Catchy opening paragraphs?

[MarlowBunny]

What advise will you give me for the following opening paragraphs? They are intended to entice the reader into my "Earth Day" contest entry: The primary category will be "Fantasy".

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Bronwyn's Flower Day:

When combs failed to constrain her lustrous black hair under caps or hoods, common folk chancing a glimpse in the Wood reasonably imagined a fairy. Maybe, if they pondered long enough, they mistakenly perceived a young boy in woodsman's clothes. Her stature on extended toes reached only five feet. Her slight frame was proportioned like the goddess Aphrodite except in miniature and always hidden. With the exception of one fateful journeyman, no mortal had ever beheld her nubile flesh.

The journeyman came upon the sight through improbable fortune while collecting water for a camp stew. He shirked the roads for fear of being accosted by relations seeking to press him into loathed service. Rushing water guided the man to a pool fed by a crystal mountain fall. Within the pool, a woman splashed and bathed unabashedly bare. Her beauty was striking and somehow familiar. The man almost stumbled upon her through distraction and carelessness when the girl rose languidly onto a pebbly shore. She then reclined on a sandy patch bright with sunbeams cascading through the forest canopy.

The traveler crouched motionless in shadow mere feet away. Bronwyn splayed her slender legs wide out of habit. Sensations of tiny air currents tickled and excited delicate flesh. Maiden lips parted slowly of their own accord. The feeling of separation and opening charged her body. Every nerve in her porcelain skin tingled awash with warm light and sensuous caressing zephyrs. Her aureola stiffened and crinkled to almost painful sensitivity. Unrequited yearning must inevitably be expected when Flower Day is too long postponed. Cooling evaporation moderated her heat as she curiously explored a still unfocused yen.

The journeyman fantasized that the unimaginable beauty before him spread herself in invitation. His throbbing cock urged him to exploit the opportunity, but he was transfixed. He recalled the pagan stories of The Huntress. Having been spied by a mortal, she transfigured the wayward man into a stag to be chased and mauled by his own dogs. The journeyman was not frightened in the least, but the solemnity of the situation restrained his base desires. His dominating emotion was reverence.

After a time, Bronwyn roused herself and splashed back across the pool to her clothes. Her loins smoldered unrequited. The admiring traveler dwelled to savor every golden moment while the angelic girl bent to don rustic fabric. For some reason, he had expected an elegant underdress. At last, the tableau was diminished as the maiden silently retreated into heavy undergrowth and broke the spell.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Bad high school poetry comes to mind.

 

[MarlowBunny]

Bad high school poetry comes to mind.

Ouch! Well, I guess I asked for it. Are there any specific suggestions for improvement, or shall I just go back to high school? I have never written in the "fantasy" category. Maybe I am trying too hard with the setting.

 

[mynameisben]

Ouch! Well, I guess I asked for it. Are there any specific suggestions for improvement, or shall I just go back to high school? I have never written in the "fantasy" category. Maybe I am trying too hard with the setting.

Your writing style is thick with adverbs and in-your-face vocabulary. You need to throttle it back a bit. Yes, you are trying too hard.

 

[Mrtouf]

The trick with fantasy is to sprinkle the fairy dust sparingly. Or in other words, be subtle. The reader should be thinking 'hang on, wait a moment... oh, okay then' as you draw them deeper into the enticing world you have created.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Writers complicate things when theyre ignorant of their subject.

The good poet knows his subject well enough to reduce it to breadcrumbs he then drops along the path from here to there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VShyqHcWjPY

Music and words are sound. Try listening to how music writers make it work, then apply the lesson to your prose.

 

[SamScribble]

As a non-fiction editor, I strongly believe that opening paragraphs should be as simple as possible.

The objective is not to impress your reader with your vocabulary. The objective is to get your reader reading. And, once you’ve done that, the objective is to keep your reader reading.

I’m afraid there was not one of your paragraphs that made me want to read past the first half dozen words. (Well, you did ask.)

My suggestion would be to rewrite your opening paragraph as simply as you possibly can. The cat sat on the mat. The cat appeared to be old and weary. The mat, too, had seen better days. After that, you can build it out with modifiers – but only if the modifiers really add to the narrative, the pace, or the mood of the story.

