Opening paragraphs

[TadOverdon]

I found a topic on Opening Sentences that foundered after two pages back in 2013, and after perusing it decided, upon reflection, that necroposting might not be the best thing in this case.

So, I'm in revisions and trying to chop a seventy-word opening paragraph that I think is too overly descriptive and circumspect down to something approximating a story hook that works while preserving as much of the set-up as possible.

This is where I am this morning, and I'm wondering if the sentences are too clumsy:

For Janet Palmieri, the tower bedroom in the South Pacific island fortress was paradise. Her husband Frank wanted only to escape. The fading light of sunset offered little help to a man crawling out onto a window sill.

This is what I started with:

A quiet room high in a tower on a remote South Pacific island might be paradise. Or it might be a prison. Just as the ruddy glow of sunset slanting through the single tall, deep-set window of the quarters that Frank and Janet Palmieri had shared for the last five days might have been otherwise romantic but didn't offer much light to a man crawling carefully out onto the sill.

For reference, my ideal notion of an opening sentence that creates curiosity and suspense is MacDonald's Darker Than Amber:

We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody dropped the girl off the bridge.

What are opening sentences and paragraphs that you particularly admire?

 

[HordHolm]

What are opening sentences and paragraphs that you particularly admire?

Too many to mention, now I think about it. But if pushed I would always go in the direction of George MacDonald Fraser and the way he opened (and finished) the Flashman stories.

Regarding your redraft, I would suggest that something between what you began with and where you are now. But it's a matter of taste, and mine might be rather bland..

 

[NotWise]

Too many to mention, now I think about it. But if pushed I would always go in the direction of George MacDonald Fraser and the way he opened (and finished) the Flashman stories.

Regarding your redraft, I would suggest that something between what you began with and where you are now. But it's a matter of taste, and mine might be rather bland..

This. Writers have been fussing over the first paragraph for ever, and the number of great examples is overwhelming.

As to your example, I think you're right that the original contained too much description, but your revised version is three short sentences without much logical connection. Maybe you're trying to get too much done at once.

 

[SimonDoom]

My two cents:

You need to punch it up and you need more logical connection with the sentences. Also, I would enhance the parallelism between the contrasting ways the husband and wife see the house.

How about something like this:

Frank Palmieri crawled out the window sill of the bedroom tower of a remote South Pacific Island Fortress. For his wife, Janet, the tower was paradise. For Frank, it was a prison.

Here, you start with an action -- crawling out of the window sill. That's an odd thing to do, so it perks up interest. It indicates flight, which is dramatic. Moreover, it's in an exotic location. Then you add some intriguing explanation with their contrasting attitudes. But the explanation, in my view, should follow the action.


The sentences that describe Janet's and Frank's contrasting attitudes should be parallel. By that I mean they should have the same subject-verb format. Both should use an active verb, or both should use a linking verb ("was"). In your example, you mixed them up. Parallelism serves two purposes: 1) It sounds more artful, and 2) it logically links the two sentences, so the meaning is absorbed better.

 

[NotWise]

I don't think I fuss over opening paragraphs as much as I used to. I went back to some of my early stories to find openings I did fuss over. My most successful story starts with a simple lead-in to an overheard phone conversation.

Here's the opening of "Sex and Dinosaurs"

Harlow climbed the sandstone ledge and used her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. She surveyed a vast expanse of barely vegetated rock and sand, bound only by distant blue mountains shimmering on the horizon. It wasn't noon yet, but already the heat had spawned dust devils that danced on the ground and towered into the blue sky.

That opening actually describes a scene as I saw it on a July morning when driving north over the Mogollon Rim to Holbrook, Az. It was the inspiration for the entire story.

And here the opening of "Oscar's Place."

The bus squealed to a stop at the curb and sent dried leaves skittering across the sidewalk. Nick looked up from his phone to see a young woman step out of the bus and wave to the driver. She glanced at Nick then pulled the hood of her cape over her head.

I sweated over that opening, and now it molders in one of my least-viewed stories.

 

[TadOverdon]

Maybe so. It's been stressed to me that sequence itself establishes narrative continuity between short declarative sentences, so I've tried to cut out "howevers," "buts" and other qualifying phrases while dumping most of the adjectives and adverbs. But the result seems spare and disjointed to me as well. What about...

