Author Aysegul Savas on the importance of the first few pages...
Ayşegül Savaş is the author of the novels Walking on the Ceiling and White on White. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, and elsewhere. Originally from Istanbul, she lives in Paris.
In your own writing, what importance do the first few pages of a manuscript have? How do you find just the right tone and rhythm, how do you decide what goes first?
Before I start writing, I have an idea of what sort of atmosphere I want to create, what colors should constitute the fictional world. When I begin writing, the words are always a bit different from what I imagined, they insist on slightly different colors and moods. But it’s too late: they are written and those first pages will dictate the direction of the work. As I continue writing, the atmosphere and colors change even more, but then it’s useful to go back to the first pages, to remind myself of what I’d initially put down. I have to trust that early trigger, and I try following its course rather than imposing my own route.
More generally, as a reader, what makes a captivating beginning for you? What makes you want to keep reading?
Electricity. Authority. The sense of a door opening.
What are some of your favorite first pages, books with the best beginnings that have stuck with you?
Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North: “It was, gentlemen, after a long absence — seven years to be exact, during which time I was studying in Europe – that I returned to my people. I learnt much and much passed me by – but that’s another story.”
Gerald Murnane’s The Plains: “Twenty years ago, when I first arrived on the plains, I kept my eyes open. I looked for anything in the landscape that seemed to hint at some elaborate meaning behind appearances.”
Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoirs of Hadrian: “My dear Mark,”.
Bohumil Hrabal’s I Served the King of England: “When I started to work at the Golden Prague Hotel, the boss took hold of my left ear, pulled me up, and said, You’re a busboy here, so remember, you don’t see anything and you don’t hear anything.”