Aspiring authors often seem puzzled that their work isn’t read more carefully, or positively, or even at all, when they send their work out to an agent or an editor.

Those would-be authors aren’t thinking enough about the competitive pressure on the gatekeepers’ time. Editors and agents have a lot of hot projects, and to add another to their list means you need to deliver a truly compelling work . . . good enough to make them put aside something else.

Yes, your work may be perfectly fine. Readable and enjoyable. Yeoman plot. Likable hero. All that. But agents and editors have a lot of that already. You need to compete for their attention, and compete hard. You need to knock their socks off.

And quickly. If you are a new author, it had better happen in the first few pages.

Here’s how it looks from a busy editor’s point of view. This is a perspective shared at a WisCon 2009 panel a few weeks ago by James Frenkel, senior editor of science fiction titles for Tor Books.

Frenkel was talking to an audience of mostly would-be authors. He said, okay, it might help to understand my professional priorities as an editor. The top projects on my desk, he said, are sequels by bestselling authors already in the Tor line-up. (Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? These are lucrative projects with a built-in audience, likely to sell and also will promote earlier work in the series.)

Then, he said, next in line are new queries or manuscripts by other bestselling authors at Tor, although not necessarily sequels. (Makes a lot of sense; these are proven authors in which Tor already has a relationship and an investment. More work by these good authors will likely pay off.)

Then, Frenkel looks at new work by bestselling authors from the outside, pitched to him by top agents. (Makes sense; these are from authors and agents who have proven themselves, although not at Tor.)

Then, he looks at proposals from new authors . . . sent to him via top agents who also represent bestselling authors. (Makes sense; these agents know the business and have a track record of identifying successful writers and material.)

Then . . . Frenkel paused and looked at the aspiring authors in the room . . . “If I have time, I look at you.”

Clearly, there’s not a lot of time left. That’s the way the business works. Publishers, editors, agents, marketing departments, all are busy working with people who have already shown signs of success. They already have a lot of viable projects on their desks.

Frenkel clearly would love, as does any editor, to discover new talent. But his and others’ time is limited.

No, it’s not impossible to break in. But to do it, you need to gird your loins to compete, and compete hard. If one of those agents or editors does get a few moments to riffle through a slush pile . . . you need to make your manuscript sparkle . . . quickly, convincingly, without any quibbles or concerns or dull spots or wasted words.

We all have to compete, even (as you can see from Frenkel’s hierarchy of attention) those much higher in the queue than you or me.

So . . . make the most of any chance you get. Write a couple of first pages that are teeming with the “wow!” factor, that are really outstanding (not just competent), that fire a reader’s immediate curiosity about what comes next. Make us say, “Hey, that’s remarkably good. I’ll read some more.”

“I’ll read more . . . despite all the pressures on my time . . . despite all the other projects piled on my desk that are so likely to succeed and fund my paycheck.”

Can you do that? The opening lines should be fantastic. The first page must be great. And the following several pages should be brisk and bold and brilliant with the promise of a wonderful story.

There are several things that drive a novel’s fictional story from the first pages. Think of a story as a kind of journey, something with forward motion. If you think of the metaphor of an automobile, the plot of a story might be considered the engine, the motive power.

But something is needed to propel a car: fuel. For a story, that should be the deep desires of the characters.

You can have a perfectly decent story (a nice car). But it you don’t have the fuel of desire, it doesn’t really go anywhere. No means of propulsion. If the plot moves forward, it will seem forced, like people running out of gas and having to push their car down the road. Or calling for a tow truck. The story moves (sort of), but not in a fluid, compelling way.

The other thing that’s needed for a good story’s journey is the reality of the road. In fiction, you need a plausibly tangible “road” going through an imaginary (but clearly imaginable!) landscape. This is the story’s setting . . . or more powerfully, its sense of place (a deeper, more emotion-rich version).