For Janet Palmieri, the tower bedroom in the South Pacific island fortress was paradise. Her husband Frank wanted only to escape it, but the fading light of sunset offered little help to a man crawling out onto a window sill.

An attempt at a little more parallelism. ala SimonDoom:

Janet Palmieri wished she'd never have to leave the tower bedroom in the South Pacific island fortress. Her husband Frank wanted only to escape it, but the fading light of sunset offered little help to a man crawling out onto a window sill a hundred feet above a stone courtyard.

If I'm choosing one or the other, I'd rather go to their points of view to establish the conflict/contrast - what they each want - than to label things, ie: a paradise. a prison.

A general note here is that the book is about three-quarters done in first draft right now. In starting to revise this thing I'm not so much "fussing over the first paragraph" in order to get going as I am trying to demolish the narrative approach that I started out with the first time. The style and tone of the writing has changed a lot in the last several months and I no longer like the way I was doing much of anything when I began.


Great opening sentences...hard to beat this one:

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.

 

[KeithD]

I try to open with action and/or surprise. Providing a headscratcher, soon to be explained enough to keep the reader in the flow after they've been grabbed by the throat. For erotica, that means I often start in the middle of a sex act. I try to dole out the background bit by bit and when it's necessary.

 

[AlinaX]

The fading light of sunset offered little help to the man crawling out onto the window sill from the tower bedroom. For his wife, Janet, the South Pacific island fortress might be paradise, but Frank Palmieri wanted only to escape.

 

[HordHolm]

I remember watching an interview with Russell Davies, best known as a major screenwriter for Dr Who, but a man who has many, many credits to his name. One comment he made, somewhat germane to the discussion here, was that he would rather be confused for ten minutes than patronised. This has stuck with me, and thinking about it from that perspective I really like what SimonDoom has suggested - it's elegant, concise, and doesn't over explain.

 

[NotWise]

My problem with flow in the first two examples is only slightly fixed by the second two. It isn't clear that Frank and the man climbing onto the sill are the same person. Mr. Doom's alternative fixed that.

How's this for a kicking start:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Too many sentences beginning with "and?"

 

[gordo12]

My first thought for opening sentences was "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." from Dickens' Two Cities. That one has stuck in my brain like a parasite.

For Janet Palmieri, the tower bedroom in the South Pacific island fortress was paradise. Her husband Frank wanted only to escape it, but the fading light of sunset offered little help to a man crawling out onto a window sill.

To punch it up, I'd add the word "locked."

For Janet P, the locked tower bedroom....! It gives the sentence some zing and connects to the second sentence where he's trying to escape.

JMO

PS: necroposting (nice expression BTW) that freak JamesJohnston... UGH!

 

[XerXesXu]

My recent favourite opening line.

“Berlin found the potato the night before the SS officer shot the Jewess.” G. McGeechin ‘Diggers Rest Hotel”.

My Unsolicited rewrite:

Frank hesitated on the window sill, summoning the courage to take the next step, but courage said ‘Step Back.’

For Janet the tower bedroom was paradise, Frank wanted only to escape.

 

[AlinaX]

I disagree. I don't think it's necessary to go with 'prison' or 'locked'. The mere fact of Frank climbing out the tower window establishes that the door isn't an option.

 

[TadOverdon]

Also, (spoiler) they're not locked in. Frank's state of mind, his conflict with Janet and the nature of his dilemma are a little more involved than that, which is another reason for ditching "prison."

Husbands don't seem to fare real terribly well in my plots, which my co-author says doesn't make him nervous at all. LOL

 

[8letters]

"Who is John Galt?" from "Atlas Shrugged". Introduced the central mystery of most of the book in four words.

As for your opening line, it doesn't work for me as it's trying to combine two very disparate things. I'd prefer something along the lines of "In the fading light of a beautiful South Pacific sunset, Frank Palmeri scrambled onto the window sill of his tower bedroom and looked down at the hundred foot drop to the stone courtyard below." What's interesting is Frank climbing out onto the sill. Janet's opinion of where they are staying is inconsequential to the main action.

 

[TadOverdon]

My problem with flow in the first two examples is only slightly fixed by the second two. It isn't clear that Frank and the man climbing onto the sill are the same person. Mr. Doom's alternative fixed that.

How's this for a kicking start:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Too many sentences beginning with "and?"

