This group knows its protagonists!

 

HALLIE EPHRON: Congratulations to everyone who played!! We were especially chuffed to see how many of you knew the lines from our own books. 

 Here are the answers...

1
My name is [NAME]. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the deathcup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.
Mary Katherine Blackwood in We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson 

2
My name is [NAME]. I'm a private investigator, licensed by the state of California. I'm thirty-two years old, twice divorced, no kids. The day before yesterday I killed someone and the fact weighs heavily on my mind.
Kinsey Milhone in A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton

3
There are some men who enter a woman’s life and screw it up forever. Morelli did this to me—not forever, but periodically.
Stephanie Plum, One for the Money by Janet Eanovich 

4
I could smell him--or rather the booze on his breath--before he even opened dthe door. But my sense of smell is pretty good, probably better than yours. The key scratched against the lock and finally found the slot. The door opened and in, with a little stumble, came Bernie Little, founder and part owner (his ex-wife walked off with the rest) of the Little Detective Agency. I'd seen him look worse, but not often.
Chet (the dog) in Dog On It by Spencer Quinn's (aka Peter Abrahams) 

5
I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him. In my defense I must say it was an engrossing book, and it was very rare to come across another person in that particular part of the world in that war year of 1915. In my seven weeks of peripatetic reading amongst the sheep (which tended to move out of my way) and the gorse bushes (to which I had painfully developed an instinctive awareness) I had never before stepped on a person.
Mary Russell in The Beekeepers Apprentice by Laurie R. King 

6.
I thought: should I be worried? I was under arrest. In a town where I’d never been before. Apparently for murder. But I knew two things. First, they couldn’t prove something had happened if it hadn’t happened. And second, I hadn’t killed anybody. Not in their town, and not for a long time, anyway.
Jack Reacher in The Killing Floor by Lee Child

7.
[NAME] could hear the helicopter up there, somewhere, above the darkness, circling up in the light. Why didn’t it land? Why didn’t it bring help? Harry was moving through a smoky, dark tunnel and his batteries were dying. The beam of the flashlight grew weaker every yard he covered. He needed help. He needed to move faster. He needed to reach the end of the tunnel before the light was gone and he was alone in the black.
Harry Bosch in The Black Echo by Michael Connelly 

8.
It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.
Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler 

9.
I am well aware that my name is ridiculous. It was not ridiculous before I took this job four years ago. I’m a maid at the Regency Grand Hotel, and my name is [FIRST NAME]. [FIRST NAME - LAST NAME]. A joke. Before I took the job, [FIRST NAME] was just a name, given to me by my estranged mother, who left me so long ago that I have no memory of her, just a few photos and the stories Gran has told me. Gran said my mother thought [FIRST NAME] was a cute name for a girl, that it conjured apple cheeks and pigtails, neither of which I have, as it turns out. I’ve got simple, dark hair that I maintain in a sharp, neat bob. I part my hair in the middle—¬the exact middle. I comb it flat and straight. I like things simple and neat.
Molly Maid in The Maid by Nira Prose

10.
My name is [NAME]. I know all the countries of the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7,057. Eight years ago, when I first met Siobhan, she showed me this picture
[sad face] 
and I knew that it meant 'sad,' which is what I felt when I found the dead dog. Then she showed me this picture
[smiley face] 
and I knew that it meant 'happy', like when I'm reading about the Apollo space missions, or when I am still awake at 3 am or 4 am in the morning and I can walk up and down the street and pretend that I am the only person in the whole world.
Christopher John Francis Boone in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

11
[NAME] wore a black brocade dress, very much pinched in around the waist. Mechlin lace was arranged in a cascade down the front of the bodice. She had on black lace mittens, and a black lace cap surmounted the piled-up masses of her snowy hair. She was knitting, something white and fleecy. Her pale blue eyes, benignant and kindly, surveyed her nephew and her nephew’s guests with gentle pleasure.
Jane Marple in "The Tuesday Night Club" (a short story) by Agatha Christie 

12.
As the last of the coffee burbled and sputtered into the pot, I hurried out onto the dock to retrieve Connie’s copy of the Key West Citizen. I smoothed the paper on the café table in the kitchen and sat down for breakfast. Evinrude splayed out on the chair next to me, grooming his gray stripes into their morning order. I took a sip of coffee and almost spit it out when I saw Kristen’s head shot looming from the box on the front page reserved for the crime report. 
Hayley Snow in An Appetite for Murder by Lucy Burdette 

