# Enter Late. Leave Early.



## Kyle R (Jul 7, 2014)

Picture this.

You're in an elevator, cheesy jazz music wafting around you like a bad fart, when the girl in front of you twirls around and asks if you're going to be at "the big party." This girl, she waves her hands in front of your face like she's performing a magic trick. Everyone who's anyone will be there, she tells you. 

You imagine all these glossy snobs fluttering around some ballroom with martinis in their hands, their tongues glistening with exotic liquors, and as this scene unfolds in your head you picture the face of the agent you've been trying to land for the past three months. The one with the bright red phone. The one with the Big Six editor on speed dial. The one who, if you could just get him to glance at your manuscript, will take you all the way to the top (you're sure of it). This guy, you see him in your head, mixed in with all the other penguin suits, looking bored.

The girl, her eyebrows go up and up while she talks. Her head bobbles like her neck's made of spaghetti. Her words wash over you like a flood—disorienting, overwhelming, a mix of valley talk and big city lingo—but the subtext of all of it's obvious: you'd be a fool to miss this event. So you nod and smile, and you get the address from her, poking it into your cellphone. 

The elevator dings on her floor and she's halfway out when she turns back and tells you, "Oh yeah! The doors open at eight."

You've got time to kill—it's barely half-past five—but you show up at six, anyway. After all, you want to make a good impression. 

The staff is there, setting everything up, muttering locker room jokes. Their voices turn to whispers when you stroll through the double doors. The servers, they watch you from the corners of their eyes while you help fold the napkins. The bartender, he furrows his brow while you wipe the counter. Someone in the kitchen laughs when you start mopping the floor.

By the time eight o'clock rolls around, you've got ovals of sweat oozing across the underarms of your shirt, your hair is plastered to your forehead, and your feet ache like you've been walking on cut glass. 

People start trickling in, their clothes shiny like plastic, their hair coiffed like cotton wisps, but all you can think about is how soft your bed would feel, right now, pressed against the contours of your back. By the time your dream agent arrives, phone in hand, you've already spent the past ten minutes lurching across the dance floor with your tongue hanging out, like a zombie.

Somehow, the sight of this red-phoned man ignites you, like a firework. You streak across the hall, your sneakers barely touching the polished wood, and jam your grip right into his. "Glad to finally meet you in person," you say. You tell him your name. You tell him where you're from. You tell him why he should care.

The whole exchange is tepid, at best. Just like he did in your daydream, the man looks positively bored. He glances at your sweat stains and your disheveled hair, and he leans back a little, increasing the distance between the two of you. He nods along with your pitch, looking more at his drink and his phone than you, and cuts you off halfway through your synopsis to say, "Alright, I'll give it a read." He makes eye-contact with you, for the first significant amount of time the entire evening, and tells you, "No promises, though."

This is where you should make your exit. You know this, instinctively, on some deep, visceral level, the same way you know the raw fish you've been tooth-picking off the platters all night is going to come back with a vengeance tomorrow morning. But, this is important to you. You want to see it through.

So, you hang around. The agent, he walks around the room, nodding at acquaintances, and you, like a shadow, follow him.

When he shakes hands with the mayor's daughter and jokes about the upcoming campaign, you laugh out loud behind him. "Good one!" you say.

When he looks back at you, you smile so wide he can see your gums.

This agent, the one you're counting on to read your breakout story, he grips his stomach and excuses himself, making a beeline to the restroom.

The music's blasting in your head and you've got a million ideas still fluttering around in there, like wild birds. So, this agent, you follow him.

When he's locked in his stall and his pants are puddled around his ankles, you fill the stall next time him and you say, "I have this great idea for the cover."

The agent, he says nothing. You can hear the toilet paper roll twisting. His shoes scuff against the linoleum floor.

"I also have a script in the works for the television series," you say. You keep your hands perched on your knees, like an attentive student. Your breath chirps out of you in miniature puffs.

Eventually the agent flushes and leaves the stall. You exit with him, wash your hands alongside him.

Finally, the agent looks at you through the mirror and says, "You know what? I've decided not to read your story. You had me interested for a bit there, but now, frankly, I don't want to see your face anymore. I don't want to hear your voice anymore. I don't want anything to do with you."

You open your mouth to say something, but the agent, he whisks out the door so fast all you manage to get out is a, "But--!"