Well yeah, God may have been a hell of a potter but he was a frustrating novelist. Too many arbitrary plot turns, too much repetition, and a bit too much deus ex machina.



As to my opening, I think what creates a big part of the problem is my determination to establish the setting immediately. As in, immediately. Something's telling me to do that, but it injects the essential clumsiness there.

At one point I just almost put an intro header on there - you know, "The Island of Kai'ulau, Three Hundred Miles Southwest of Nuka Hiva" kind of thing. Which I hated and hate and won't.

 

[SimonDoom]

My first thought for opening sentences was "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." from Dickens' Two Cities. That one has stuck in my brain like a parasite.

Probably the best example of parallelism in the history of English novels. The rest of the opening paragraph follows the same pattern, over and over. It's that pattern and that rhythm that etch the words indelibly in our skulls.

I pay a lot of attention to my opening paragraph, and to my closing paragraph. Usually, I have written both well before my story is even half done. There's no magic formula, but these are some general ideas I try to follow:

1. Short is better.

2. Start with describing an action, using an active verb in active voice (but not always).

3. Start with an aphorism or a statement that artfully captures the theme of the story. Perfect, classic example: the first sentence of Pride and Prejudice, which basically summarizes the entire novel: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

4. Start with dialogue between two people, which introduces the subject.

5. Don't be confusing. Scrub it, edit it, weed out all the crap. Make it totally clear. Sell the reader on your story by the time the first paragraph is done. If you consult with people and they tell you it is unclear, then it is unclear. Don't argue with them.

6. Kill your darlings. Don't get wedded to an idea you've come up with. Look at it from every angle and if it doesn't quite work, kill it.

7. Pay attention to the rhythm and poetry of the words. Make them SOUND good. This is why I emphasize parallelism, because it always sounds good and it makes you look like you know what you are doing.


A few examples of first paragraphs from my stories:

The doorbell rang.

There are a few things in this world I have no patience with: clients who don't pay, women who cheat on their husbands, and husbands who put up with their wives cheating on them.

"So, have you heard about Fuck Bus?"

The mid-summer heatwave enveloped the city for seven days straight. It drove everyone a little crazy. Evening brought some relief, but even as night fell the heat lingered, hours past sunset. With heat so constant and so intense, everything loosened up: clothes, morals, and passions that otherwise would have stayed buried deep.

One day, I got the idea to put naked pictures of my wife on the Internet.

Four of them are very short and to the point. One sets a scene, another gives you insight into the narrator and sets the tone of the story (a Loving Wives story that's a satire on Mike Hammer stories), one jumps into a dialogue that starts the story moving forward, and one summarizes the concept of the story in one sentence.

The cheating women paragraph is an example of parallelism.

The paragraph about the heatwave is longer, but it introduces the theme of the heat, which pervades the story, and foreshadows what is to come. That paragraph started by far my most popular story.

There are tons of ways to do this, but I find keeping certain principles in mind helps.

In the OP's example, the single most important thing is not the setting. It's the conflict between husband and wife, and the fact that this conflict has precipitated the husband taking unusual and extreme action. The setting comes second. It would be a mistake, I think, to begin this story with an introductory phrase that describes the setting. Jump into the action and the conflict.

 

[gordo12]

Also, (spoiler) they're not locked in.

Dang, I was just winding up for a good argument.

Husbands don't seem to fare real terribly well in my plots, which my co-author says doesn't make him nervous at all. LOL

Should we be nervous...

 

[HectorBidon]

For Janet Palmieri, the tower bedroom in the South Pacific island fortress was paradise. Her husband Frank wanted only to escape. The fading light of sunset offered little help to a man crawling out onto a window sill.

This doesn't paint a very clear picture to me. Is someone actually crawling out of the window? Or is this just a general statement about the quality of the light? Is it Frank, trying to escape? Or an intruder trying to get away? Is "fortress" meant to imply that Janet and Frank are actual prisoners? Then why would Janet consider it a paradise? (Are there fortresses on pacific islands anyway?) Or does Frank want to escape from Janet? Too much ambiguity creates confusion rather than curiosity.

I don't get a clear picture of the setting, the characters, the action, the emotion, or the drama. Maybe pick one of these and provide the right details to create a vivid scene. It doesn't have to tell the whole story, but it should paint a coherent and interesting image.

