Story Openings

Started work on a second project today. For this one, I'm trying to go straight through with a rough draft before going back and editing. Editing while I wrote didn't work too well for Descent.

I'm still working on the plot outline, but I've already plowed through the first chapter. What I can tell you is that it's science fiction, it's in first person, and it involves lots of soul drinking.

(Don't I write the most delightful stories?)

So, what I'm going to talk about today is story openings. Please note, this is just my personal opinion on what they should and shouldn't do, and so it should be taken with a pinch of salt.

(In other words, don't listen to anything because it's probably wrong. 
(Hey! Enough with the negative comments!)
(...sorry. I talk to myself sometimes. It gets lonely out here, it does.)

One of the things that annoys me the most that a lot of story openings do is to jump straight into (by which I mean, the first paragraph) some action or event to which the reader knows nothing about. Why? Because the reader doesn't know what's going on and doesn't know any of the characters, and so there's nothing to draw them in. It doesn't make me want to read on (unless there's something uniquely interesting going on, which usually isn't the case), it makes me want to close the book and look at the next one on the shelf. Like I said, this is how I feel, so you all may or may not agree. But let's look at some examples.



Here's one from an aspiring writer like myself. 

          "It took me a while to figure out that I should never immediately say what was on my mind. Of course, I had to learn it the stupid way when I told some friends that I thought my math teacher was the school’s biggest blowhole, and it got back to Mom.

          It turned out to be a two-for-one screw-up. Not only did Mom find zero humor in my little joke, it cemented my reputation as a troublemaker in her mind. And to make matters much worse, it was beginning to look like I wasn’t going to graduate. Becca, my mom’s friend and principal of Aurora’s school, had cornered me outside geography. Another class I hated."

So, what's the problem? I know nothing about the setting and very, very little about the characters. From what the first few sentences, there's nothing to even make me like the protagonist. She insults her teachers and apparently is in danger of not graduating whatever kind of school she goes to.

Now, if this weren't the opening, it's actually pretty decent. There just needs to be a bit more development first, because otherwise, I'm not engaged in the story at all and I don't want to keep reading.



Let's now turn our attention to the opening of The Hobbit, an undisputedly great piece of literature. 

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort. 

It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats—the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill—The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it—and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden, and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river."

In this, I am drawn into the story. An interesting setting is created and described. The protagonist is developed too, in the best kind of way; not directly, but through information about the house in which he lives. Instead of having no clue what's going on due to an excess of names and events that the reader does not yet have any connection, the reader is introduced to the story. While jumping right into the events can be done, especially when used in a prologue or right after a prologue, it is difficult to do well, and the way to do it is not by dropping lots of names and a grand amount of plot strings all at once.  I should also point out that I've seen many professional books do this incorrectly, not just those of aspiring authors like the one above. That one was just the first one to come to my mind.

Anyway, that's it for tonight, and I hope you all enjoyed it. If anyone has any comments, feel free to post them below. Also post if you strongly disagree with the opinions expressed in this post, because I'm sure many of you do.