Melanie Cantor
The bestselling author describes the set- up of her new comic novel, and how important it is to get the reader onside from the offset
I like to land my reader in the action immediately. Before they’ve reached the end of chapter one, I want them to know three things: who is the main character? What drives their narrative? Where is the jeopardy?
And this is exactly how I began The F**k It! List. My first chapter brings us straight into a glamorous party and had a zinger of a final line which, when I came to write it a) made me laugh and b) gave me the confidence to know I was going to make this story work. I instantly loved Daisy. I loved how everything she was hoping for blew up in the very first scene and kickstarted the jeopardy of her journey. Only chapter one became chapter two. But we’ll come to that.
I used exactly the same criteria when I was working on the (many, many) drafts of Some Kind of Mistake, long before it became Death & Other Happy Endings and ultimately thanks to the pandemic, Life & Other Happy Endings. (My agent decided you couldn’t have the word Death in the title when everyone was dying! I fought against it. She won.)
The very first paragraph had Jennifer, my protagonist, sitting with her doctor about to be given a terminal prognosis. For those of you who have yet to read this stonking page turner, the premise is: a 43-yearold woman is given three months to live and instead of taking a bucket list trip she decides to write letters to the people in her life who have pissed her off, finally telling them what she really thinks. Hooked? There’s still time to buy it! Obviously my brash confidence is purely bravado. Deep down lies a writer’s classic insecurity.