Story Openings You're Proud Of

[AsylumSeeker]

Very intriguing. I like "The place was bleeding out, like a man with a gut shot."

Thanks for the comment. Do you ever find yourself "in the zone" so to speak. so much so that you go back and question, I wrote that? It was one of those moments, maybe one I'll never have again. And maybe to some it's not all that good, it just so happens that I think so.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

I'd pick a single perspective... especially within a single paragraph. Otherwise the narrative voice seems too intrusive.

I like your use of "the law", as it inspires a sense of lawlessness. Not sure if the story continues this, but I liked this aspect.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

My little contribution...

Nice start!

 

[AsylumSeeker]

George V. Higgins published a short how-to-write book, ON WRITING, and it features a chapter about how to capture the flavor of vernacular speech. The chapter is illustrated with samples of how famous writers mastered or botched the problem.

Thanks or the tip JBJ.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

It's funny reading these, because going back over my own stories, I find I nearly always open with dialogue. Not always, but it seems 9 times out of ten.

Like this, from Light and the Darkness:
"William, what have you done now?" Erica watched her brother as he paced the kitchen with jerky movements.

"You always blame me." He glared at her. "You never ask for my side, ask if anyone might have done something to me."

A rare, non-dialogue opening from Nothing Gets Through:
Thonk. Pahk. Clack.

Dom moved smoothly from shot to shot, deflecting pucks with his blocker pad, his glove, his leg pads, his stick -- whatever was in the right place. He ignored the ones that got through. He just gritted his teeth and tried harder to stop them all. The bars of his facemask disappeared, and his teammates were blurs out by the blue line.

Hi PL, thanks for all of the updates. Glad all is well, or so I assume. Wish I could be better at selling myself as you are. I might be getting published a second time <crossing fingers>.

Thanks for contributing. So many times I also start with dialogue too, but my finest moment(s) do not incorporate dialogue IMHO.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

Well you said proud of so I suppose that and what I think technically might be the "best" are two different things. This is my favorite opening sequence of a story that I have written. I have 40 stories written and 36 are incest. This opening sequence is from one of my 3 BDSM stories called The Breaking of Allison ( a 2 part story) I think it's my fav because it was written in answer to a challenge that I couldn't write BDSM. The story received pretty good votes and stands at a 4.69. For the record I already am well aware that grammar is not the greatest it was written last summer before I picked up an editor.

*******

Laying there in the oppressive heat of the room, her arms chained to the massive four poster bed, Allison let out a low moan as she felt the silver bullet pressed against her clit begin to start vibrating again. As soon as it did she tried to squeezing her legs together even tighter and pushed her hips off the bed desperately straining to cum.

"Oh Please," She whimpered knowing she sounded pathetic but unable to help herself at this point.

Allison tried to work her thighs up and down but to no avail. Her legs were tied together at the knees so tightly she couldn't budge them at all. Allison gasped however, as she began to feel the first welcome twinges of orgasm flow through her loins, her thighs started to quiver and she arched her back, wincing as this caused the chains attached to the nipple clamps to pull tighter. Oh, yes! She thought despite the added pain the vibrator was lasting longer and she was going to...

The vibrator stopped.

"Oh, nooo!" Allison moaned pumping her hips in vain.

Finally she gave up, slumping back into the bed. How long had she been left alone like this? That was at least the fifth time the vibrator had gone off. How long in between, fifteen minutes each? Allison had lost all track of time she swallowed hard; her throat was dry as a bone unlike the sweat soaked sheets she was lying on. The temperature in the room was close to a hundred degrees.

Allison pulled against the manacles that were holding her wrists hoping the sweat would give her enough play to possibly slide up a little. All this did was cause her shoulders to hurt more, at this point the aching in her shoulders was almost in perfect time to the throbbing sensation in her ass. Allison had been spanked so badly that she could still feel the stinging.

Opening her eyes, well as far as they would anyways, between the sweat dripping into both of them and what had been squirted into her right one, she was lucky to be able to squint. Looking up into the mirrored ceiling Allison saw herself lying there, and let out a groan, she was naked of course, her normally ivory complexion flushed red from the heat and her black hair plastered to her forehead and parts of her cheeks.