I’d also suggest that you read whatever you write out loud. Does it sound good? Would you enjoy someone reading it to you? If it does sound good, you’re on the right track. If it doesn’t, you still have work to do.

I hope this helps.

Cheers.

 

[MarlowBunny]

As a non-fiction editor, I strongly believe that opening paragraphs should be as simple as possible.

The objective is not to impress your reader with your vocabulary. The objective is to get your reader reading. And, once you’ve done that, the objective is to keep your reader reading.

I’m afraid there was not one of your paragraphs that made me want to read past the first half dozen words. (Well, you did ask.)

My suggestion would be to rewrite your opening paragraph as simply as you possibly can. The cat sat on the mat. The cat appeared to be old and weary. The mat, too, had seen better days. After that, you can build it out with modifiers – but only if the modifiers really add to the narrative, the pace, or the mood of the story.

I’d also suggest that you read whatever you write out loud. Does it sound good? Would you enjoy someone reading it to you? If it does sound good, you’re on the right track. If it doesn’t, you still have work to do.

I hope this helps.

Cheers.

As a strong selling non-fiction author, I certainly value your advice and agree whole heartedly. I write "just the facts" books that are practically devoid of adjectives. I am finding fiction more difficult than expected.

Reader feedback was harsh for one of my first submissions: One commenter wrote, "too much this happened and the that happened. Needs more dialog and fewer pronouns."

So my next submission was crafted with with few pronouns and lots of dialog. I deleted the specific comment, but one reader complained "we know his fucking name already." with regard to http://www.literotica.com/s/hospital-humiliation. Another reader requested more dimension to the characters. "Don't tell us what happened, tell us how the characters felt"

I have been studying other's successful dialog examples and attempting to reveal characters without resorting to "what happened" narration. I tried first person present tense as a challenge to break myself out of a rut. I am beginning to think I should try Dr. Seuss style. I clearly haven't found a voice.

 

[MarlowBunny]

I love a challenge.

Here is my rewrite that includes all of the same events in the style of "The cat sat on the mat. The cat appeared to be old and weary. The mat, too, had seen better days."


Her hair was black. Some people thought she looked like a fairy. Other people though she looked like a young boy in woodsman's clothes. She wasn't quite five feet tall. She was skinny but shaped like a sexually mature girl, except nobody ever saw that except one guy.

That guy went looking for water to make stew. He was hiding in the woods from his family. They wanted him to do something he didn't want to do. He followed a stream which led to a pool. There was a naked girl swimming in the pool. She was very attractive and reminded him of someone. He was almost caught when the girl climbed out of the pool. She lay down in a sunny spot near him.

The guy hid in the shadows and watched the girl spread her legs. The girl thought letting her pussy lips open felt good. She was horny and had chills of arousal. Her nipples got hard and almost hurt. She was past the age when most women in her society get married. She was glad to cool off as she dried because she didn't know how to satisfy her desire.

The guy wanted to stick his dick in the girl's revealed hole. He thought about old stories that predicted bad results for guys who see things they shouldn't. He decided to just enjoy the view and see what the girl might do to herself.

A little while later, the girl got up and dressed. The guy watched and was surprised that she didn't have nice clothes. Then she walked away still horny.

 

[ArsAmatori]

As a non-fiction editor, I strongly believe that opening paragraphs should be as simple as possible.

The objective is not to impress your reader with your vocabulary. The objective is to get your reader reading. And, once you’ve done that, the objective is to keep your reader reading.

I’m afraid there was not one of your paragraphs that made me want to read past the first half dozen words. (Well, you did ask.)

My suggestion would be to rewrite your opening paragraph as simply as you possibly can. The cat sat on the mat. The cat appeared to be old and weary. The mat, too, had seen better days. After that, you can build it out with modifiers – but only if the modifiers really add to the narrative, the pace, or the mood of the story.

I’d also suggest that you read whatever you write out loud. Does it sound good? Would you enjoy someone reading it to you? If it does sound good, you’re on the right track. If it doesn’t, you still have work to do.

I hope this helps.

Cheers.

Excellent advice.

 

[ArsAmatori]

Trim 90%. Rinse. Repeat.

The idea behind an opening paragraph is that nobody cares about your details until you make them care.

