How to start writing a book? Three tips from Calvino

Let's learn the art of incipits with an exceptional master

Why analyze the incipits of the great authors? The reasons are numerous, but I would say that the first is «because they are beautiful». Banal? Yes, but also true. We must never forget that, although writers and editors relate to texts with a professional gaze, reading is first and foremost a pleasure!

Tu, But, maybe you're here to get some tips for your novels and, in particular, you would like to answer the question: «How to start writing a book in an engaging way?». Very good, in this article you will find material suitable for your path! Our Calvin, with his sublime style, will be able to give us many useful indications.

The lines I will comment on are the initial ones of the story Memory of a battle. It is not one of his best-known works, but I think this makes it even more interesting to discover it together.

Here's the song:

It's not true that I don't remember anything anymore, the memories are still there, hidden in the gray ball of the brain, in the humid bed of sand that settles at the bottom of the torrent of thoughts: if it is true that each grain of this mental sand preserves a moment of life fixed so that it can no longer be erased but buried by billions and billions of other grains.

1. The importance of the very first words

Only eight words, a flutter of wings, yet they immediately involve us in the story:

It's not true that I don't remember anything anymore.

Here Calvino addresses us directly who are reading, but not only that, it's as if he were continuing a conversation that had already begun. It's as if we had told him: «Dear Italo Calvino, It really seems to me that you no longer remember anything about your past.". Everything that follows depends on this "our" statement. In this way we are made participants right away.

2. Similarities? Yes, but only if original

Each of us knows that the brain is "gray matter", but only a great writer can make us visualize it as a gray ball of yarn that hides memories. It's an immediate image - we all know what a ball of yarn looks like - and it's an apt image, because it evokes the color of the brain, be the dim nuance of distant memories, be their tangled confusion.

But the mind is at the same time fantasy, irrationality, emotion: immediately afterwards, Indeed, the fresh image of the stream appears. Because a torrent? Because it is precisely in his damp bed that memories are deposited. Every memory is like a grain of sand: impalpable, buried by a thousand other fragments of memory; yet it is there, a physical object, which perhaps we can find if we dig into the bottom of the stream.

3. Punctuation appropriate to the rhythm

This incipit demonstrates how the simple use of punctuation can convey and strengthen the meaning of a text. It attests to the importance of constructing a period.

The first sentences are short, pressing, separated by commas which make the speech quick: this is because Calvino is rushing to give us an explanation, to deny the implicit premise of the text (that is, he doesn't remember anything from the past).

The second half of the period, Instead, it is more reflective. It has no punctuation and is all about the similarity of the grain of sand. The two parts are separated by those masterful colons inserted after the word thoughts. The first half, proclaimed with fervor, conveys a statement: «It's not true that I don't remember anything anymore!».

In the second, the conversation becomes more intimate and thoughtful. E, as always, when we reflect on things doubt appears: if it is true that every grain of this mental sand preserves a moment of life. Se. The implicit question is not resolved in the period. It is we, the readers, who must give an answer, if we have it, or at least force ourselves to look inside ourselves and reflect on the abyss of our memories.Do you have any thoughts or questions about this incipit, or how to start writing a book in general? Don't hesitate to contact me!