You stand there, your hands still dripping, your mouth dropped open, while the music thumps through the wall like an Edgar Allen heart.

#​

So, what did you do wrong? Better yet, what _should you have done_?

There are two things, really, that can help you make a better impression. And this isn't just about attending parties. It's about *writing good fiction*.

1) *ENTER LATE*

2)* LEAVE EARLY*

Obviously, our protag showed up way too early. So early, in fact, that he wore himself out. By the time he met his agent, he looked like a mess. He also hung around way too long, until the agent had finally had enough of him.

The agent is your reader. He can tell when you've been lingering too long, dragging things out. This is one of the most important things you can learn when writing fiction.

Why *arrive late*? Just like a party, readers want to be plunged right into the action, the excitement, the interesting stuff. They don't want to hang around for an hour while the cleaning lady vacuums an empty hall.

Make it a regular practice of yours to *enter the scene as late as possible*. Readers don't need to see your characters sharing empty greetings and asking each other how the kids are before the real argument starts. This isn't real life, where we sometimes have to suffer through moments, no matter how pointless they become. This is fiction, where you have the power to cut, the streamline, to edit.

Start with things already in motion. In the scenario above, we could have started with our protag waking up for the day. We could have described his teeth-brushing and his morning breakfast. The drive over to the parking lot.

So why did we start with the girl in the elevator, talking about "the big party?" Because that was the latest we could enter the scene. Everything up to that point was irrelevant. So, we bypassed it.

We *entered late*. Just at the point where we needed to, to give the reader enough bearings. Just at the point where it got interesting.

How about the ending?

We could have ended with our protag going home, flipping through the phonebook, looking for the agent's number to call and apologize. But that's irrelevant, too. The promise had already been paid off. The goal of the scene (that of trying to get the agent to read the protag's story) has already been resolved: the agent, because of our protag's persistence, said no.

We *left early*. We didn't even hang around to see our protag dry his hands. We left him in front of the bathroom sink, wallowing in shock.

When you enter your scenes late and abandon them early, things take on a certain poignance, a certain resonance. The reader recognizes, even if it's on a subconscious level, that what they've just read has been *purposeful*. They know this because you, the writer, have deliberately chosen the starting and ending points, like the edges of a picture frame. 

Like an expert film director, you're *framing the conflict* with as tight a shot as possible.

*ENTER LATE. LEAVE EARLY.*

Learn it, live it, love it. :encouragement:


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## Morkonan (Jul 7, 2014)

Very nice. 

I was confronted with two similar situations in the past week. In both, I had been invited to a party.

For  the first, I was well aware of the host's proclivities. So, I quietly  nursed my single glass of wine and offered little of substance in the  way of commentary, politely acknowledging guest's stories and ramblings  with my quiet encouragement and the occasional compliment. Things went  swimingly and I was held in high regard by all. I returned home  refreshed and positive, having enjoyed the evening thoroughly. 

The  next occasion at another location didn't go so well. I brought several  bottles of wine (An invited guest never shows up empty-handed.) and  stayed until the party had dwindled to that few collection of die-hards  that have nothing else better to do... Somewhere, I dropped an  atmosphere bomb that left things on a low note... You know the type -  "Oh yeah? Well, my dog just died, having been run over by my girlfriend,  who swerved into a telephone pole and burned alive while I was forced  to watch the entire thing due to the fact that toothpicks had been  shoved into my eyes... Yeah, one of those sorts of bombs. I returned  home, kicking myself, and swearing that I would never say anything of  substance after having more than two glasses of wine... (For a "party",  one is most often best received at the middle, once the guests are  juiced up... Leave before you do anything stupid. For a dinner party,  arrive on time, preferably no less than five minutes and no more than  fifteen minutes before the designated time, but always leave before you  do something stupid.  )

On writing, In Medias Res is a very  engaging and popular opening. I agree that if you want something strong  to start with, you can hardly find any better! I also believe in leaving  the Reader wanting more and implying, wherever possible, that there's  more on the next page to be had, if the Reader would just turn to it.  So, "Leaving Early" counts as an appropriate metaphor on that count.


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## Ride the Pen (Jul 21, 2014)

Kyle R said:


> When he's locked in his stall and his pants are puddled around his ankles, you fill the stall next time him and you say, "I have this great idea for the cover."



This is where you got me laughing out loud.

Anyways, this concept is especially important for screenplays. Screenplays don't show the slightest tolerance for authors waffling on and on...