If you don’t have a well-developed landscape (or any at all), the journey of this car (your story) will be somewhat generic, floating in the fog of banality or nothingness. You need the reality of place – the hum of wheels on dry pavement, the bumps, the times of rain or sun, the delight of things seen out the window – to make the journey come to life.

Let’s look at an example that combines desire and place:

Here’s a bit from Ann Patchett’s 2001 novel, Bel Canto (PEN Faulkner Award). It’s an amazing work; I read it in a few wonderful evenings. A beautiful piece of writing, a mix of suspense and romance . . . with lots of unspoken advice for other writers in its pages.

The novel relies on a clear and definite “sense of place.” From the first paragraph, it is bound (except for a few memories of the characters that take them elsewhere) to a single location: a mansion in a South American county. After the set-up scene, a grand dinner party (visiting opera star, international businessmen, diplomats), a band of gun-wielding terrorists take over and all hell breaks loose. Then, remarkably, as they settle down for a long hostage situation, unexpected human emotions begin to emerge: empathy, romance, passion, love.

Here is one passage that sold me on the story in the first five pages (note Noah Lukeman’s The First Five Pages rules). On page four, a central character, Katsumi Hosokawa, recalls a memory of going to his first opera in Japan as an 11-year-old child, with his father. For the performance of Rigoletto, “They did not have especially good seats, but their view was unobstructed.”

They climbed the long set of stairs to their row, careful not to look down into the dizzying void beneath them. They bowed and begged to be excused by every person who stood to let them pass into their seats, and then they unfolded their seats and slipped inside.

[Nice motion, entering a place . . . encountering it for the first time.]

They were early, but other people were earlier, as part of the luxury that came with the ticket price was the right to sit quietly in this beautiful place and wait. They waited, father and son, without speaking, until finally the darkness fell and the first breath of music stirred from someplace far below.

[Time passing . . . anticipation . . . then, a beginning of something.]

Tiny people, insects, really, slipped out from behind the curtains, opened their mouths, and with their voices gilded the walls with their yearning, their grief, their boundless, reckless love that would lead each one to separate ruin.

[Patchett is cleverly laying down the central themes of the novel: the mystery and danger of love.]

A few lines later:

It was early in the second act, when Rigoletto and Gilda sang together, their voices twining, leaping, that he reached out for his father’s hand. He had no idea what they were saying . . . he only knew that he needed to hold to something. The pull they had on him was so strong he could feel himself falling forward out of the high and distant seats.

The small gesture of a moment – and the whole brief memory with its powerful sense of place – sets the stage [pun unavoided] for a lyrical and suspenseful novel, full of fascinating characters and their passions.

With her mastery, Patchett has used a small “sense of place” scene (a brief memory by a main character of a place so meaningful to him) to establish a theme of deep and nonverbal desire (the power of music, the drive of deep emotions beyond language). This novel, that returns immediately to the main setting of the novel, the South American mansion, will careen forward like a finely-tuned (and expertly driven) race-car with the powerful drive that comes from the deepest desires of the key characters.

All set in a specific place, one that comes to be familiar, like a second home for the reader. At least it was for me, as I picked up the novel each evening and returned to that mansion.

Bel Canto is a novel that presents place as a setting for desire.

Four walls. Within them, all the world.

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
– Anton Chekhov (1860–1904)

According to Britain’s The Guardian:

When 25 noted authors were asked in 1987 to name the most crucial influences on their own work, Chekhov was cited by 10 of them, including Eudora Welty, Nadine Gordimer, and Raymond Carver; he received double the nominations of any other writer. Eudora Welty said “Reading Chekhov was just like the angels singing to me.”