So your gist is you have some hot elf babe taking a bath? Folks could dig a hot elf babe taking a bath. Show them a hot elf babe taking a bath.

Maybe the Hunter (omg Twilight, shoot me now) slips on a pebble, struggles to stay hidden from... a hot elf babe taking a bath.

Maybe a mist of water playfully dances off the chest of... a hot elf babe taking a bath.

Maybe a fantasy Legend of Zelda bird flies over, takes a shit and hits...a hot elf babe taking a bath.​

You get the idea. Then, only then (if people care) can you start answering the questions people might have: who, what, where...

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

MARLOWBUNNY

Try some George V. Higgins for dialogue. Some excellent writers think he was the best.

http://books.google.com/books?id=is3y1e3r5R4C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

MARLOWBUNNY

http://books.google.com/books?id=oY...=CALL FOR THE DEAD&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false

LeCarre, CALL FOR THE DEAD. This is an excellent example of how to use narrative to open a tale.

 

[Guest]

Find the balance

deleted

 

[PennLady]

Um, I have to say, I don't think this was very good. I'm all for keeping things simple, but you may have gone a little extreme. The simple sentences are choppy.

Her hair was black. Some people thought she looked like a fairy. Other people though she looked like a young boy in woodsman's clothes. She wasn't quite five feet tall. She was skinny but shaped like a sexually mature girl, except nobody ever saw that except one guy.

Okay, I guess she's an elf, although you can't tell that from here. And quite frankly, I'm sick of barely 5' tall women with hourglass figures. I've known a couple of women of the 5' variety, and that is not how they're built. Not saying there isn't variety, just that this is getting to be an old cliche.

That guy went looking for water to make stew. He was hiding in the woods from his family. They wanted him to do something he didn't want to do. He followed a stream which led to a pool. There was a naked girl swimming in the pool. She was very attractive and reminded him of someone. He was almost caught when the girl climbed out of the pool. She lay down in a sunny spot near him.

Generally in fantasy, there are men and women and boys and girls but not "guys." If you're doing a more contemporary, casual fantasy, that's okay, but if you want the more formal fantasy, then this is lazy. And as others mentioned, the switching back and forth with the POVs is jarring to the reader. It can be done but you have to be a bit softer, more subtle. And if she's so near him, why doesn't she see him?

The guy hid in the shadows and watched the girl spread her legs. The girl thought letting her pussy lips open felt good. She was horny and had chills of arousal. Her nipples got hard and almost hurt. She was past the age when most women in her society get married. She was glad to cool off as she dried because she didn't know how to satisfy her desire.

Definitely don't switch POVs within the same graph. Either put the first sentence with the previous graph, or change it something like "she didn't know anyone was watching..."

The guy wanted to stick his dick in the girl's revealed hole. He thought about old stories that predicted bad results for guys who see things they shouldn't. He decided to just enjoy the view and see what the girl might do to herself.

This guy's not much on foreplay, I guess.

A little while later, the girl got up and dressed. The guy watched and was surprised that she didn't have nice clothes. Then she walked away still horny.

Again, you switched POVs in the graph -- how would the guy know she's "still" horny? I suppose you'd get into the clothes issue later, but it's out of the blue and doesn't really add anything anywhere.

 

[PennLady]

Here are some sample opening graphs from some of my things. Not saying it's the right way, just samples. A lot of them start with dialogue, which isn't exactly intentional, but I do it a lot.

From Young Blood

Run.
That was the only thought in his mind as he flew, almost literally, through the night. He had a jump on them, but he didn’t know how much of one, and surely it was smaller than when he'd started.

From Game Miscondcut

"Tabby! Tabby, did you hear the news?"

Tabitha Daniels looked up absently from wiping down the bar. "Hmmm?"

Jessie rolled her eyes. "Tabby, you run a sports bar. You must know about it."

"Know about what, Jess?" Tabby ran a hand through her dark hair. It was unusual for Jessie to know any sports news before she did, which made her curious.

From Numbers Game

Where the hell are the dinosaurs? Anatoli stared in frustration at the map in his hands. It should have been easy; everyone had told him just go right in and he'd see them. He was here—where were the damn dinosaurs?

From Inside the Red Parlor

"But I'm not sure," she said.

