Every Heart a Doorway

 

Today's first sentence comes from the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning novella, Every Heart a Doorway. Science fiction fans vote on the Hugo, members of science fiction and fantasy's professional association vote on the Nebula, and the readers of Locus, the industry-leading journal, vote on the Locus Award. Having all three awards means Seanan McGuire won popular, peer, and insider acclaim for Every Heart a Doorway. 

Seanan McGuire is also incredibly prolific, having published over 30 novels since 2008. 

What's in this very tiny slice of her work? It starts with "The girls" – yet they are not quite in action here. Instead, we see that they are "never present" – so someone else is attending the "entrance interviews." An interview implies someone who asks questions and someone who answers them. So we have three participating groups already – the girls, who are absent, the interviewers, the interviewees. 

Girls are young and vulnerable. Since they are not present, someone else has say over what happens to them. Does this interview determine whether the girls will be able to enter? Would they want to enter? Will they be required to enter, whether they wish to or not? We have people who should be protected having someone else make decisions for them. That can be good, when they have caring and capable guardians, or bad, when those who make the decisions do not have the girls' best interests at heart. Possibly these girls are in danger – this creates tension, to draw us on to see what comes next. 

In one of Heinlein's novels, he mentions that news agencies are forbidden from using words with too much emotional lading. (I believe it was either Stranger in a Strange Land or Revolt in 2100. Drop me a line if you have the reference – I am heavily paraphrasing here.) I spent a while thinking about that, and began a mental file on the strength of the emotional connotations of various words. 

Looking at the words in the first sentence of Every Heart a Doorway, the one highest on the scale is "never." Never is an absolute. Never is ominous on its own – it makes endings and divisions. It reminds me of death and ravens, via Edgar Allan Poe's refrain in "The Raven" of "Nevermore." 

Even so, "never" could be factual. I'd place it about 5 on a 1 to 10 scale of emotionally laden words. The other words are even milder. Entrances and interviews can make people nervous, but generally do not horrify. Girls tug more at our feelings than people or employees, but don't carry the dread of killers or the stronger vulnerability of babies. There are many girls, many entrances, and many interviews, so none of these words have the tight focus of a very specific word. 

In fact, because both "girls" and "interviews" are plural words, this happens more than once. Maybe it happens many times. Maybe girls are left in others' power over and over again. 

This is a modern sentence. It speaks to our time, where we are alert to bullying and abuse that girls may face, and it keeps its language within emotional bounds, as we prefer our fiction to do now. 

It's also more frightening the more I think about it. 

A couple more things – first, Poe would serve as an excellent contrast in style if you are curious about what more laden vocabulary looks like. Second, it's not only the period that determines the vocabulary. Seanan McGuire has studied folklore, and tales of that kind recorded in Poe's century also use more mild language to talk about very dangerous situations. 

I was very eager to read this book after it won those three top awards. The first sentence drew me in and the story is outstanding. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert