The Opening Image
In my first post in the summer of 2020 (The Purpose), I mentioned the book "Save the Cat Writes a Novel." In that book, it walks you through how all successful stories are structured. The first part is called "The Opening Image."
The purpose of the opening image is to introduce your readers to the world. At this point, I've lived in the world of Ptolemy's Tales for years but no one else has. In order to tell the story it's important that I get everyone up to speed on the world as quickly as possible. Hopefully I was able to accomplish that.
Going into the chapter, here were the main aspects of the world that I wanted to introduce:
- We begin on Earth. Specifically Cardiff, Wales. For future story points it was important to me that Ptolemy was British, but I didn't want to make him English.
- There is advanced space travel. It's fairly new, but there have been huge strides made for the future of humanity.
- Ptolemy's father, Eduard, is somehow responsible for the Galactic Society's success in making those strides.
- There are a special group of explorers called the Galactic Scouts.
- In memory of one of those Scouts disappearance years earlier, pilot's refuse to fly on that date. Possibly out of respect, superstition, or fear.
As for characters, I tried to focus on those important to Ptolemy:
- Ptolemy was inspired by his dad's work, but his real heroes were the space explorers. He has a plan in his mind of how he can one day become one of those explorers.
- Ptolemy's mother is terrified of the dangers of flight and is understandably struggling through the day. However, she is going to put on her best face for the world to see.
- Ptolemy's father was a scientist before his death and worked with the Scouts.
- "Uncle Rob" was a close family friend and one of the original Scouts. Ptolemy's mentor who he idolized as a kid.
Since this is my first draft, I'm trying my hardest to not go back and edit anything. So I hope I hit all those points without being repetitive. I also hope I kept the same voice and tone throughout the chapter because I wrote it over the span of two weeks. I'm afraid to go back and reread it because I know if I did I'll start rewriting the entire thing. Oh perfectionism, how I loathe thee.
Another big choice for me was to switch from a 3rd-person narrator in the Prologue to 1st-person in the actual book. I made this decision relatively recently, while working on my blog. In fact, you can see that switch occurred right before I wrote Short #9 "Rachel's Roll & Sort."
For a book titled "Ptolemy's Tales," it dawned on me that it was only logical for Ptolemy to be telling you a story. Otherwise, the title is just a bit of fun alliteration. Furthermore, the Prologue sets up that Ptolemy himself is telling his story to other people. Again, it's only logical that I allow him to speak.
I really hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Up next is Chapter 2: The L-Bo
