Beginning Chapter One

[David Strickhouser]

Recently while re-reading some older TOS novels, I noticed how some of the authors would start their stories with an outside adventure/incident as the first chapter, then start Chapter Two with a Captain's Log entry and begin on the Enterprise, similar to the start of a TV episode.
Other authors would begin just like a TV episode: Log, then scene with the main characters (usually on the bridge), primarily Kirk, Spock and McCoy.
Depending on the author, and the story, I can adjust to both ways.

How do others feel about it? Start on the Enterprise first, or start the "mystery" of the story first?

 

[Christopher]

The book should begin in whatever way is most effective at getting the readers' attention. Generally that means getting straight into the story and not "walking to the plot," i.e. not spending too much time on preliminaries taking place before the real beginning of the story's events. Starting on the ship can work if it gets the plot moving straight away, or if it establishes character arcs/dynamics that will be important to the story to follow. (For instance, the simulator sequence that opens The Wrath of Khan doesn't connect to the main plot about, well, that Khan guy and his, y'know, wrath, but it establishes Saavik as the ambitious young newcomer, Kirk as the aging mentor figure who's no longer in the captain's seat, etc. -- plus, of course, it has action and suspense to catch the audience's interest, even if it's all a fakeout.) But if starting somewhere else does a better job of getting the story moving, then you do that instead.

As for starting off with a captain's log, that's something we're actually discouraged from doing these days, because it was done so often in older books that it became kind of a lazy fallback.

 

[Desert Kris]

During one of my marathoning of one of the ST shows a couple years ago, it occurred to me that the regular cast were more static in general that I had previously thought. It was that idea that the senior staff of the Enterprise don't seem to move on in their career for the longest time, and only seem to grow at such a slow pace, if at all. Just an impression, though. But it made me suddenly start to view individual episodes as having more of an anthology quality to them than I ever had before. The regular crew arrive somewhere and have a job to do, and most of the time doesn't have a lasting impact (that we can see very clearly!). I started to view the episodes from the standpoint that the story was really about the new location, situation, and the new characters that are part of each episode's scenario.

I used to read ST books, with an impatience about "When do I get to the parts of the book with Kirk and Spock?!" It's a question and anxiety from younger days. As Christopher says, the best open scene is the one that grabs the audience or readers. It's interesting to read that the Captain's log is being down played, but it's not that big of a deal if the book is really good. I used to be preoccupied with why Star Wars novels didn't have an opening crawl, to really get into it. After all these years of not having that, the newer books are using them, and it feels flashy, gimmicky.

The point about waiting for characters to walk to the plot is well taken, nowadays I really like the approach of some of those episodes that start off with us watching a landing party beaming down onto the planet, with a expositional Log Entry...the audience can multitask, collecting and processing the visual environment, and putting it together with the verbal information giving us background; and all of a sudden the audience and characters are right there in the middle of the story. And since reading a book is much more time consuming and more work on the reader in general, it makes getting to the point of the story faster more critical.

 

[stardream]

I remember a certain trope in the older novels that I still see it from time to time in the new ones. Chapter opens with random Starfleet vessel or space station (sometimes it can be an alien setting). We read a little bit about their daily lives and plans and then something terrible happens and these people that we have just met...die. Often times we get to see the last thing the temporary MC sees or get to read his or her last thoughts. I don't know if the trope has a name but it just seemed like it kept happening...over and over. That doesn't mean the writing was bad or the story was bad, it was just that I personally became tired of that sort of opening.

I remember one of Byer's books starting that way. Random Starfleet vessel, something unexpected occurs and...no one died. I was a bit surprised but glad she broke the trope.

 

[Christopher]

During one of my marathoning of one of the ST shows a couple years ago, it occurred to me that the regular cast were more static in general that I had previously thought. It was that idea that the senior staff of the Enterprise don't seem to move on in their career for the longest time, and only seem to grow at such a slow pace, if at all. Just an impression, though. But it made me suddenly start to view individual episodes as having more of an anthology quality to them than I ever had before. The regular crew arrive somewhere and have a job to do, and most of the time doesn't have a lasting impact (that we can see very clearly!). I started to view the episodes from the standpoint that the story was really about the new location, situation, and the new characters that are part of each episode's scenario.

That was pretty much the intent with TOS, and with other shows of the era. At the time, the attitude was the opposite of today's fashion: Anthologies were seen as the classiest, smartest shows, and serialized storytelling was reserved for lowbrow stuff like daytime soaps and sitcoms. Also, with fewer reruns and no home video, and little chance to catch episodes you missed, audiences experienced shows more on a week-by-week basis than as a continuous whole. And networks preferred to be able to air the episodes in any order they wanted, rather than being obligated to follow in-story continuity. So the preference even for continuing dramas was to be as anthology-like as possible, to have the core cast be familiar constants who inserted themselves into stories about the guest stars of the week, who were the ones that underwent growth or change in the course of the story. Main characters could have dramatic arcs, but only if they resolved themselves by the end of the episode (which is why so many love interests died).

I used to be preoccupied with why Star Wars novels didn't have an opening crawl, to really get into it. After all these years of not having that, the newer books are using them, and it feels flashy, gimmicky.

That would be a weird thing to have in a book. The reason the movies had them was as an emulation of the 1930s-40s Saturday-matinee adventure serials they were emulating (Lucas basically created Star Wars because his attempt to get the Flash Gordon remake rights fell through). The conceit was that the SW movies were "chapters" in an ongoing serial and that the audience needed a recap of what had gone on in the preceding "chapters." (The ironic thing is that the opening crawl of the original movie was a recap of a chapter that never actually existed -- but now they're actually making a movie, Rogue One, about the events it recaps, and yet it isn't being counted as the preceding chapter of the serial.) So putting that into the books seems contrived.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I frequently find that a seemingly irrelevant incident at the beginning of a novel turns out to be a "Chekhov's Gun."

