From CB’s Top 100 Writing Tips, Tricks, Techniques and Tools from the Advice Toolbox: Break the rules, not the writing
Keep your promises.
When a reader picks up a text for the first time, reads the first few words in a preview, or gets the first few chapters for signing up to a mailing list, the rest of the story had better be of the same type and quality as the sample from which they made their purchasing decision or other commitment. Otherwise, they will go away unhappy, having read the story little beyond the point where its original promise broke down.
There can be any number of reasons the reader feels cheated in this respect.
The first page may promise humor, but by the second chapter, all the humor may have drained from the narrative.
The first chapter may promise an adventure novel, but by the sixth, the story has turned into a romance.
The promise must not only be apparent at the beginning of the story, but it must be apparent in the smallest preview sample of any of the story samples a reader might pick up. So the first page, as a first indicator would be a good place to set genre and tone.
The danger of failing to deliver on the promise is double when the promise is misrepresented at the start. For example, suppose a writer had the Good Idea of producing a novel that is a mix of the romance and detective genres. Let us suppose it has the title Fearless (a made-up example—apologies to those that have written books titled Fearless; this is not one of them) and the book has the silhouette of a woman in high heels on the cover (another made-up example). The novel starts with an intriguing crime, in full-on detective mode, and yet warms up as a romance as the story progresses and ends up, the crime long-forgotten, in a blissful embrace. A reader who might like the ending will never even pick up the book because a glance at the beginning makes it out to be a detective story, and any detective story reader picking up the book expecting the great plot reveal at the end will be disappointed, even angry, at what they get (if they get that far). Neither reader will touch that author again or recommend the book to anyone.
The writer needs to make the promise, to set genre and tone early in the text.
And to keep to it.
Carter Blakelaw BSc BA lives in bustling central London, in a street with two bookshops and an embassy, any of which might provide escape to new pastures, if only for an afternoon. Carter has studied physics, philosophy and computer science and was the architect and lead programmer for the Rooms 3D Desktops virtual reality engine, and has worked in integrated circuit design. In addition to his Top 100 Writing Tips book, he has published three books on what makes us conscious and how that knowledge impinges on both the machines we build and on our art. He has been an active member of the T-Party (latterly renamed Gravity’s Angels) SF writers’ group for 15 years, and of the Cola Factory (latterly renamed Spectrum) SF writers’ group, for the last ten years. Carter’s website is: https://www.carterblakelaw.com/ for more info and up-to-date news.
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