13.
[NAME]'s holiday began well. As he turned the car into the lane, a shaft of sun broke through the clouds and lit a patch of rolling Yorkshire moor as if someone had thrown the switch on a celestial spotlight.
Drystone walls ran like pale runes across the brilliant green of pasture, where luminous sheep nibbled, unconcerned with their importance in the composition. The scene seemed set off in time as well as space, and gave him the sensation of viewing a living tapestry, a world remote and utterly unattainable. The clouds shifted again, the vision fading as swiftly as it had come, and he felt an odd shiver of loss at its passing.
Duncan Kincaide in A Share in Death by Deborah Crombie
 
14.
There are two disadvantages to being a minor royal. First, one is expected to behave as befits a member of the ruling family, without being given the means to do so. One is expected to kiss babies, open fetes, put in appearances at Balmoral (suitable kilted) and carry trains at weddings. Ordinary means of employment are frowned upon.”
Lady Georgie in Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen

15.
"It was one hell of a night to throw away a baby. The cold pinched at NAME’s nose and made him jam his hands deep into his coat pockets, grateful that the Washington County Hospital had a police parking spot just a few yards from the ER doors. A flare of red startled him, and he watched as an ambulance backed out of its bay silently, lights flashing. The driver leaned out of his window, craning to see his way between cement rails.
Russ Van Alstyne in In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming 

16.
[NAME] had thrown up after the verdict.
She’d twisted her damp hair away from her face, avoided the mirror, and contemplated how long she could hide in the Suffolk County Courthouse ladies’ room. Forever would be good. Instead, she’d gritted out a smile for the scrum of cameras as Channel 11’s defense attorney promised her television colleagues an immediate appeal of the jury’s decision. The two then marched down the granite steps of the courthouse, the lawyer’s pin-striped arm protectively across Jane’s shoulder, as if a million-dollar damage verdict were the honorable cost of doing journalism business. 
Jane Ryland in The Other Woman by Hank Phillippi Ryan 

17. "Oh, I just love that Maxim de Winter," Violet La Rue said, her knitting needles clicking together as if to emphasize her words. "He gives me the shivers."
"Him?"Nancy Peyton asked. "He's not nearly as scary as Mrs. Danvers."
[NAME] glanced up from her knitting at the two ladies sitting across the circle from her. It was crafternoon Thursday, where membes of the crafternoon club gathered at the Briar Creek Library to do a craft--currently they were knitting--and discuss the assigned book of the week. 
Lindsay Norris in Books Can Be Deceiving by Jenn McKinlay

Did you notice that most of the answers are the author's debut novel, or first in a opular series.

What's a main character whose "voice" you love to listen to (aka: read) and if you have a short quote, share it.

Do you know your protagonists? A quiz...

 

HALLIE EPHRON: Such interesting comments yesterday - Thanks, all!

And it got me thinking about main character introductions that give us an immediate insight into character. 

Here are 17 of my personal favorites, and today's challenge is to a) name the narrator being introduced and b) extra credit for the author or the book title. [NO FAIR USING GOOGLE!!]

1
My name is [NAME]. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the deathcup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.

2
My name is [NAME]. I'm a private investigator, licensed by the state of California. I'm thirty-two years old, twice divorced, no kids. The day before yesterday I killed someone and the fact weighs heavily on my mind.

3
There are some men who enter a woman’s life and screw it up forever. Morelli did this to me—not forever, but periodically.

4
I could smell him--or rather the booze on his breath--before he even opened dthe door. But my sense of smell is pretty good, probably better than yours. The key scratched against the lock and finally found the slot. The door opened and in, with a little stumble, came Bernie Little, founder and part owner (his ex-wife walked off with the rest) of the Little Detective Agency. I'd seen him look worse, but not often.

5
I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him. In my defense I must say it was an engrossing book, and it was very rare to come across another person in that particular part of the world in that war year of 1915. In my seven weeks of peripatetic reading amongst the sheep (which tended to move out of my way) and the gorse bushes (to which I had painfully developed an instinctive awareness) I had never before stepped on a person.

6.
I thought: should I be worried? I was under arrest. In a town where I’d never been before. Apparently for murder. But I knew two things. First, they couldn’t prove something had happened if it hadn’t happened. And second, I hadn’t killed anybody. Not in their town, and not for a long time, anyway.

7.
[NAME] could hear the helicopter up there, somewhere, above the darkness, circling up in the light. Why didn’t it land? Why didn’t it bring help? Harry was moving through a smoky, dark tunnel and his batteries were dying. The beam of the flashlight grew weaker every yard he covered. He needed help. He needed to move faster. He needed to reach the end of the tunnel before the light was gone and he was alone in the black.

