How a Journey Begins

I started re-reading Master and Commander last night because I wanted to remind myself how the book started. O’Brian did a masterful job of showing the reader sense and sound and personality within the first page, the narrator moving into the principal character like air being breathed in.

We hear the music being played in the room, we see the salon-sized audience sitting on their delicate chairs, feel the weight of a young Royal Navy officer’s blue broadcloth worn with pride and not a little warmth.

There are no names at first, only impressions. We meet the characters as strangers often meet, through proximity and shared interests. Lt. Jack Aubrey is shown to have a larger than life personality and Dr Maturin’s misanthropic tendencies forewarn of an inevitable clash between the young men, but the next day a sudden promotion douses the fire of Jack’s sense of affront and he feels generous to everyone.

A friendship is born, an epic story rises out of the hot Minorcan dirt and spills out into the Mediterranean Sea and, through 20 ½ books, across the very oceans of the world.

Beginnings don't need to fill the reader in on every detail of a character. A hand beating time with the music and a scowl at being shushed show the reader so much more than writing "he liked music and often hummed along."

Writers must swirl through the atmosphere like ghosts. We must remember everything that has moved us in the past and give our characters the opportunity to smell, hear, see and touch the world we have created for them. Our thoughts build flesh. Then we hand out names.

Amy