Even in the reflection Allison could see the bruising around her pink nipples from the clamps, as well as the twisting of them. She was chained with her arms as far out to the side as they would go and her legs wrapped together with a belt. Everything hurt including her pussy which had endured the hardest fucking she could have ever imagined; it had been more like an attack than a sexual encounter.

Allison knew this wasn't the end, not by a long shot, at some point when he felt her will was worn down even further Mark would come back and the games would begin anew. As if that thought had cued it the vibrator started to hum against her over stimulated clit. Allison moaned loudly, despite the pain and humiliation as she had endured her body was being forced to want to cum.

Allison closed her eyes trying not to push to cum it would do no good. What the hell was she doing here? More importantly why hadn't she quit yet? It would be so simple. All she had to do was say one word and it would be over, she would be untied and could go home. Go back to being the one in control. Who the hell needed this? This wasn't fun it was sadistic; trying to get Allison to break as she herself had broken so many boys. But she hadn't done it like this she...

"Ohhhhh," Allison whined as her orgasm once again approached just in time for the vibrating to stop. Slumping back panting once again, her parched throat burning Allison turned her head thinking she saw something move but realized it was a trick caused by the flickering of the half dozen or so candles that were lit on each side of the bed. It was still early afternoon or at least she thought it was but the one window in the room had been painted black. Allison jerked her head as she realized she was starting to sink into a daze of sorts and forced to herself to concentrate. To remember why she was here and what was on the line. Why she would not quit.

Nice, liked the detailed descriptions. Very good.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

Maybe...

Have you ever wanted to go back in time, with all the knowledge and experience you have now. You know you have, so don't lie to me. Go back and do things just a little differently, with what you know about the future. I have and the opportunity to do just that became a possibility for me. I don't know why they picked me, I was no one special. Maybe it was…no, it couldn't have been that.

I'm hooked. Is there more? LOL.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

Well, this was rather difficult. I just went through every story I thought I actually liked and found very little of any particular note in the opening paragraphs. I focused on the actual first paragraph. This was the best I could offer. The good thing is that I can see now where these could be tightened up. I'm currently working on deleting stories here so that I can pare down to a core of stories that I really like.

A Murder of Crows
Tessa should have known better than to let a friend set her up on a blind date. Either Erica didn't know her as well as she thought or Erica had never really gotten over that time Tessa put jello in her bed as a joke.


Essay
Sex on the Rocks or Neat?
Women have been devouring romance novels and chocolate bon-bons in lieu of satisfying their sexual desires for a long time. Sometimes the partner isn't willing. Sometimes there isn't a partner and going out to pick someone up at the local bar seems a little unsafe, at best. What's a girl to do? We turn to stories to stir our imagination and sate our appetites.


Surrealism Outside the Frame
George pushed through the glass doors at the front of the office building and pulled his coat tighter as the cold bit at him. He hurried down the steps, skidded on a patch of ice and righted himself. He followed the stone retaining wall fifty feet from the entrance of the building. All just to get a cigarette in, on one of the coldest evenings of the year. He only got fifteen minutes and it took five minutes just to get down from the third floor and out of the building.


Sweet Italian Rain
He is a Roman God. All he requires is a wreath of olive leaves instead of the cap that covers his glossy curls. She watches him for several minutes before winding her way through carts, to the one where he is replenishing the grapes. Her hands move over the rough texture of sweetly ripe melons. She considers the dark purple grapes. They do smell seductively juicy.

Too Hot for Sex
I lay spread eagle on the bed, arms thrown up over my head. I am lax and stripped of any motivation just as the bed is stripped of everything except it's plain white fitted sheet, lying smooth beneath me. The sweat beads on my moist bare skin are, at most, tickled by the air from the window. They are with me for the duration. The heat is oppressive and the humidity suffocating.

Personally, I think Too Hot is best because the description "puts me there", so to speak. I like it.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

Maybe not the best but one that intrigues me.

"Just what is your fucking problem?" The old man growled without turning around from where he sat slumped against the bar. He rested on his elbows, shoulders hunched, staring at the bars surface, as if it held all the secrets of the world.

The two men, who had been arguing behind him, looked around sharply. The taller of the two asked, loudly, "Are you talking to me, Grandpa? Because if you are...”

