Writing practice: analyzing how the narrative is structured (story vs dialogue vs description) in the count of monte cristo and write some passages based on that
In the title of chapter one, Dumas establishes the place (“The Arrival at Marseilles”). In the first sentence, he establishes the date (critical for the historical background of the story), specific place (we’re currently arriving in Marseilles), introduces an important theme (sea navigation), introduces an important ship in the story, and gives us a bit of background on it (where it’s been, introducing us to nearly the entire Mediterranean). That is all in less than 30 words. I would probably have gotten bogged down in description of setting, completely losing the reader in the first paragraph.
On page 1, more paragraphs are for narrative (story) than description. Again, I’d probably want to spend at least a page setting the scene of the world I’ve created than getting to the point so the reader doesn’t get saturated with description before putting it into context of “why is the author telling me this.”
In the first three sentences Dumas demonstrates he knows what he’s talking about regarding sailing (“three-master”, “pilot”, “built, rigged, and laden on the stocks”). And in the second sentence, he even foreshadows the Chateau d’If. There’s no screwing around – he gets right into the story and establishes himself as a veteran storyteller. I, however, an uncertain, beginner storyteller with little background knowledge for the story I’d be telling, would have spent too many lines on description because I’d want to stall the moment when the reader finds out I don’t actually have much plot to describe and I’m not a very good storyteller.
Ok, so just try to come up with some initial sentences, even if they’re nonsense and the information is wrong, just to practice jumping into the story right away:
- “It was a dark and stormy night.” Just kidding, that provides description but no context.
- “The moment he cast the fishing line, James knew something was off.” Also terrible, but at least there’s action.
- “The crop dusters swung low for their third pass over the upper six thousand acres of corn on Adam Smith’s family farm.” This is better – at least there’s action the reader can visualize and provides some setting. But it could be anytime since probably the early 1900’s, and any place, and we don’t know who Adam Smith is so even though it introduces a character, it doesn’t give the reader a compelling reason to want to know who Adam Smith is and doesn’t let him know if he’s an important character or whether the farm is the important “character”.
- “The tide came into Mockey Sound like a predator stalking its prey.” “Came into” is bad – you could use a much better verb related to a predator. “Like a” – use a metaphor, not a simile. What kind of predator, what kind of prey? It’s this type of vagueness that will lose a reader right away.
- “Dusk enshrouded the invidious tide infiltrating Mockey Sound.” Also not good. “Invidious” is not the word I’m looking for – it means negative or envious and I wanted something like a disease spreading. Also invidious and infiltrating is redundant (assuming I used the correct word instead of invidious) – it would be like writing “the sneaky burglar snuck into the house”. Redundancy kills a story and turns the reader off. And besides, this is just description instead of advancing the story – try for both.
- “On Wednesday, October 4, two children flying a kite on the pebbly shore of Mockey Sound ran home as the beach was infected by the oozing mass of a growing tide, tinged red by the dying embers of the setting sun and smelling of sulfur.” Ok, this is much better. I chose Wed Oct 4 because in a week and a half we’ll be at Friday the 13th, which suggests to the reader we’ve got 9 days of plot before the climax of the story. And of course words like oozing, tinged red, dying embers, and sulfur all conjure hell and evil. Still amateur, but this is much better than 1-5. If I do this every day for a month, I might start getting passably acceptable at writing first sentences… Keep going.
- “As the passing car clipped his bicycle tire, Jake’s last memory of the accident was that the gymnastics tryouts were only three weeks away.” Not horrible. It indicates Jake might have been knocked unconscious, was athletic and a competitor, and gives us an indication and timeframe for the story – this will likely be about Jake’s recovery and preparation for the tryouts, which will be the climax of the story in three weeks. Or maybe it’s like The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, where he doesn’t recover but changes his mindset and finds inner balance. I think this first sentence might be pretty good for a children’s book, in the 6-10 year old range maybe. Actually, this type of story could be quite good, where the theme is about handling adversity, broadening and developing ones’ perspective, working through a painful recovery (or not), and perhaps the resiliency that comes from one’s mindset – these are all really important themes that could make for a truly meaningfully beneficial story for little ones. I might revisit this at some point… Good job on this one.
I was thinking that maybe writing a good story is just about writing one compelling sentence after another. Probably easier said than done 🙂 Keep going.
- “Who is John Galt?” That one’s taken. Move on.
- “The glint that caught Victor’s eye as he let his mind float with the shifting silt on the riverbed below was the light reflecting off the cornea of an eye staring back at him.” Also not bad. There’s no screwing around with this – we’re plunked down into the story right at the pivotal moment when the hidden evil is exposed to Victor’s (probably) everyday, normal life. It would add suspense to the story if he didn’t recognize it as an eye, and the story developed with this thing emerging from the water (at night, after Victor leaves) and only slowly (over the course of days or weeks) begins to make itself known to Victor and his community.
- “Martin’s hand started shaking when he held a letter delivered that morning; the envelope was marked ‘Return to sender’ and the return address was in his handwriting, but he’d never sent it.” I probably would have made this two sentences but I’m practicing writing first sentences. Anyway, this isn’t bad and is engaging in that it poses questions with answers we’ll find out.
[ok, 2 hours. this is hard. the count of monte cristo is apparently about 100,000 sentences long. that means if i write one good sentence a day, i’ll be able to write a comparable novel in 274 years…]