High praise! Here are the beginnings of two Chekhov stories. First, “The Cook’s Wedding”:

Grisha, a fat, solemn little person of seven, was standing by the kitchen door listening and peeping through the keyhole. In the kitchen something extraordinary, and in his opinion never seen before, was taking place. A big, thick-set, red-haired peasant, with a beard, and a drop of perspiration on his nose, wearing a cabman’s full coat, was sitting at the kitchen table on which they chopped the meat and sliced the onions. He was balancing a saucer on the five fingers of his right hand and drinking tea out of it, and crunching sugar so loudly that it sent a shiver down Grisha’s back. Aksinya Stepanovna, the old nurse, was sitting on the dirty stool facing him, and she, too, was drinking tea. Her face was grave, though at the same time it beamed with a kind of triumph. Pelageya, the cook, was busy at the stove, and was apparently trying to hide her face. And on her face Grisha saw a regular illumination: it was burning and shifting through every shade of colour, beginning with a crimson purple and ending with a deathly white. She was continually catching hold of knives, forks, bits of wood, and rags with trembling hands, moving, grumbling to herself, making a clatter, but in reality doing nothing. She did not once glance at the table at which they were drinking tea, and to the questions put to her by the nurse she gave jerky, sullen answers without turning her face.

Or, from “A Joke”:

It was a bright winter midday. . . . There was a sharp snapping frost and the curls on Nadenka’s temples and the down on her upper lip were covered with silvery frost. She was holding my arm and we were standing on a high hill. From where we stood to the ground below there stretched a smooth sloping descent in which the sun was reflected as in a looking-glass. Beside us was a little sledge lined with bright red cloth.

“Let us go down, Nadyezhda Petrovna!” I besought her. “Only once! I assure you we shall be all right and not hurt.”

But Nadenka was afraid. The slope from her little goloshes to the bottom of the ice hill seemed to her a terrible, immensely deep abyss. Her spirit failed her, and she held her breath as she looked down, when I merely suggested her getting into the sledge, but what would it be if she were to risk flying into the abyss!

Note that the advice “don’t tell me, show me” is not taken to extremes. We are told the occasional bit of information for dramatic effect, such as: Nadenka is afraid. But mostly, we are drawn into the story by quick, deft sketches. Reading Chekhov is like looking over the shoulder of a visual artist sketching a quick drawing, using only a few strokes – a setting, a character, an incident about to happen.

“A glint of light on broken glass” is just that . . . a quick flash of a concrete but brief image, an intriguing visual clue that, instead of telling all, draws us in by making us wonder . . . what’s it all about?

In my quest to convince emerging writers that a compelling opening for a novel can be an intriguing description of place . . . here’s the start of a 2004 fantasy for young readers, a book I’m currently enjoying, The Sea of Trolls, by Nancy Farmer, 3-time winner of a Newbery Honor award.

Jack woke before dawn and listened to the cold February wind lash the walls of the house. He sighed. It was going to be another rotten day. He stared up at the rafters, savoring the last minutes of warmth. He was bundled in a cocoon of wool blankets over a bed of dried heather. The floor was deep, below the level of the house. The wind that found its way under the door passed over his head.

It was a good house, with oak pillars planted the root up to keep damp from rising from the ground. Jack had watched Father build it when he was seven. Father had thought a child couldn’t understand such a complicated task, but Jack had. He’d paid close attention and thought he could build a house even now, four years later. Jack forgot very little of what he saw.

At the far end of the long room Jack could see Mother stir up the cooking fire. The light danced on the loft.

A simple start. But notice how much is communicated; the time frame (early Middle Ages) is sketched. Notice what is asked as an implicit question. Why will it be another rotten day? Notice the character hints. Jack is a boy who observes things. He wakes up, seeing things around him.

With a calm, confident air, the first paragraphs of the book signal: this is the beginning of a tale. A story is about to unfold.

When I turn over the book, the jacket praises Farmer’s previous novels, “perilous adventures through hostile but richly conceived landscapes” (New York Times Book Review); “a talent for creating exciting tales in beautifully realized, unusual worlds” (Kirkus); and “Readers will be hooked from the first page” (Publishers Weekly).

Perilous adventures. Exciting tales. Unusual worlds.

And readers hooked from the first page.

Hooked not with wild action, but with a quiet, appealing, intriguing description of a boy waking up in a house in the Middle Ages – a come-hither promise of Once Upon a Time.