8.
It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

9.
I am well aware that my name is ridiculous. It was not ridiculous before I took this job four years ago. I’m a maid at the Regency Grand Hotel, and my name is [FIRST NAME]. [FIRST NAME - LAST NAME]. A joke. Before I took the job, [FIRST NAME] was just a name, given to me by my estranged mother, who left me so long ago that I have no memory of her, just a few photos and the stories Gran has told me. Gran said my mother thought [FIRST NAME] was a cute name for a girl, that it conjured apple cheeks and pigtails, neither of which I have, as it turns out. I’ve got simple, dark hair that I maintain in a sharp, neat bob. I part my hair in the middle—¬the exact middle. I comb it flat and straight. I like things simple and neat.

10.
My name is [NAME]. I know all the countries of the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7,057. Eight years ago, when I first met Siobhan, she showed me this picture
[sad face]
and I knew that it meant 'sad,' which is what I felt when I found the dead dog.
Then she showed me this picture
[smiley face]
and I knew that it meant 'happy', like when I'm reading about the Apollo space missions, or when I am still awake at 3 am or 4 am in the morning and I can walk up and down the street and pretend that I am the only person in the whole world.

11
[NAME] wore a black brocade dress, very much pinched in around the waist. Mechlin lace was arranged in a cascade down the front of the bodice. She had on black lace mittens, and a black lace cap surmounted the piled-up masses of her snowy hair. She was knitting, something white and fleecy. Her pale blue eyes, benignant and kindly, surveyed her nephew and her nephew’s guests with gentle pleasure.

12.
As the last of the coffee burbled and sputtered into the pot, I hurried out onto the dock to retrieve Connie’s copy of the Key West Citizen. I smoothed the paper on the café table in the kitchen and sat down for breakfast. Evinrude splayed out on the chair next to me, grooming his gray stripes into their morning order. I took a sip of coffee and almost spit it out when I saw Kristen’s head shot looming from the box on the front page reserved for the crime report.

13.
[NAME]'s holiday began well. As he turned the car into the lane, a shaft of sun broke through the clouds and lit a patch of rolling Yorkshire moor as if someone had thrown the switch on a celestial spotlight.

Drystone walls ran like pale runes across the brilliant green of pasture, where luminous sheep nibbled, unconcerned with their importance in the composition. The scene seemed set off in time as well as space, and gave him the sensation of viewing a living tapestry, a world remote and utterly unattainable. The clouds shifted again, the vision fading as swiftly as it had come, and he felt an odd shiver of loss at its passing.

14.
There are two disadvantages to being a minor royal. First, one is expected to behave as befits a member of the ruling family, without being given the means to do so. One is expected to kiss babies, open fetes, put in appearances at Balmoral (suitable kilted) and carry trains at weddings. Ordinary means of employment are frowned upon.”

15.
"It was one hell of a night to throw away a baby. The cold pinched at NAME’s nose and made him jam his hands deep into his coat pockets, grateful that the Washington County Hospital had a police parking spot just a few yards from the ER doors. A flare of red startled him, and he watched as an ambulance backed out of its bay silently, lights flashing. The driver leaned out of his window, craning to see his way between cement rails.

16.
[NAME] had thrown up after the verdict.

She’d twisted her damp hair away from her face, avoided the mirror, and contemplated how long she could hide in the Suffolk County Courthouse ladies’ room. Forever would be good. Instead, she’d gritted out a smile for the scrum of cameras as Channel 11’s defense attorney promised her television colleagues an immediate appeal of the jury’s decision. The two then marched down the granite steps of the courthouse, the lawyer’s pin-striped arm protectively across Jane’s shoulder, as if a million-dollar damage verdict were the honorable cost of doing journalism business.

17.
"Oh, I just love that Maxim de Winter," Violet La Rue said, her knitting needles clicking together as if to emphasize her words. "He gives me the shivers." "Him?"

Nancy Peyton asked. "He's not nearly as scary as Mrs. Danvers."

[NAME] glanced up from her knitting at the two ladies sitting across the circle from her. It was crafternoon Thursday, where membes of the crafternoon club gathered at the Briar Creek Library to do a craft--currently they were knitting--and discuss the assigned book of the week.

Gentle reminder: NO FAIR USING GOOGLE.

Post your guesses. And we welcome your comments.

If you have a favorite paragraph or two from a crime novel that introduces a main character, post it in the comments so the rest of us can guess who it is and what book it's from. 

Answers will be posted in tomorrow's blog.

Rule #37: Don't open with a cocktail party

 HALLIE EPHRON: As anyone who’s taken any of my writing workshops knows, I’m full of rules.

One of them is: “Don’t open with a cocktail party.” Of course I don’t mean that literally. I mean don’t overload the opening of your book by introducing too many characters too quickly. Don’t open with a crowd scene.

