Was she bowing to the river or the raven?

Maia explores beginnings and how they lead us onto new paths of possibility.

Hello!

This month’s creative challenge asked you to consider where a story begins. Last week, Steph shared a Choose Your Own Adventure style piece: three story starts from her novel that you’re invited to vote on. If you missed the details on our monthly creative challenge, find it HERE.

Today, Maia jumps in with her thoughts on beginnings.

Off we go!

P.S. Scroll down for details on how to work one-on-one with Maia!

While getting my hair done, I was reading a client’s manuscript on my iPad. My hairdresser leaned over my shoulder, trying to see the pages. What’s it about? he asked. I had just crested page 120. I should have been able to answer the question, but instead I sighed in frustration. Honestly? I said. I have no idea.

Somewhere around page 140, the book found its footing. The middle was so, so good. Like NYTimes best-seller good, but the final pages floundered again.

The middle of books, before they’re brushed and polished, are often a slog to get through. It’s where the writer gets lost in the weeds and meanders this way and that, trying to create enough action to keep the story moving along.

My hairdresser put me under the dryer and handed me a Perrier. I could see his mouth moving, but the dryer was whooshing, so I just smiled and nodded. Then I closed my eyes and tried to figure out how to guide the writer to sort out the manuscript. The beginning didn’t feel like a beginning, instead it felt like a typical middle. It wended it’s way through various storylines and character arcs, all compelling, but none shouldering up to become the main point or theme. The author had created a world that was beautifully told, but then had failed to mark a path the reader could follow. And the ending? It was cluttered with ideas, as if the book didn’t quite know what it was about and was quickly trying to figure it out before the final page.

I took a breath tanged with the acid scent of colorant and the mixed perfume of hair gel and shampoo. Why wasn’t the conclusion working? How could I help the writer clarify these final scenes? With a rambling beginning and a scattered ending, was the book fixable?

It felt fixable. It felt so close to… something. But what?

And that’s when I realized: the ending should have put a bow on the promise of the opening pages…. but it couldn’t because the story didn’t start with a premise or promise. The manuscript didn’t point the reader to what was most important in the story.

We all tell stories. It’s how we communicate with others and also with ourselves. So thinking about where you begin a story isn’t just an exercise for writers.

The beginning of the story lays out the theme. It’s a map that lets you know where you’re going. Whether you are telling a tale to friends or writing a novel, know that a good storyteller is a tour guide. They don’t just wave their arms and say head over that way and see some stuff! No. They give you the lay of the land, they point out the trail or road you should walk, and tell you what to expect as you set out upon it.

For the past three weeks, I’ve been traveling. (Huge thanks to Steph for holding down the fort here!) And, no, I haven’t written a thing. But this month’s prompt has journeyed with me. One of the things it’s sparked in me is a desire to find story starts. So as I criss-crossed Japan, I kept an eye out for moments that felt like beginnings.

One afternoon, visiting a castle in Hiroshima, Japan, I looked up from the riverbank where I was walking to the castle walls looming above. A raven (or incredibly large crow) swooped down and landed on a crag of rock jutting into the river. That, I thought, would make an awesome opening scene. Then I glanced up again. A slim Japanese woman, dressed all in white, was gazing out over the river. She caught my eye before folding her hands in front of her chest in prayer position. Her inky black hair swung over her shoulders as she bowed. Straightening, she nodded her head, then turned and walked away.

Was she bowing to the river? To the raven? To a person behind me? To me??! My mind started to whirr with questions, branches of possibility sprouted and bloomed.

Later, as I sorted through my week, I thought of other moments that sparkled: a young Japanese woman on the train noticing I was reading Kokoro by Beth Kempton and timidly striking up a conversation about it. The way she thanked me for speaking with her, as though my presence in the conversation was a gift. The Moroccan man with the silver eyes who incongruously owned a falafel shop in a beach town south of Tokyo. A conversation about kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery: in the West you try to make things look never broken, in Japan we highlight history by showcasing the break.

Why did none of those jewels feel like a story start? I sat with that for a bit, turning the moments over in my mind. They felt whole. Complete.

But the raven and the woman? Those moments felt like fragments, and in those fragmentations were possibility.

A story is a possibility. Whether it’s a novel or the story of your life. How we script the beginning begins to define the possibilities the story will explore.

So, with that in mind, here are three beginnings I considered for my novel. Notice how each beginning shifts the focus and the field of possibility for the story.

Which feels most intriguing?

I’ll put a poll below, but do tell me your thoughts in the comments!

1.

If one more person tells me to “use my powers for good,” I’m going to scream.

Sylvie didn’t have to say it. I reined myself in, changing whatever bombastic wish was about to fill my mouth to the tepid “I hope he gets a…. stomachache!”

Sylvie raised an auburn eyebrow. She was swathed in what could only be called a caftan, her hair pulled back and bundled in a yard-long scarf that perfectly framed that one perfectly manicured brow. I paused my rant, staring at the lifted arch. Just one. Did they teach facial control in psychotherapy school? If they did, Sylvie must have been top of her class.

I couldn’t help myself—I tried to mirror Sylvie’s expression. As usual, both eyebrows went up. Sylvie’s lips twitched before becoming stern again.

2.

The ring felt heavy on my hand. Noticing its weight, I bent my finger a little to make sure it didn’t slide into the Sound. It had gotten loose in the past few months. I’d meant to get a ring guard, but in the chaos of the final weeks of the semester, it had slipped my mind. And then the acceptance letter came from The Cloisters suggesting a surprisingly swift start date, and everything else got back-burnered.

The listing had been, on the surface, much like all the others: this internship is designed to provide an introduction to professional architectural history work in a museum setting…. But despite the boilerplate language, my heart seemed to pause as I read the write-up on the UW Career Center website. It wasn’t the job description that grabbed me, it was the name of the institution offering the position.

It might seem strange to romanticize a museum, but when I was a kid, mom had set all her fabulously lush bedtime stories at this venerable outpost of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

3.

From the road, the house was unremarkable. Just another slightly ramshackle, flat-fronted, colonial. Evie suspected her aunt kept it that way on purpose, as if the house were saying move along, nothing to notice here!

The view from the river, however, was another story. She’d been quite young when she first saw “Pempty” from the water. She remembered her father grabbing the back of her shirt to steady her as she leaned over the canoe’s side, her eyes tracing the stone steps will-o-wisping through the trees, the garden walls beckoning from the hilltop. While she couldn’t see them from the boat, she knew there were sculptures dappled along the trail that led up from the dock. Seven-year-old Evie wished the statues were of dragons and mermaids instead of what her twenty-seven-year-old self would identify as neoclassical confections. Under normal circumstances, the buff marble men and half-draped women would have made Evie snort, but knowing they were created by her great-grandfather (and worth a small fortune according to the museum curators who regularly solicited her aunt), cast the carvings in a kinder light.

Interested in a manuscript review or book coaching with Maia? Simply drop an email to team@maiatoll.com. There are currently openings for May and June.