The rest of the sentence remained unspoken as the old man slowly stood and removed his glasses and battered cowboy hat. He took a step to his right and turned left. A big right hand flashed up and caught the man talking right on the chin. His feet came an inch off the floor as he arched backward and slammed onto the floor.

The other man took two or three hurried steps back, putting his hands up, palms outward. "Daddy Jack, I got no quarrel with you. I've known you too long. Johnny there, is just plain dumb. You know that."

The old man just stood looking at the kid for several long seconds. "Get this ass hole out of my bar. You're both barred for a month."

With that the old man sat back down on his stool, replacing the hat and glasses. He took a long pull on the beer next to his elbow before slumping back against the bar.

I can see Clint Eastwood here, calmly waiting to see what happens.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

I'm not sure if I could point to any of my own as something to brag about.

The opening paragraph of Kafka's "Metamorphosis" is hard to beat. Here it is.

One morning, when Gregor Samsa awoke from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.

Never saw this, thanks.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

I like this one, which is from a young adult story of mine:


Seven different websites told me that if I got the right haircut and laughed in the school corridor at just the right time, William would notice me.

But he didn’t, and he went to uni. That sucked.

Then, I died. That sucked more.

None of those websites suggested I should turn into the instrument of his mortal corruption and materialise on his ceiling, but because I’m sharp like that, I’m about to try it out.

This could go one of two ways; I'm a special kind of dead, so I've seen them.

Both of them suck.

Love it! Unexpected.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

From How I met My Wife:

The dingy little beachfront bar darkened suddenly as the light from the open door was suddenly blocked. Every eye in the place turned instinctively towards the door, then stayed in awe of the man shaped shadow filling the doorway. The newcomer stood in the door for a few moments to let his eyes adjust before tipping his head clear of the lintel to come inside. He made his way to the bar and settled onto the end stool. A casual wave at the bartender produced a mug of draft beer that slid to a stop in front of the big man in the best movie western tradition.

"How much is my tab, Clancy?" The big man's voice rumbled effortlessly over the background conversation.

"Take me a while to figure the interest, O'Malley, what with you being gone these last six months. Would ye be planning on paying it, for a change?"

"Yeah, I'm going to pay it just as soon as you put a round for the house on it."

"I'll be seein' the color of yer money before I do that, O'Malley. I'm poor enough from supporting yer own capacity, without giving away drinks on yer worthless promises."

"Ah, Clancy, Ye wound me heart." O'Malley's imitation of Clancy's brogue was overdone, but the bill he waved had enough zeros on it to sooth any insult Clancy may have felt. "I won the big one, Clancy, and I'm celebrating with all my old friends now that I'm back home where I belong."​

That opening actually happened because I didn't like the opening of the original version and decided to frame the story as a Bar Tale and I needed a bar to frame it with. I may use O'Malley's beachfron bar again some time to frame another weak story. As it turns out, framing the story seems to have worked because it is currently carrying a 'red H' as well as a "green E."

Whoa, a double-dipper! A sizzling H and an E to trump the H. Nice! Congrats, very good. Okay, so I'm officially jea-lous!

 

[AsylumSeeker]

The drenching rains fell heavy, as they often do in March, in the Western Highlands of Scotland. Through the early morning grey haze, a small army of clansmen made their way into the small village of Ballachulish, the thrumming of rain covering their sound. Claymores, dirks and battle axes at the ready, the filthy, sodden men in poor Highland garb, entered one dwelling after another, slaughtering all who were inside, no one to be spared, save a few young women for the men to enjoy later, the spoils of their one-sided war. Men and women who lay in their beds, had their dreams and lives smashed from their skulls, staining the skins with lifeblood, the results of man's greed. Before the wan, morning sun had made an attempt to brighten the gloom, only eight souls of Ballachulish were alive. Those eight would soon wish their lives hadn't been spared.
Mary McKinnon, a season left to be eighteen years, lived with her parents in the small village and made bread. They lived a good life, as much as poverty would allow and kept to their good traditions. Standing now in a strange room, of a strange house, with four vile men, had left her paralyzed with fear and apprehension. In the dim light, she saw the flash come up to her face, the glint off sharp steel running along the edge, catching her attention and quickening her breath. The soaking stench of the man filled her with disgust, but the hand catching her nightdress brought about great dread. It took only a few seconds of keen slicing and Mary felt all the shame she had ever known, yet it wasn't close to how she would feel, by the end of her ordeal. Her rounded femininity flushed fast and hard, as her embarrassment soared further, her unknown body about to be plundered for its wealth.

