And you walk into a bookstore.

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This is real life.

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It's different from
somebody telling you

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that you've got talent.

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Your book is
actually in a store.

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It's right there.

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And now you're going
to switch roles,

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and you're going to be
a bookstore customer.

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and you're going to be
a bookstore customer.

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You see this striking
new book by somebody

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you've never heard of
with an interesting title.

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And maybe there will be a
little bookstore recommendation

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by one of the employees.

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I loved this, says Nancy.

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So you pick it up.

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What's the first thing you do?

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Well, if you're
like everybody else,

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you turn to the
inside front flap.

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And there will be an
account of the book.

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And there will be an
account of the book.

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So you read this enticing
inside front flap,

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and then you turn
to the first page.

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

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they will never read the
brilliant insights into life

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that are on page 75.

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So what you want
on the first page

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is something that is going
to beckon the reader in.

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The first page is a gateway.

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The first page is a gateway.

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It's a door.

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It's a door into the book.

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

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

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

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

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have to be a good
entryway into the book.

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Tell me more.

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This looks like a really
interesting setup.

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This looks like a really
interesting setup.

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

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

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page pages.

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Lead me through the doorway.

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

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

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it can be immediate.

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You may have had
them right away.

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Or it may be a bit of a search.

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

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those pages may appear
maybe around page 20, 30.

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

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And then you use your
cut and paste function,

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whether those are
scissors or scotch tape

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

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

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to the beginning because
that's your doorway.

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Every reading of a
book is a journey

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of discovery and surprises.

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

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told on the first page.

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And you're going to
find out that some

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

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are not as you
thought they were.

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are not as you
thought they were.

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

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Surprise me.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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This is the very first
handwritten manuscript

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

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

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

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have used.

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have used.

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And here we are.

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My original beginning then
turned into chapter 2.

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"We turn left at the
corner and continue along.

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To our right is the
wall, red brick,

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with its sentried gates and
the barbed wire and floodlights

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and broken glass set in
concrete along the top

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and the electronic alarm system.

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These sentries have dogs.

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These sentries have dogs.

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No one goes through
those gates willingly."

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The beginning beginning
got written a bit later

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and stuck onto the beginning.

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And what you often find working
with students' manuscripts

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is that they have
the wrong beginning.

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You can look at maybe
the first 20 pages,

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and their real beginning
might be on page 10.

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And finding that moment to
begin is pretty important.

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And finding that moment to
begin is pretty important.

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But it often doesn't happen
until a certain amount

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of the novel has been written.

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So you're writing your
way into the material,

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but the real beginning
may not appear right away.

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There's various ways
of beginning stories.

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But looking at
this one, I can see

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that the beginning
of the writing

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is not the beginning
of the novel.

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is not the beginning
of the novel.

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Another beginning then appeared.

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I quite frequently have
a lot of crossings out.

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I quite frequently have
a number of arrows.

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When you're editing
on a computer,

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

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you delete and add in.

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But you can see them quite
easily on manuscript material.

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And I also quite frequently
have arrows that point

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And I also quite frequently
have arrows that point

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to the back of the page
and marginal notes.

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I can see some of those.

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So that's how it goes.

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I can see I cut some of it off.

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I obviously moved something from
this page to somewhere else.

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

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

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on a computer.

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We used to actually cut
things with scissors

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

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

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

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And I can't say that my
handwriting has improved

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any in the intervening years.

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It's worse than ever.