OPENING VOLLEYS

by John M. Floyd

A month or so ago, my Criminal Brief colleague James Lincoln Warren did an interesting column on the “first lines” of stories, and whether they’re as important as we’re often told they are. I especially liked the examples he listed, from his own work.

I’d like to revisit that subject, mainly because it seems to be one of the issues that’s most often on the minds of the folks who take my writing classes. The other reason is, I was having trouble coming up with a column idea this week.

I suppose the official answer to the question “How important is the opening?” depends on which source you choose to believe. Some say openings are vital, some say they’re relatively important, some say they’re overrated. Personally, I think they’re important because the opening line or paragraph is often what leads me, as a reader, to decide whether I want to hang on for the ride. I think most editors are looking for that good opening as well, whether you call it a hook or a grabber or just an incentive to keep reading. (If, of course, you keep in mind some of the pitfalls JLW mentioned in his column. If you start too big, it’s hard to sustain that throughout the story.)

I’ll list some of my openings as examples also, but I’ll begin with a few that are far better than my own. Here are some favorites from other writers’ novels and short stories:

They were watching Ryan beat up the Mexican crew leader on 16mm Commercial Ektachrome.
— The Big Bounce, Elmore Leonard

We were about to give up and call it a night when someone dropped the girl off the bridge.
— Darker Than Amber, John D. MacDonald

Fedship ASN/29 fell out of the sky and crashed.
— “Beachworld,” Stephen King

At the stroke of eleven on a cool April night, a woman named Joey Patrone went overboard from a luxury deck of the cruise liner San Duchess.
— Skinny Dip, Carl Hiaasen

The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida.
— “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” Flannery O’Connor

They threw me off the hay truck around noon.
— The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain

There was a desert wind blowing that night.
— “Red Wind,” Raymond Chandler

I love those. In fact I usually like any opening that realizes at least one of these suggestions:

(1) Start with something happening

The late writing instructor Jack Bickham once had the following conversation with a student (I’m paraphrasing, here):

Teacher: “The problem is, you started your story on page seven.”

Student: “No, I didn’t — I started on page one. See?”

Teacher: “No, you started typing on page one. You started your story on page seven.”

The point is, don’t wait too long to have something interesting happen, in your story. Even the opening of “Red Wind,” cited earlier, includes implied action.

(2) Start with some kind of change

I remember reading an interesting view on this subject. The theory was this: Since we often fear changes in our own lives, readers know that our characters fear it as well. If we as writers can introduce a challenge for the character right away — a death, a divorce, a marriage, a summons, a graduation, an illness, a letter in the mail, a new job, a move to another city, an accusation, a stranger arriving in town, etc. — it’ll usually grab the reader’s attention.

(3) Start by identifying your protagonist

You might even do more than that. When possible, tell what he’s doing, why and when and where he’s doing it, etc. The opening of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea does most of that in a single sentence: “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.”

Anyhow, those are three things I keep in mind when starting a story. I’m not always able to do any of them, but I try. Sometimes I even start with a line of dialogue, in order to avoid exposition and to make sure something’s happening now.

Having said that, here are the openings from some of my published stories:

Jason Plumm lay on the beach for five hours before he was found.

The scariest day of my life — and the most wonderful — happened when I was ten years old.

“So if he dies,” Niles said, “I get everything. Right?”

Lou Rosewood stepped into the laboratory, closed the door behind him, and locked it.

Something was wrong with the lady in the elevator.

“Do you think he knows?” Jenny asked.

The old man was popping the last of the breakfast biscuits into his mouth when the door crashed open.

“Lights,” Becker said, looking up through the windshield. “We got lights on the top floor.”

Tom Wilson stood alone in the hallway, staring at the number on the door in front of him.

At three a.m. Alice Howell jerked awake.

“What I can’t figure out,” Nate said, as he lay in the dirt behind a clump of cactus near Rosie Hapwell’s house, “is why you married that idiot in the first place.”

All things considered, Jerry thought, it wasn’t a bad day to die.

The two brothers lived together in the city at the end of the valley at the foot of the great blue mountains.

“I just wish you weren’t going,” the girl at the window said.

Deputy Ed Malone was slogging through paperwork when Frances Valentine marched into the jail.

“Mr. Boatwright? I’m Judy Keszler, from Channel 10.”

Colonel Puckett knew how to make an entrance.

I met Jenny Bartlett two days ago, when she rang my doorbell at six in the morning.

The dead woman lay in a pecan orchard fifty yards from the road.

Arthur Speed was about to be downsized.

Hank Stegall saw her as soon as she stepped out of the building.

“Something’s going to happen,” Mary said, as she clipped on an earring.

Susan Weeks had never seen a monster before.

Sheriff Chunky Jones poured a cup of coffee, propped his feet up on the desk, and decided to let someone else answer the ringing phone.

On a hot June day in 1959, two weeks after my twelfth birthday, I fell in love for the first time.

“Is he still out there?” Patty asked.

Sara Wilson was almost asleep when she heard her roommate scream.

So much for beginnings. As a followup, here are a couple words you might be ready for, by now:

THE END