This is the original opening to my saga, Blood of the Clans.

Nice, it draws the reader in and at the same time gives the flavor of the story so the reader knows what to expect. I like it!

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I'm hooked. Is there more? LOL.

If you serious, yes but it's not finished yet, when it is I'll let you know. You can read more on my website if you want...Rerun is the what the story is called and you can find a link to it on the about page.

 

[Weird Harold]

Whoa, a double-dipper! A sizzling H and an E to trump the H. Nice! Congrats, very good. Okay, so I'm officially jea-lous!

A double dipper in more ways than one. How I Met My Wife still has the original opening of the version I wasn't satisfied with:

It had been a beautiful day, and a fine evening. I had spent all afternoon, and most of the evening, girl-watching in the amusement park and along the pier. Now, it looked like the only girl watching I'd be doing for the rest of the night was my collection of adult videos.

Storm clouds were visible on the horizon, and moving in fast. A strong wind had risen and was starting to swirl and gust, presaging the fury of the storm to come. It was doing nice things to women's skirts, lifting the short ones for a teasing view of scanty panties and pressing the long ones against lush feminine bodies to outline hidden delights.

The high clouds ahead of the storm were already blotting out the stars. The clouds quickly thickened enough to obscure a full moon -- if there had been one. I just hoped I'd make it home before I drowned in the rain. The odds didn't look good for getting home dry.

I was about halfway down the pier, working my way through the crowd, when the lights went out. Not just the lights on the pier, but every light within sight. The wind must have caused a massive power failure that blacked out the whole area.

With no moon or stars, the sudden darkness was like being inside a black cat deep in a coal mine.

The crowd went silent for about three heartbeats, and then groaned in unison. For a brief moment there was a spontaneous harmony that a choir director would kill to be able to produce on demand. Then everything dissolved into cacophony, with everybody asking what happened, people screaming and shouting, and the wind howling like the darkness was it's cue to go mad.

The crowd hung on the edge of panic for no more than a minute, and then just as suddenly calmed down for some reason. The screaming and shouting turned to squeals and laughter as the mood turned from borderline panic to one of shared adventure.​

It's not really a bad beginning, it was the ending that made the bar-tale framing work better.

 

[Edward Teach]

I'd pick a single perspective... especially within a single paragraph. Otherwise the narrative voice seems too intrusive.

Thanks, Ars, I'll rewrite this befor I finish.

IMO, Teach, it wouldn’t hurt if you chopped in parts that monster of an opening sentence and perhaps lost a few modifiers. Are dark and green really necessary here? Not saying you should never use them; obviously there are times when you wish to convey that exact information, but from what I see here, dark and green don't make the picture more vivid but they do they make the sentence more florid and clunky. This seems to me just fine as the first sentence:



Further, and this is the most important thing, I agree with Ars about POV. Do not switch. Rework Jenny's part from Eb's perspective. Express the information you expressed in "Jenny's" sentences from Eb's POV. He's annoyed she won't go cover herself? Narrate that as he sees it.

The rest (from the place you return to his POV) is fine, and in fact, I quite like it. Your opening does a good (and with a few changes, graceful) job of introducing everything it needs to, the hook, the setting, the characters, the conflict. Based on it, I'd want to keep reading. Best of luck completing the story!

Thanks, Verdad. I wanted the Tahoe to be a little dark, but not black, forshadowing the man driving it, and my mental image was dark green. I think, I'll drop the green and just call it a "dark Tahoe." I agree that I need to tend to the POV problem, either make it two paragraphs or maybe use dialogue.

Teach

 

[PacoFear]

Strawberries and Blubblegum was my first attempt at writing a story from a girl's POV. I was pretty sure I was going to get laughed off of Lit.

Bubblegum. It's what she called me when we were alone. And I called her Berry.

I remember how it started, like it was yesterday. We were playing field hockey. It was the beginning of the season. Our coach split the team in half and we were scrimmaging each other. I was on the A-team with the other first-stringers. Stacey had transferred into our school a year earlier but she'd been playing tennis before. When she switched over, she was automatically put on the B-team. The coach watched her run then put her at sweeper right away. Stacey could cover half the field. She was wild, fast, and free. Tireless too.

