First pages are impossible… so we’re hearing from authors about how they got them right.
In this episode, BA Shapiro discusses the first pages of her latest novel, Metropolis. We learn about how she worked with six very different points of view, how she handled narrative distance, how she decided where to start and why, the power of questions, the necessity of playing with time, and her advice to writers about their own first pages: Get it wrong.
Shaprio’s first pages can be found here.
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B.A. Shapiro is the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, including Metropolis (May, 2022), The Collector’s Apprentice, The Muralist and The Art Forger, which won the New England Book Award for Fiction, among other honors. Her books have been selected as Community Reads throughout the country and have been translated into over a dozen languages. She holds a PhD in sociology and has directed research projects for a residential substance abuse facility, worked as a systems analyst/statistician, headed the Boston office of a software development firm, and served as an adjunct professor teaching sociology at Tufts University and creative writing at Northeastern University. She likes writing novels the best. Barbara splits her time between Boston and Naples, Florida.
Passages: BA Shapiro on Metropolis