Climbing Plot Mountain

While washing the mixing bowls and utensils necessary for making cookies (oatmeal raisin with white and milk chocolate and peanut butter chips), I was thinking about the book I just finished, Jim Butcher's most recent Harry Dresden (/Dead Beat/? /Dead Heat/?), and why I like this series better than Jim's other series, /Codex Alera/ (which I tried to get into but gave up on). It occurred to me that, in the Dresden series, the action started focused on Harry - he's in the scene from the first. From what I remember of Alera, that was not the case; there was worldbuilding going on.

Then I got to thinking about other books that were my favorites - Zelazny's /Nine Princes in Amber/ and /Doorways in the Sand/ came quickly to mind, as did the sixth Harry Potter, also recently finished - and the ones that grabbed the the firmest had that same sort of hook, where the scene starts out with the person who's in trouble. HP6 does not, which probably explains how slow that beginning is perceived by a lot of people.

So, I'm left with the indelible impression that openings need to open with people - not just trouble, but people in that trouble, people you want the reader to bond with immediately.

/Cavalier/ has it; so does /Shape/. When I go to revise the opening for /Kith/, I will need to remember this.