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## Greimour (Jul 23, 2014)

Excellent. And I am left wondering; "Why on Earth am I only reading this now?"


~Kev


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## Kepharel (Jul 23, 2014)

Not sure about the sentiments here.  Personally I don't like to feel as though I have stumbled onto a loud flashy brass band of text oompah-ing me into submission before I've collected my senses.  I like to be introduced to a scene gently so that protagonist and his world are seen in symbiosis, which means someone has to take the time to convince me.  Just my POV. For some weird reason, Post 1 above reminds me of a Tom and Gerry cartoon


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## Greimour (Jul 23, 2014)

Kepharel said:


> Not sure about the sentiments here.  Personally I don't like to feel as though I have stumbled onto a loud flashy brass band of text oompah-ing me into submission before I've collected my senses.  I like to be introduced to a scene gently so that protagonist and his world are seen in symbiosis, which means someone has to take the time to convince me.  Just my POV. For some weird reason, Post 1 above reminds me of a Tom and Gerry cartoon



Well, a personal quote of mine: "A story is like a hot bath; you have to ease in nice and slow before you can fully enjoy it."

I have lost count of the books I have read that start with action, but even in those cases that quote of mine remains true.

Opening the book is when I turn my baths tap off. The first scene (action or otherwise) is me touching the water with my hands. As I move on through the story - that is me tentatively dipping my toes in the water... by half way through the book I am submersed in my bath (the story). When I get out, I am clean and refreshed. Unless the story turned bad at some point - when I jump out of the bath due to the water being too cold. One example of the story turning cold is shown above - where the persistence of the protagonist forced me to abandon him.

~

My point and the comments relevance to yours. 

'How' you are eased in can vary, surely? In fact, unless every story you read starts the exact same way - that would have to be a fact. 

Kyle opens the scene in an elevator listening to crappy music. How much plainer can a scene get? Yet it was made a little more exciting/interesting by what was happening. As far as I am concerned, I was eased into to that scene and story at a leisurely pace. I wasn't dragged in and then thrown into the fray. 

Perhaps I misunderstood your post or what you like - but I didn't see how what Kyle said differs to what you like. 

"I am not sure about the sentiments" ... 

to me there were more lessons than just the "Enter late and leave early" of a protagonist or character ... There is for example; "starting your story at exactly where it needs to start" (rather than with the tedious life story that preceded the _actual story's_ moment of beginning).

 I am not saying this is an ironclad rule or a recipe guaranteed to create a perfect "crème brûlée" - but the lesson is still one worth being learned, taught and advised. Whether you adhere to it or not - there is nothing wrong with adding extra tools to the toolbox. Sometimes it's OK to hammer the screw. Other times, you have no choice but to bring out the screwdriver... and even then, pozi or negative?

Anyway; what I mean to say is... I don't see how Kyle's 'lesson' goes against what you like (or against your POV) ... I guess it is a matter of how literal you view the words compared to how you can apply them. 

Also - what reminded you of Tom and Gerry cartoon, and how? I can't see what would make you think of it.


~Kev.


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## Kepharel (Jul 23, 2014)

"Her eyebrows go up and down when she talks. Her head bobbles like her neck's made of spaghetti" is Tom and Gerryesque.  I kept bringing to mind the cartoon where Tom makes a zoot suit out of a deck chair and sports an oversize fedora to impress the lady cat.  They just seemed those types of people..cartoonish.  I'm sorry, but the story excerpt just clatters around the page like a drunk getting his bearings.  Maybe it's just having no sense of the where and, to some extent, the why, or maybe I just don't like the passage and wouldn't like it however it might be written. Yeah, maybe that's it, just a personal thing with me because I do agree cleaning ladies with vacuum cleaners is just a space filler too far.


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## Kyle R (Jul 23, 2014)

Kepharel said:
			
		

> I'm sorry, but the story excerpt just clatters around the page like a drunk getting his bearings.



 The scene was written as a tongue-in-cheek nod to the students of Chuck Palahniuk, who structures his fiction essays by first writing a mini-story, followed by an explanation of the technique used.

The cartoonish adjectives were a result of my attempt at Palahniuk-esque prose. My apologies if the style distracted from the topic. Probably a result of me trying to be too clever.


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## Greimour (Jul 23, 2014)

Kepharel said:


> "Her eyebrows go up and when she talks. Her head bobbles like her neck's made of spaghetti" is Tom and Gerryesque.