"You'll enjoy it, my dear," he told her. "You told me you were curious."

Her face turned crimson. "I am, I just...I just never thought I would."

"You will," he said, "although you'll watch first. Now, come inside."

 

[TxRad]

What you are looking for is a hook.

Check out the How To section under Rumpled Foreskin. He has a very interesting article on just this subject.

 

[mynameisben]

Hey Bunny,

I think your second attempts are actually a step in the right direction. You've throttled back the adverbs, and that is very good. But as someone else has already mentioned, you've perhaps jumped to the other extreme.

Here's the thing I find most troubling with your second approach: Your style is agonizingly formulaic. I keep reading the same construct:

"The guy looked for water."
"He followed a stream.
"The guy watched the girl."
"The cat sat on the mat."
"The noun verbed the noun."
​

I'm not saying that "The noun verbed the noun" is a poor writing mechanism. What I am saying is that you cannot pick this formula -- or any other formula -- and use it over and over again. If you do, you will surely bore your readers to tears. You have to mix things up to keep your reader alert and interested. Follow "The noun verbed the noun" with something like, "Verbing over the noun, the pronoun verbed to the noun." Explore gerunds. Explore interchanging the subject and predicate when constructing SOME of your sentences. Mix fact with emotion. Describe a forest, and then follow it up with how the forest makes your character think or feel.

There are a million ways to tell the same story. Be creative in the way you craft your sentences and even the thinnest plot of a story can shine. Discovering how to become more creative is no easy task, unfortunately. You're doing well to study how other authors do it, though. Keep at it. But more importantly than that, keep writing, and keep soliciting feedback.

The gulf between "want" and "do" is immense. You can want to write with all your heart and with all your soul, but if you don't keep doing it, want is all you will ever have. I think you are brave and awesome to post your scribblings here and get slammed by the critics. It means you're on your way to becoming a writer. Stay on the path. Write and learn. You will find your voice, eventually. And when you do, trust me that it will totally blow away "The adverb adverb adverb noun verbed the adverb adverb adverb noun" and knock that fat stupid cat off his mat for good.

 

[estragon]

JBJ, I'll Be Damned

MARLOWBUNNY

http://books.google.com/books?id=oY...=CALL FOR THE DEAD&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false

LeCarre, CALL FOR THE DEAD. This is an excellent example of how to use narrative to open a tale.

We agree on something. Cornwell, a/k/a LeCarre, copuld write a hell of a story.

 

[MarlowBunny]

Hot Steamy Seuss - Red Lips & Bam!

Fuck me. Fuck me in my box.
Fuck me. Fuck me with two cocks.
We can do it on the floor.
You can use my tight back door.

There's lots of room. I took a shit.
Your manly cock just might fit.
Put your mouth on my tit.
don't forget to rub my clit.

Squeeze yourself between my lips
Hold me. Guide me by my hips.
Use your strength to show me how
I can take it like a cow.

Fuck me. Fuck me. Make me scream.
Fill me up with your sweet cream.
I just crave your baby batter.
Knock me up and make be fatter.

We can do it on a train.
Do it too me again and again.
Give my ass a mighty slap.
Think of me when you fap.

I've been looking for my voice
People here don't like my choice.
They say I need to simplify.
I though I'd give Seuss a try.

When I use too big words.
My paragraphs are smelly turds.
When I stick to fewer letters.
I am praised by my betters.

What the critics fail to see
is that I write parody.
When they comment on my trials,
I hope hay know about my smiles.

Don't you see the simple scene.
It was meant to show extreme.
When you don't get the point,
it's time for me to leave this joint.

 

[SamScribble]

Hello MarlowBunny

It looks like you’re getting lots of useful feedback and advice, so I don’t want to complicate things. But I would suggest that you look at how some of the better fiction writers construct paragraphs to pull the reader in at one end and then push them out the other.

Here’s a nicely constructed paragraph from Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift.