 

[Jake_Raazor]

My two cents is that for me personally, there is way too much info, I know the setting, the location, that the two characters have opposing views. Where's the incentive to continue?

Frank glared out at the view. His wife slipping her arm through his.

"It is perfect, you know," she murmured.

His answer was a grunt and a stare that grew darker.

 

[gordo12]

I've thought about this for a while. I don't think we have enough information about the why of him doing that. Does he have a fetish? Is there a tiger prowling the hallways? The word fortress brings a whole dark implication to the opening.

I think we're throwing mud at the wall to try and construct something stellar.

 

[TadOverdon]

I've thought about this for a while. I don't think we have enough information about the why of him doing that. Does he have a fetish? Is there a tiger prowling the hallways? The word fortress brings a whole dark implication to the opening.

I think we're throwing mud at the wall to try and construct something stellar.

Yeah, it's a couple of sentences, and there are a few more that will come after it.
But the suggestions and feedback about what's actually being conveyed so far and how I can do it better are really helpful. Thanks.

 

[gordo12]

Yeah, it's a couple of sentences, and there are a few more that will come after it.
But the suggestions and feedback about what's actually being conveyed so far and how I can do it better are really helpful. Thanks.

Perhaps switching the perspective to Frank's POV might be better. After all, he's the one who's crawling on a window ledge 100 feet off the ground. There has to be a lot of motivation there. What's running through his mind when he's doing that. Janet is actually the minor character in that scenario. What she wants or thinks...doesn't matter!

 

[MillieDynamite]

In the opening of the episode of Friends right after, "The One Where Ross Finds Out," entitled, "The One With The List," Rachel lays out what happened to Phoebe and Monica in a long loving tribute to Ross and her first kiss.

Cut to the boy's apartment, Ross say, "And then we kissed." Joey asked, "Tongue?" Ross answered, "Yeah," Joey says, "Pizza."

The distinct difference between men and women and their appreciation of things is played out in a nutshell. With guys, it's all utilitarian, that is it is what it is. While with women, it's all about the feelings the emotions.

The man is interested in foundation of the house, the yard, are the walls good and sturdy. The woman sees what will happen in the house, the love that they share will be expressed in her thoughts. The woman doesn't ignore the defects, she sees them as opportunities to improve the house and the couple.

At least that's how I'd attack it.

 

[TadOverdon]

To Janet Palmieri, Kai'ulau was a South Pacific paradise that she never wanted to leave. To her husband Frank, the island had become a trap that he needed to escape.

First, he had to get out of the fortress.

Novak Global Traders had provided guest quarters for the couple in the tower of an old French fortress that served the Novak family as both home and business headquarters. There was a door opening out from their suite into a corridor which led to a long stair down to the great hall, and a window carved into the basalt outer wall of the bedroom, perhaps a hundred feet above a stone courtyard.

When he was sure that Janet was asleep, Frank crawled out into the window embrasure.

The fading evening light offered him little help. He guessed that the window was a modern update to the edifice, created by enlarging a narrower opening - probably a loophole from which a defender could have fired a rifle into the courtyard below. The wall itself was about six feet thick. Frank felt his way along in the close darkness until his fingers found the outer edge.

Fighting vertigo, he stuck his head outside. In the gloom below he could just make out a narrow set of stairs cut into the outer face of the building. There was a landing below him. It was impossible to judge the drop in this light. It might be as little as fifteen feet but could be thirty.

Who had the colonists meant to defend themselves against here, back in the nineteenth century? No one seemed to know. They'd built their fort on Kai'ulua's highest coastal promontory. The place commanded a clear view of the shore, less than a mile to the south, as well as of the narrow lagoon harbor entrance several miles east. But for all their determined defense preparations, no attack had ever come. Pyramids of rusted and mossy iron balls stood unused outside the walls beside cannon tumbled off their rotted wooden carriages. The invaders the French had feared must have deemed the island not worth the powder and passed it by. So had the rest of the outside world, since the beginnings of time.

Frank's actually got a bigger primary problem than getting out of the tower: he's got no way off of a small island. He's upset, pretty paranoid, and his "planning" goes only so far as going out through a window to give himself eight hours start before his hosts know that he's left the building. Succeeding paragraphs in the story elaborate the situation.