3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . Action!

Imagine a story opening that lands  us in the middle of a fist fight. Who are we rooting for? We don't know either character well enough to decide.

Imagine a story opening that springs upon us the action-packed scene of a child lost among strangers at an amusement park.

While either story opening could possibly work with the skilled mind of a writer, the reader may find something missing in that opening: a little more information about the character so we know who to cheer for and why.

We're often told that readers today don't want pages and pages of backstory. I agree. I find it hard to sift through it. However, the rise of flash fiction, microfiction, six word stories, Twitter, texting, etc, means that readers are looking at shorter, more compact bits of information.

Instant gratification.

An opening to a story, especially a short story, can't be too long-winded or the reader will stop. But on the flip side, if it jumps too far forward into the action, then the reader will feel disconnected.

For longer stories, the novice writer might be told to chop off the first three pages, but hearing that, we often try to go beyond the point where the story should actually start.

Action is great and keeps the reader moving forward, but take a step back and look at the opening. Is there something in the first paragraph that allows the reader to connect to the character or the voice?

The Best Advice From a Teacher

"Take your opening sentence and do the opposite with it."

From Mark Cugini (at The Writer's Center), who heard it from his teacher, who probably heard it from his teacher

Do you find comfort in starting story after story in the same way?
How does it begin...

• vague and leaving your options wide open
• drop the plot on the reader's lap asap
• describe, describe, describe the scenery to set the tone
• channel the character's feelings
• cheeky and playful
• dare to use dialogue
• Call me Ishmael.
• toy with reality so the reader is in disbelief

Here's one of my latest ones (rough stage that I gasp dare to share at the risk of exposing myself by sharing the very first draft)...

I watch my hands digging past the computer parts, the tarnished jewelry, even the occasional coin. My hands are like mechanical steel blades, mining this landfill, as I search for an unopened can of food and anything at all that can protect us from the sun flares. On good days, I come away with a decent jacket, maybe even a broken umbrella, but every day is a bad day if I don't find any food.

Now, according to Mark, I must take that opening and do something new with it. Rewrite it so it does start with dialogue. Attempt to be cheeky, playful, humorous with the situation. Paint the scene in layers like Hemingway would have done. Have the character introduce herself. "My name is Becca and I smell like..." First, I'd have to stand in or on a landfill to determine what she really would smell like, and then I'll let you know.

So try it out with your opening. Who knows, maybe you will stumble upon a new way to open your stories. Maybe you'll even change the way your current story begins.

A Look at An Author's Hooks

Elizabeth Strout is one of my all time favorite authors, so gifted with prose that I often have to set her books down to take a deep breath. She's made me laugh and cry, sing and shake my head, and ultimately have flutters in my heart, literally. She's a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of four books, all of which sit close to my writing desk.

She has a talent for hooking her readers with the very first paragraph. How does she do it? Let's find out...

From The Burgess Boys (Random House 2013):

My mother and I talked a lot about the Burgess family. "The Burgess kids," she called them. We talked about them mostly on the telephone, because I lived in New York and she lived in Maine. But we talked about them also when I visited her and stayed in the hotel nearby. My mother had not been in many hotels, and it became one of our favorite thin: to sit in a room--the green walls stenciled with a strip of pink roses--and speak of the past, those who had left Shirley Falls, those who had stayed. "Been thinking about those Burgess kids," she'd say, pulling back the curtain and looking toward the birch trees.

From Olive Kitteridge (Random House 2008):

For many years Henry Kitteridge was a pharmacist in the next town over, driving every morning on snowy roads, or rainy roads, or summertime roads, when the wild raspberries shot their new growth in brambles along the last section of town before he turned off to where the wilder road led to the pharmacy. Retired now, he still wakes early and remembers how mornings used to be his favorite, as though the world were his secret, tires rumbling softly beneath him and the light emerging through the early fog, the brief sight of the bay off to his right, then the pines, tall and slender, and almost always he rode with the window partly open because he loved the smell of the pines and the heavy salt air, and in the winter he loved the smell of the cold.

From Abide with Me (Random House 2006):

Oh, it would be years ago now, but at one time a minister lived with his small daughter in a town up north near the Sabbanock River, up where the river is narrow and the winters used to be especially long. The minister's name was Tyler Caskey, and for quite some while his story was told in towns up and down the river, and as far over as the coast, until it emerged with enough variations so as to lose its original punch, and just the passing of time, of course, will affect the vigor of these things. But there are a few people still living in the town of West Annett who are said to remember quite clearly the events that took place during the wintery, final months of 1959. And if you inquire with enough patience and restraint of curiosity, you can probably get them to tell you what it is they claim to know, although its accuracy might be something you'd have to sort out on your own.

From Amy and Isabelle (Vintage Books 1998):

It was terribly hot that summer Mr. Robertson left town, and for a long while the river seemed dead. Just a dead brown snake of a thing lying flat through the center of town, dirty yellow foam collecting at its edge. Strangers driving by on the turnpike rolled up their windows at the gagging, sulfurous smell and wondered how anyone could live with that kind of stench coming from the river and the mill. But the people who lived in Shirley Falls were used to it, and even in the awful heat it was only noticeable when you first woke up; no, they didn't particularly mind the smell.

All four of these first paragraphs hook the reader, because they all contain two key ingredients: the main character and motion. Our curiosity about the character is established and we're moved forward with wanting to know more, so we read the second paragraph.

In addition to character and motion, Strout's poetic language weaves in setting that allows the reader to immediately feel immersed in the environment.

Ultimately, it is Strout's ability to combine character, motion, and setting with a voice that hooks the reader!