Earlier, we took a look at Nelson Bond's 5,000 word pulp formula, where the old pulpster split the story into five 1,000 word sections, and gave advice for each. (Originally posted over at StoryHack, and mirrored here.) Bond would elaborate further on "The First Thousand Words" in Writer's Digest, focusing on the openings to pulp stories.
As a point of comparison, here is Bond's advice from "It's All a Matter of Timing: A Foolproof Fiction Formula":
First 1000 Words. Ends on Page 5.
Get going with a bang! Remember, you’re writing a short story, not Gone With the Wind. You can’t waste words, nor will the editor permit you to waste his or the readers’ time. Your first thousand words must tell who are to be the central characters of this work-of-art, when the story takes place, where the scene is set, what the problem is, and set the question as to how the hero expects to take care of it.
Get me straight! I don’t mean you should start off anything like this-
“John Marmaduke Frasier, tall, blonde and handsome Sheriff of Burp’s Crossing, Arizona, strode down Main Street wondering what he should do about saving the property of his fiancée, sweet Hildegarde Phlewzy, from the clutches of rich bank president, Phineas Gelt, who threatened to foreclose the mortgage on August 19th, 1904, twenty days hence . . .”
You think I’m crazy, eh? Nobody ever introduced a story that way? Guess again! I sat beside Harry Widmer of Ace Publications for a full hour one afternoon, reading over his shoulder unsolicited manuscripts that opened in exactly that fashion. Needless to say, the stories were not offered by “regulars,” nor did they come in the folders of an agent. They were the “unrush” mail, i.e., the free-lance offerings that earn pale blue slips reading,
“We regret to say-”
But get the thing moving. Start with something happening to somebody; not with mental maunderings, Grab your hero by the neck and shove him smack into a mess of trouble. Then show who started that trouble-and why. Introduce the other persons involved in the problem, make their opening speeches depict their characters. As you write, keep an eye on your page numbers. Remember that this phase of the story must be finished by the middle of page 5.
End the opening sections with the implication that Our Hero recognizes his difficulty and knows what he’s going to do about it.And now, Nelson Bond expounds on this advice:
*****
The First Thousand Words
By Nelson Bond
(Writer's Digest, November 1940)
One of the great faults of the writing profession is that, like any other trade, it tends to get formularized. We within in develop a language peculiarly our own; we start to talk a jargon of catch phrases and keywords which are, or can be, completely meaningless to the outsider and sometimes, worse luck, to ourselves.
Writers get together. They talk glibly of "tagging characters," "the narrative hook," "timing the pace"...
Mumbo-jumbo! Miss Dorothy Dase, presumably a young writer (though I may in my ignorance, do her an injustice with this hazard) wrote a letter to the editor of Writer's Digest. It appeared in the September issue. It asked: "Will you explain just what is meant by the 'narrative hook'? So many writers refer to it--and so help me--I don't know what it means!"
The editor's answer was clear and concise an explanation as, in my humble opinion, can be given:
A "narrative hook" is a literary device employed by many professional short story writers to "hook" the reader immediately into reading the author's story. The trick consists of plunging the lead character into a difficult situation, with definite promised action to come in the first 200 words of the story.Thus was Miss Dase inducted to the Inner Circle; so she became proud possessor of a Trade Secret. It is now her privilege to use the phrase "narrative hook" whensoever she chooses, to mystify lay friends with the catch-verbiage of the writing profession.
But take down your hair with me, pals! Does Miss Dase know any more than she did before? Does she know how to go about handling the "narrative hook"? Do you? Do I? Or do we just hopelessly confuse ourselves by accepting the premise that a narrative hook is the best way to get the reader's ear?