 

[ATimson]

The conceit was that the SW movies were "chapters" in an ongoing serial and that the audience needed a recap of what had gone on in the preceding "chapters." ... So putting that into the books seems contrived.

I think it depends on the book. For the standalone novels we have now, it is rather contrived. But if similar prologues had been included in the novels making up The New Jedi Order, a 19-book series, it would've made a lot of sense.

The Marvel comics are also including the scrolls, which I think works pretty well there given the heavy serialization of the comic format.

 

[Stevil2001]

I think it depends on the book. For the standalone novels we have now, it is rather contrived. But if similar prologues had been included in the novels making up The New Jedi Order, a 19-book series, it would've made a lot of sense.

The hardcovers had prologues like that, right? I guess they were aimed at people only reading the hardcovers, so they'd know what happened in the intervening paperbacks.

 

[Greg Cox]

As for starting off with a captain's log, that's something we're actually discouraged from doing these days, because it was done so often in older books that it became kind of a lazy fallback.

Really? I"m not aware of that. I do it all the time and nobody at CBS or Pocket has ever said a word about it to me..

I certainly never got that memo.

 

[JD]

I don't really think the best way to start a book is the kind of thing that can be judged uniformly. It really depends on the story being told.
If it's a story about some big event on a planet that the main characters end up getting involved in, then it would make sense to start off with a set up on the planet, but if it's something focused more squarely on the main characters, then it makes sense to start with them.

 

[ATimson]

The hardcovers had prologues like that, right? I guess they were aimed at people only reading the hardcovers, so they'd know what happened in the intervening paperbacks.

The middle three did, but they gave up by The Unifying Force.

 

[Stevil2001]

The middle three did, but they gave up by The Unifying Force.

That's goofy, because they basically could have reused the Destiny's Way prologue in Unifying Force, given how little of importance happened in Force Heretic.

 

[David Strickhouser]

As for starting off with a captain's log, that's something we're actually discouraged from doing these days, because it was done so often in older books that it became kind of a lazy fallback.

Kind of sad; I like the log entry to "set the scene/time/place", especially within the TOS setting.

I suppose it is not necessary as extrapolation in a novel as it is in an episode.

 

[Greg Cox]

Kind of sad; I like the log entry to "set the scene/time/place", especially within the TOS setting.

I suppose it is not necessary as extrapolation in a novel as it is in an episode.

Again, I'm not aware of this being discouraged. I routinely begin my TOS novels with log entries in order to capture the feel of the TV series.

Certainly, it gets me into a TOS groove when I'm writing the books.

 

[David Strickhouser]

Again, I'm not aware of this being discouraged. I routinely begin my TOS novels with log entries in order to capture the feel of the TV series.

Certainly, it gets me into a TOS groove when I'm writing the books.

I agree with the "groove".
The log entry opening doesn't even need to be followed by a line mentioning the Enterprise drifting in space, or pulling into standard orbit; my mind's eye will do that for me.
Just jump right in to the characters on the bridge, in the briefing room, in a turbolift, in the transporter room, etc.

 

[Greg Cox]

I agree with the "groove".
The log entry opening doesn't even need to be followed by a line mentioning the Enterprise drifting in space, or pulling into standard orbit; my mind's eye will do that for me.
Just jump right in to the characters on the bridge, in the briefing room, in a turbolift, in the transporter room, etc.

And, honestly, it serves the original function of setting up the basic situation without having to write a bunch of expository dialogue conveying the same information. "Don't forget, gentlemen, we're here to negotiate peaceful relations with the Zunaz Confederation, who have never taken kindly to visitors before."

 

[Christopher]

^And yet in prose, you can provide that kind of narrative exposition in the actual narration, or in describing characters' inner thoughts, so it's not as necessary to do a log entry. And in a novel, you have the room to go into more detail in showing things that might have to be summarized in a log entry on TV. There are reasons for log entries onscreen that just aren't as important or necessary in prose. In particular, personal logs seem redundant as a way of expressing a character's private thoughts, when you can just toggle on the italics and go right inside their internal monologue.

For that matter, even the TV shows and movies have made less use of log entries over time. They were a lot less common in DS9 and VGR, and probably ENT, than they were in TOS, TAS, or TNG. So even onscreen, they managed to do without them a lot of the time. (Although Star Trek Beyond managed to make pretty good use of a log-entry opening.)

 

[Greg Cox]

Oh, they're definitely not mandatory. I like to use them at the beginning because I think it makes the book "feel" more like a STAR TREK episode, but I generally don't use them throughout the story, since novels don't have commercial breaks.

I will make exceptions, though, in special cases. In Weight of Worlds, when Uhura finally ends up the captain's chair, I gave her a log entry because, damn it, I wasn't going to put her in command and not begin a chapter with her doing the "captain's log" thing.

 

[David Strickhouser]

I think that that was what I was attempting to discuss; that opening log entries, whether in an episode or opening a novel, help with the expository concepts being conveyed in a particular adventure.
It's true the later spin-offs refrained from using them often; perhaps those producers thought that they were a worn-out device.
I personally just like 'em! Crisp, terse narration, which held neat info to get you into the "groove."
Thanks to Gene and Herb (according to Star Trek: The Inside Story)!

 

[Greg Cox]

It's like beginning a Sherlock Holmes story with gaslight, fog, and hansom cabs clip-clopping past Baker Street. It gets you in the mood right away.

Or so I like to think.