I was playing center forward so Stacey and I clashed a bunch. We were bumping, elbowing—the usual stuff. Nothing nasty, just good hard play. Until someone sent me a great pass and I got a step ahead of her. It would be just me and the goalie.

Stacey lunged with her front leg and I think she twisted her knee to knock into my thigh. Anyway, all of a sudden my leg went out from under me. We'd been running full tilt. I fell sideways and we got tangled up as we tumbled down and across the grass. She ended up on top of me.

 

[ClassyGirl]

I noticed her at every meeting.
In fact, I paid particular attention to her. She sat in the corner every week, away from everyone else, quietly doodling on a notepad in her bible while Andy talked about the word of God. She brought the bible, yet never looked in it. She left it open to the same page the whole time, unlike the others, who diligently turned the thin pages of their bibles when Andy brought their attention to a new passage, like the sound of hundreds of leaves falling off dead trees.
I got the impression that she cared, yet didn’t care if they knew she wasn’t paying attention. I watched her doodle and often wondered what she was drawing, with her pale, tiny hand moving surreptitiously over the pages. Her grey eyes had a faraway, dead look in them while she doodled. Every now and then, a particularly emphatic word of Andy’s would reach her ears and she’d flinch, a look passing across her face that would be gone before I could get a closer look at her.

First few paragraphs of the current story i'm writing.

 

[Mandy57]

"Within, it's walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone."

I read the haunting words as I had a hundred times before, letting them fill my senses, caressing my skin like a familiar lover whose touch could still inflame me. A chill ran down my spine as I thought of Hill House, standing as it always had, silent and stronger than time itself. And as always, the final words ran out on the page before me too soon, I wanted more.

As I gently closed the book in front of me, still chilled by those final pen strokes, I realized I was not alone.

I didn't see him at first, only sensed his presence in the room with me. I never heard his footsteps on the hard tile floor but yet it seemed I could hear him, not the sound of his breath nor the beating of his heart which were not to be found, but more the essence of who he was.

I lifted my gaze from the desk and found myself staring into the most amazing pair of eyes I had ever seen. It wasn't the color exactly, which in itself was remarkable, a breathtaking shade of pale blue that reminded me of clear New England summer skies, but rather what I saw behind the eyes.

He was handsome and had the appearance of being middle-age, and a quick look might have you believe that he had not yet reached his fortieth birthday however his eyes told something different. I saw intelligence and wisdom there that denied his outward appearance of being a young man, or more specifically, a lesser man.

There was something else there also, something that set my heart racing and my head spinning; a hunger.

I met his gaze as he told me his name but still wasn't sure I had heard it correctly at all. His voice, like frozen gravel but full of heat at the same time, trickled into my ear and caught me by surprise.

I was sure I had seen him before but student or teacher I did not know, he could have been either one.


This is the beginning to yet another unfinished short story.

 

[kromen]

Whenever someone mentions Bill Buckner, I get an erection. Not a simple half mast salute like when one shakes longer than necessary at the urinal; I'm talking about two inches away from bumping into a vagina type of raging boner.

It's not that I find him, or any man for that matter, attractive. While same the incident that befell him one Saturday night back in 1986 made him a pariah in certain sporting circles, I remember as one of the most spectacular events in my lifetime. - It's only a game

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

MY LIFE WITH CHARLIE BROWN by Charles M. Schulz is a collection of essays about cartooning but includes several pearls of wisdom about writing.

" It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly, a shot rang out! A door slammed. The maid screamed. Suddenly, a pirate ship appeared on the horizon! While millions of people were starving, the king lived in luxury. Meanwhile, on a small farm in Kansas, a boy was growing up." SNOOPY

'Selling cartoons is very easy, all you have to do is be better than whats in the paper." Charles M. Schulz

 

[Firebrain]

My current favourite is on my blog for a bit, here:

http://litfriction.blogspot.com/2011/04/fiction-somniopath-dystopian-wip.html

 

[jomar]

My White Trash opener still makes me laugh...as does much of the story.

"Yeah, I fucked her. The cunt living in the double-wide next door, the one with the deck facing mine. Fuck I care she was married. I fucked her skank friend too. They both wanted it. Didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. "