First Sentence

[only_more_so]

I know, a thread about something writing related in the AH...

Anyway, my latest story is going to be more literary than my usual stories which are on the literary side for a erotic fiction, in my opinion at least. So I'm sitting here trying to think of how to start the story and it suddenly feels like a big deal. I definately want to avoid the dark and stormy night, but also the pretensious or the bland.

To make matters even harder for me, I'm writing this story third person, where most of my stories are first person. So I am torn between jumping right into the character, or applying the setting and then working into the character.

Probably I will just put something down and come back and change it a few times...

So how important is the opening, do you think? When you read a story do you kind of decide right away what sort of writing you are going to expect, and what the story might tell?

 

[TheeGoatPig]

I know, a thread about something writing related in the AH...

Anyway, my latest story is going to be more literary than my usual stories which are on the literary side for a erotic fiction, in my opinion at least. So I'm sitting here trying to think of how to start the story and it suddenly feels like a big deal. I definately want to avoid the dark and stormy night, but also the pretensious or the bland.

To make matters even harder for me, I'm writing this story third person, where most of my stories are first person. So I am torn between jumping right into the character, or applying the setting and then working into the character.

Probably I will just put something down and come back and change it a few times...

So how important is the opening, do you think? When you read a story do you kind of decide right away what sort of writing you are going to expect, and what the story might tell?

If I don't get the opening written down right away, I usually don't ever get back to writing the story. The opening is everything for me. It's what catapults me into writing the story. If the opening doesn't work, I slow down really fast, take forever to write the first few paragraps, and ultimately give up on the project.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

OMS: So how important is the opening, do you think?
RF: If a writer is interested in views and votes, it's VITAL.

OMS: When you read a story do you kind of decide right away what sort of writing you are going to expect, and what the story might tell?
RF: Yep.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[maggot420]

Always grab the reader by the throat in the first paragraph, sink your thumbs into his windpipe in the second, and hold him against the wall until the tag line.
~Paul O'Neil

I think it the most important part of your story. If you can manage it, try to throw them off balance as much as possible.

 

[mdb913]

I'd say give it a small intro. Don't introduce the characters, don't detail the setting...think about some type of background detail and describe what it's doing. Example:

The fly spent its last minute of life on the sill. It's previous 13 days, while not even a fortnight to us, were but a lifetime to him. Now elderly and weak, it flittered its wings for the final time before its thousand eyes were filled with the darkness of death. The lifeless corpse lay on the sill, frozen for the remainder of time's life. As the door slammed shut, the body, as it would forever, did not stutter.

...Maybe something a little less sucky than that, but you get the gist.

 

[slyc_willie]

Sometimes, a very short and dramatic first line works well, something that really makes the reader wonder what is going on.

"I killed him."

It's a simple, direct statement, nothing descriptive about it. But the reader is going to take in those three words and want to know what's going on.

I have received a couple of comments for my opening to Spirit Of Love:

"Carmen always had sad eyes, but they had always been sad in a sort of loving way, like a child's eyes when a beloved pet has passed on. Sad, yes, but always with the basic understanding that everything was fine, that events had happened because they were supposed to."

This makes the reader imagine Carmen's personality, why she is the way she is. You can use this device to describe a favorite article of clothing, or the way a character wears their hair, or a favorite catch-phrase.

My contrib, at any rate.

 

[purple_angel]

Every kid is told that no matter what they are writing the first paragraph is vital!

 

[cloudy]

Always grab the reader by the throat in the first paragraph, sink your thumbs into his windpipe in the second, and hold him against the wall until the tag line.
~Paul O'Neil

I think it the most important part of your story. If you can manage it, try to throw them off balance as much as possible.

I agree. It has to be something that makes them keep reading.

 

[jomar]

Okay only...I'm in the exact same position as you. Well, I don't know how literary my story will be, but I'm writing in 3rd person for a change and trying to develop the characters, or at least a few.

I think the opening is critical. And I try to hook the reader immediately so they'll want to keep reading.

 

[Carnevil9]

I agree that the opening is critical, but I don't think you need to write it first. Just start writing anywhere, and when you are finished (or maybe sooner) an ideal starting point will come to you.....Carney

 

[Stella_Omega]

Okay only...I'm in the exact same position as you. Well, I don't know how literary my story will be, but I'm writing in 3rd person for a change and trying to develop the characters, or at least a few.

I think the opening is critical. And I try to hook the reader immediately so they'll want to keep reading.

Is it critical for you to have it- to write the story?

I note that in my smut I often start with talk, that hopefully gives a clue into the personality of the character that is talking

 

[jomar]

Is it critical for you to have it- to write the story?

I note that in my smut I often start with talk, that hopefully gives a clue into the personality of the character that is talking

If you mean do I have to have it first to write the story? No I don't. I just mean it's a critical in the sense you only have a few lines to grab the reader's attention. If the talk and clue entices the reader, then the opening did the job.

ETA: I suppose if an author has developed a following, they'd give the author the benefit of doubt for a weaker start than new readers would.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

The opening should be an eye-catcher.

He peered around everywhere, finding no toilet paper. "God, what now?" he wondered, as he comtemplated using his shirt sleeve.

I dunno. Would you read that story?

 

[Stella_Omega]

The opening should be an eye-catcher.

He peered around everywhere, finding no toilet paper. "God, what now?" he wondered, as he comtemplated using his shirt sleeve.

I dunno. Would you read that story?

If I saw your name attached to it?

 

[jomar]

If I saw your name attached to it?

That's my point.

 

[cloudy]

My favorite opening line from any of my stories:

The letter arrived three days before Christmas, blown in on a bleak Oklahoma day by unkind fate.

 

[Seattle Zack]

This is my favorite opening paragraph of any novel I've ever read:

Three men at McAlester State Peniteniary had larger penises than Lamar Pye, but all were black and therefore, by Lamar's own figuring, hardly human at all. His was the largest penis ever seen on a white man in that prison or any of the others in which Lamar had spent so much of his adult life. It was a monster, a snake, a ropey, veiny thing that hardly looked at all like what it was but rather like some form of rubber tubing.

--Dirty White Boys, Stephen Hunter

 

[tanyachrs]

I'm not a big fan of stories having introductions. It's nice if the first line is catchy but more important is for it to be the first line of your story. Write the story without worrying what the first line should be. Then go back to the top and cut until you get to where the story starts.

 

[gauchecritic]

Yep, agree with Tanya and Carny. You may want or need an eye-catching opening but you don't have to write it first.
Write it all and then look through and find out where it starts then either do a bit of re-arranging so that the start is at the beginning or write a new beginning.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

I agree with the idea that the opening line can wait until the story is finished. BUT, a good opening line is vital.

Best short opening line:

They shoot the white girl first. Paradise, Toni Morrison

==

Best long opening line:

"FRANCIS MARION TARWATER'S uncle had been dead for only half-a-day when the boy got too drunk to finish digging his grave and a Negro named Buford Munson, who had come to get a jug filled, had to finish it and drag the body from the breakfast table where it was still sitting and bury it in a decent and Christian way, with the sign of its Saviour at the head of the grave and enough dirt on top to keep the dogs from digging it up."

The Violent Bear It Away, Flannery O’Connor


Rumple Foreskin

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

My fav first sentence was:

"The dark man moved swiftly across the desert and the gunslinger followed."

That started 20 years of reading. Also left me frustrated at the end.