Even introducing a single character is heavy lifting–for both the writer and the reader. There’s the character’s name. Physical appearance. Relationship to the other characters you’re introducing. Quirks. The list goes on…. With their first appearance they need to make an impression. Introduce too many too fast and readers will choke. They won’t remember who’s who and might even stop caring.

My rules usually have the caveat: “Write well enough and you can break any rule in the book.”

Which brings me to a book I’m reading at the moment. It’s a huge bestseller written by a beloved author. And it opens by introducing about half dozen characters, each in a separate location with a variety of connections to one another. Fortunately, in short order one of them is murdered, culling the herd. But still, for about 20 pages it’s a slog remembering who’s who until everything meshes.

Do you think there’s such a thing as *too many characters too soon* and if your story requires it, how do you finesse it?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: The very first book I ever tried to write, which did not get very far, was about the first female golf pro in Massachusetts, and how she solved a mystery about a deadly herbicide on the golf course. It was a brilliant idea. Maybe. But I didn’t know what I was doing. And I stopped.

Totally your case in point: the first chapter was a golf foursome on the course, as well as a caddy, and references to several other people. Truly, there were at least five people in the scene, none of whom you knew, as well as allusions to other people.

You absolutely had no idea who to care about.

But. I also just finished a book that has about a million characters from moment one, and some off-the-page characters referred to as well. But the writing was so immersive, and so fabulous, and I thought: “you know, this author is aware of what she’s doing, and she’ll let me know who I need to care about when the time comes.” And that turned out to be completely true. And the book is incredible.

But I so agree, Hallie. The rest of us are not Liane Moriarty and Big Little Lies. And  I am very careful now not to overpopulate my first chapter.

JENN McKINLAY: I’m trying to think of a book that had a crowded opening scene that made me quit. Nothing is coming to mind, probably because I quit. LOL. I’m not a big fan of prose heavy openings either. I don’t want to read a description of snow falling for five pages.

As for me, I’m a master level eavesdropper so I love starting a book with dialogue as it takes the weight off the opening line and hopefully hooks the reader immediately. No more than three characters for the opening paragraphs and then it can expand.

RHYS BOWEN: One thing I hate is too many characters too soon. I find myself flipping back and forth: Who was Doug? Was he married to Serena? I was trying to remember if any of my books start with multiple characters but I can’t think of any.

In Farleigh Field had multiple protagonists and we jumped between several sites but I think they were all parallel stories going on until they all joined at the end. (At least that was what I wanted!)

Of course my two series are written in the first person so we always start seeing the world through the eyes of the protagonist and having her set the scene tor us. This makes it much easier.

LUCY BURDETTE: I have very little patience with too many characters. Most of the time I refuse to go back and look somebody up, I will either put the book down or else keep reading and hope it all becomes clear.

But Jenn and Rhys make interesting comments, maybe it’s easier with first person to keep the characters under control.

I had to go back and look at the opening of THE MANGO MURDERS, which will be out in August 2025. it does indeed start with a cocktail party! On a sunset cruise! However, before you ever get to the cruise and the party, there is quite a bit of Hayley Snow talking to set the scene.

I hope this works – I’m sure you will let me know:).

DEBORAH CROMBIE: The first chapter of my first book opens with only three characters. Smart, right?

Then, in chapter two, A COCKTAIL PARTY! Literally. What was I thinking?

Obviously I didn't know any better, but I seem to have navigated my way through it somehow. Still, many books later, I find scenes with a lot of characters the most challenging to write. Give me a good old descriptive passage or an internal monologue any day!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: This is a timely question, Hallie, as I’m reading a book with a famously vast number of characters - ANNA KARININA.

Yes, one of my resoilutions was to broaden my reading to include classics I’ve missed. I’m reading the 2000 translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, and they translate the famous opening line as: All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

In the first eleven pages, we meet seven characters in person, name check the titular character, and are also told the household has an English governess, a cook, a coachman, a kitchen maid, and the now banished affair partner, the French governess. It feels crowded, which is perfect, because the household of Prince Stepan Oblansky is crowded to the point of intrusiveness, just as, we will see, the society he and his family live in is crowded and intrusive. There never seems to be enough space for people to just be themselves.

Technically speaking, all these character introductions work because they come through Stepan’s point of view. Everyone is described in terms of how they relate to him: his wife, his favorite child, his sister, his valet. It gives the reader a solid framework to slot characters into place. And yes, I was brave and decided to plunge in without reading the cast of characters, so I was relying on Tolstoy to not let me down.

BTW, I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s much more lively than I thought it would be.

HALLIE: So how about the rest of us? Which writers manage to defy the odds and keep you turning the pages even when they introduce a plethora of characters in short order?