Actually Cantabile didn’t make me wait too long. He phoned just before noon. Maybe he was getting hungry. I remembered that someone or other in Paris towards the end of the nineteenth century used to see Verlaine, drunken and bloated, pounding his cane wildly on the sidewalk as he went to lunch, and shortly afterward the great mathematician Poincare, respectably dressed and following his huge forehead while describing curves with his fingers, also on his way to lunch. Lunchtime is lunchtime, whether you are a poet or a mathematician or a gangster. Cantabile said, “All right, you dumb prick, we’re going to meet right after lunch. Bring cash. And that’s all you bring. Don’t make any more bad moves.”

Bellow starts with three ‘cat sat on the mat’ sentences. Then he slows the pace with a 60-word monster filled with seemingly irrelevant – but intriguing – images. He follows this with a ‘normal’ 14-word sentence that sums up the point that the narrator is trying to make: lunchtime is lunchtime whoever you are. And, finally, he gives us a bit of Cantabile’s terse gangster speak. “Bring cash. And that’s all you bring. Don’t make any more bad moves.”

I think most people, having read this paragraph, would be shouting ‘Bring on the next paragraph’.

Cheers

 

[MarlowBunny]

Hello MarlowBunny

It looks like you’re getting lots of useful feedback and advice, so I don’t want to complicate things. But I would suggest that you look at how some of the better fiction writers construct paragraphs to pull the reader in at one end and then push them out the other.

Here’s a nicely constructed paragraph from Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift.

Actually Cantabile didn’t make me wait too long. He phoned just before noon. Maybe he was getting hungry. I remembered that someone or other in Paris towards the end of the nineteenth century used to see Verlaine, drunken and bloated, pounding his cane wildly on the sidewalk as he went to lunch, and shortly afterward the great mathematician Poincare, respectably dressed and following his huge forehead while describing curves with his fingers, also on his way to lunch. Lunchtime is lunchtime, whether you are a poet or a mathematician or a gangster. Cantabile said, “All right, you dumb prick, we’re going to meet right after lunch. Bring cash. And that’s all you bring. Don’t make any more bad moves.”

Bellow starts with three ‘cat sat on the mat’ sentences. Then he slows the pace with a 60-word monster filled with seemingly irrelevant – but intriguing – images. He follows this with a ‘normal’ 14-word sentence that sums up the point that the narrator is trying to make: lunchtime is lunchtime whoever you are. And, finally, he gives us a bit of Cantabile’s terse gangster speak. “Bring cash. And that’s all you bring. Don’t make any more bad moves.”

I think most people, having read this paragraph, would be shouting ‘Bring on the next paragraph’.

Cheers

I appreciate the constructive feedback that I am receiving.

A 60 word monster sentence is more flowery than anything I write. The paragraph also violates this site's "rules" for punctuating dialog. It's a raw subject right now because I recently had a story rejected twice for "incorrect" punctuation reduced effectively to not adequately separating every single quoted line into its own paragraph.

I am not qualified to judge the artistic merit of Saul Bellow’s paragraph, but I suspect anyone who introduces either the Symbolist poet Verlaine or the great mathematician Poincare to the Literotica crowd is doomed to voting oblivion. I am realizing that the aesthetic here favors one and two syllable words.

I don't disagree with the advice you are giving or the merits of the sample you supplied. I just really doubt that most people at Lierotica, having read Bellow’s paragraph, would be shouting ‘Bring on the next paragraph’. I might be disheartened about that.

 

[favoritesgoddess]

The only thing that hung me up is the overuse of 50-cent words. It sort of seemed like a vocabulary-building exercise.

Try using the really good words more sparingly. For example:

When combs failed to constrain her lustrous black hair under caps or hoods, common folk chancing a glimpse in the Wood thought they saw a fairy. If they were less imaginative, they assumed she was a young boy in woodsman's clothes. A bare five feet tall, her slight but feminine frame was always hidden, and with the exception of one lucky journeyman, no mortal had ever seen her unclothed.

Yes? No? Just a thought.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Most people read at 8th grade level, so 1-2 syllables is par for the course. Frank Lloyd Wright said a cottage is harder to design than a hotel.

 

[SamScribble]

I suspect anyone who introduces either the Symbolist poet Verlaine or the great mathematician Poincare to the Literotica crowd is doomed to voting oblivion. I am realizing that the aesthetic here favors one and two syllable words.

Hey, I’m on a crusade! If literature can be smutty (and it certainly can be, check out Philip Roth, et al), there’s no reason why smut can’t be literate.