Succor: Exploring Emotion and Conflict in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, THE HUNGER GAMES, AND TWILIGHT

Writers often delve into first chapters of best sellers, such as PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, THE HUNGER GAMES, and TWILIGHT, to enlarge their own writing skills. For example, emotion runs high in the first chapter of HUNGER GAMES. Every page grips the reader. From the moment Prim is “cocooned in my mother's body” to the final page when “Effie Trinket...reads out the name in a clear voice,” as the female reaping candidate, we love Prim. In addition, we love her for the cheese she gifts Katniss “On the table, under a wooden bowl to protect it from hungry rats and cats alike... .” Then there is Gale with his forty-two entries in “that big glass ball,” who has been “single-handedly feeding a family of five for seven years,” and Katniss, age sixteen, with her twenty entries. Katniss intrigues us when she “clean[s] a kill” and “tuck[s] my long dark braid up into a cap.” Gale is ready to “Run off” and maybe have a family, but Katniss says, “the idea is so preposterous” and “I never want to have kids.” Lastly, we all remember the Hob, the meadow, the woods, and what warm bread implies. Flip flop that with Panem, the Capitol, District 12, and then picture the arena. Hunger Games is all about image, emotion, and conflict. All that in eighteen pages.

Twilight. Page eight brings some excitement for Bella with the used truck; she feels empty on page ten, caged on eleven, nervous on twelve and fourteen, and bored on fifteen through seventeen. Finally on page nineteen there is eye contact with Edward, but conflict doesn't begin until page twenty-three, and real action doesn't start until page forty-three. But you already knew that. Just as you already know that the story is fraught with Bella's desire for Edward, and his for her blood, and gripping with Bella's danger of being bitten—by any vampire in the book, and possibly by any dog---by accident, or on purpose. And so, we rip through the pages--but only after the first chapter.

Have you looked at chapter one of Pride and Prejudice lately? Eighty-three percent---74 of the first 89 lines---contains active, emotional dialogue. If I ask, “What is Mrs. Bennet excited about?” We all know the answer is “a single man in possession of a good fortune,” or Mr. Bingley, who “must be in want of a wife.” Meanwhile, Mr. Bennett, who loves to conflict Mrs. Bennet by refusing to give in to her wants, will not agree with her. And were she bright, Mrs. Bennet would know after twenty-three years of marriage that he lives to tease her, and that in the end his greatest desire is to help their children succeed, and so he will go visit Mr. Bingley. Austen's eighty-three percent---three pages---presents strong, humorous, emotional characters and slices right into the heart of love, reputation, class consciousness, and marital conflict.

In all three novels, danger and desire come out on top for conflict and emotion. No matter how we feel about Bella in chapter one, she faces dangerous killers courageously, just like Katniss in the arena. While Elizabeth Bennet doesn't face physical killers, she and Darcy face the social ostracism lady Catherine outlines: “Because honour, decorum, prudence, nay, interest, forbid it. Yes, Miss Bennet, interest; for do not expect to be noticed by his family or friends, if you wilfully act against the inclinations of all. You will be censured, slighted, and despised, by every one connected with him. Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never even be mentioned by any of us.”

As writers, our challenge is to learn the skill of writing conflict and emotion from great authors such as Collins, Meyer, and Austen, and to implement those skills, from the beginning; page one of chapter one.