Lol. I guess when you point it out I can imagine it too ^_^

As for the rest. I think I am starting to see what you are getting at, but still feel it is off base from the post. 

The story itself wasn't the point being made, it was the message(s) within used as little more than example material. So I am left wondering. Had Kyle used a different story to teach the same lesson, is it then possible you would like the lesson? 



> I'm sorry, but the story excerpt just clatters around the page like a drunk getting his bearings.



I think that's kind of the point. And it's not an excerpt. It is the entire story, from start to end. Like I said, just example material mostly. 
Effective material and well used I would say.

The main character was a metaphorical entity. The entire piece acted as a lesson on multiple levels; with multiple things to convey.

The agent in the story for example, was never an agent. He was the reader of your story. Whether that reader is your relative, your agent, your editor, publisher or significant other - the agent in the above story is the reader of your story.

...


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## Kyle R (Jul 23, 2014)

Greimour said:


> The main character was a metaphorical entity. The entire piece acted as a lesson on multiple levels; with multiple things to convey.



Bingo! :encouragement:


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## Plasticweld (Jul 23, 2014)

I read this awhile ago and never commented because the story left with me a different metaphor.



As someone who always is looking for the bright side of things, or the lesson to be learned.  I came up with the solution to the writers problem and why his behavior didn't go over so well and how to fix it. 

Ok, he stinks, he is poorly groomed and his manners are poor or non-existent.  In what realm would he ever be accepted let alone valued or appreciated? 


For me this was a no brainer as we all see examples of this type of behavior all the time and still love the purveyor of bad smells and poor manners.  "You say not me?" I say think back at the last time you were met by a wet dog, he may have just got done doing his business in the bushes. licked his balls and then offered you a kiss.  Yet you still love the dog.  Why, because in his world you are tops, he loves you un-conditionally.  He would protect you from others, listens to your BS stories and never leaves your side.   

My response is that if you smell and have the manners of a wet dog at least have the same qualities that we admire in a dog.  If the object of the story had known more about the basics of how to interact and make someone feel important and cared for.  He would have been able to hand off his story and have it well received.   I can only think of all of those dog owners who are busy picking up the pile of dog shit in the park and putting it in a bag to carry around,  for their beloved pet... Something deep down inside of me tells me that even a Editor without a heart would take a poorly written story; if it was handed to him by someone who treated him the same way his dog did.


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## Kyle R (Jul 23, 2014)

Kepharel said:


> I like to be introduced to a scene gently so that protagonist and his world are seen in symbiosis, which means someone has to take the time to convince me.



I can see your point. A lot of writers (and readers) like some "establishing shots" to set the scene first, before diving into the conflict.

I do believe, though, that it's better to err on the shorter side of these kinds of openings, rather than dragging them out. Though, that's just my personal preference.

At some point, the driving conflict has to make an appearance. Otherwise, the writer risks leaving the world of fiction behind and ambling into the realm of poetry. :encouragement:


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## Kepharel (Jul 23, 2014)

Okay, I’m starting to understand the thrust of this thread now, and why my comments may be off base in this discussion. Personally, if I’m reading a story about some working class hero say, surviving in a community that has lost its economic benefactor and focus I need the background, the stage props that validate his circumstances. I need a clever description of the nicotine stained ceilings of the working man’s club and a quick dissertation on its inhabitant’s disconsolate and helpless predicament, their faces painted in words. The vocabulary must be the camera that sweeps around the room, and once I believe, once the stage is set then I can believe in the central character, and better for me, once the camera zooms in on him, if I have some idea of his past too, as long as it is relevant to his present and the future that will be told in the story.

Anyway, now I know what you're all getting at on here


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## Greimour (Jul 23, 2014)

Kepharel said:


> Okay, I’m starting to understand the thrust of this thread now, and why my comments may be off base in this discussion. Personally, if I’m reading a story about some working class hero say, surviving in a community that has lost its economic benefactor and focus I need the background, the stage props that validate his circumstances. I need a clever description of the nicotine stained ceilings of the working man’s club and a quick dissertation on its inhabitant’s disconsolate and helpless predicament, their faces painted in words. The vocabulary must be the camera that sweeps around the room, and once I believe, once the stage is set then I can believe in the central character, and better for me, once the camera zooms in on him, if I have some idea of his past too, as long as it is relevant to his present and the future that will be told in the story.



I can relate to that, which is why the confusion I had with what you said. The post is not the story - but the lesson.

Everything that comes after the # explains the story. The why's and the mechanics and the reasons, etc. The story being a prop used as a tool to teach the lesson that followed. By linking the lesson directly to the story, the chance is high you can apply it to your own work - even if your own work has nothing to do with a writer wanting to publish his story; you can still have your protagonist enter late and leave early - just like the way Kyle described.



> We *left early*. We didn't even hang around to see our protag dry his hands. We left him in front of the bathroom sink, wallowing in shock.



Have you ever seen that comedy death scene that is kind of irritating the more times you see it used? 

A character in the show/series/film is acting and gets killed. Their death scene was pretty good, but just at that moment when they should be fully dead - they suddenly start wailing again. Then when you think they actually died this time, they do something else like grabbing the ankle of another character and try to mumble something incoherently. Finally you think they died and they give one last spurt or spasm. At this point, I just want to kick them in the head so their unconscious body has no choice but to stay dead. 

[video=youtube;nAdniWncWu4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAdniWncWu4[/video]

That is what that reminds me of. When the scene ends, it is like that actor dying. Once you are dead, stay dead! Don't drag the scene on for five minutes... it gets boring and irritating very fast.


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## popsprocket (Jul 23, 2014)

This is solid advice, for whole plots as well as scenes. Considering carefully where to begin and end a story play a large part in helping to set pace and tension.


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## Jon M (Jul 23, 2014)

Good advice. At the risk of sounding arrogant (what's new), I think the tendency--or the urge--to begin stories "early" is a beginner thing. Maybe they don't trust their abilities yet, so they craft scenes that function as establishing shots, and they include exposition so "the scene is set" and "everything makes sense". I don't mind this approach generally; great writers ease into their stories all the time. But there is great power, I think, in entering late. The more stories I read, and the more I write and learn and experiment, the more I find myself wanting to be lost in the first thousand or so words. And by "lost", what I mean is, the story is so deep at the outset that you read the opening sentence and you immediately fall in over your head, into the world. You have no sense of direction at all, but what compels you to keep reading are the details, the imagery, the style and voice, and the force of it all--the confidence you sense is there in the language that assures you that, even though you may be lost, getting found will be worth the time and effort.


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## Kyle R (Jul 23, 2014)

Greimour said:


> [video=youtube;nAdniWncWu4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAdniWncWu4[/video]
> 
> That is what that reminds me of. When the scene ends, it is like that actor dying. Once you are dead, stay dead! Don't drag the scene on for five minutes... it gets boring and irritating very fast.



Hilarious! This scene is one of those rare exceptions where I would recommend dragging it out as long as possible. 



			
				popsrocket said:
			
		

> This is solid advice, for whole plots as well as scenes



That's a good distinction, pops. Entering late and leaving early is a philosophy one can apply to plotting as a whole, as well. :encouragement:



			
				Jon M said:
			
		

> The more stories I read, and the more I write and learn and experiment, the more I find myself wanting to be lost in the first thousand or so words. And by "lost", what I mean is, the story is so deep at the outset that you read the opening sentence and you immediately fall in over your head, into the world. You have no sense of direction at all, but what compels you to keep reading are the details, the imagery, the style and voice, and the force of it all--the confidence you sense is there in the language that assures you that, even though you may be lost, getting found will be worth the time and effort.



Well said, Jon. A very cool way of thinking about it (entering late as a way to intentionally "lose" the reader). I like it. 8)


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## Gamer_2k4 (Jul 25, 2014)

Is no one going to point out the obvious correction that it's "Tom and JERRY," not "Tom and Gerry"?

Regardless, *I* agree with this premise, but I was surprised by a few of my beta readers wanting backstory in the first chapter.  "You start too quickly.  We don't know anything about this character, about where he comes from, or what he likes, or why things are the way they are."  I think they just read too much fantasy.


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## Jeko (Jul 25, 2014)

> At the risk of sounding arrogant (what's new), I think the tendency--or the urge--to begin stories "early" is a beginner thing.



From what I've seen, I think it often has a lot to do with the misguided belief that the reader has to be in the same position as the writer to enjoy the story as much as the writer can. So since the writer knows all the details, the reader needs to know them before he/she can connect with the characters, follow the story, etc.


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