November 9, 2005
Over on Joe Konrath's blog I got unnecessarily involved in a "show don't tell" conversation, yet another example of me wasting time instead of accomplishing something. Rather like what I'm doing here.

I offered a few versions of opening lines, bouncing off a guy's opener, and I have to say I kind of liked, "Gunfire was my alarm clock." It might make a good title for a short story, but I won't write it, so if anybody out there wants it, it's yours. Name your victim after me or something. In fact, now that I think of it, an even better title would be: The Gunfire Alarm Clock. Or maybe: The .38 Caliber Alarm Clock. Yeah, I like that one.

I didn't think I'd be talking about titles here. I thought maybe opening lines. Joe said you shouldn't open with the weather or description and I think that's pretty good advice. Here are a few of my more recent opening lines:

From Dirty Deeds:

"Meg? Meg! Hellooooo! Meg! Earth to Meg!"

From The Devil's Pitchfork.

Derek Stillwater and Richard Coffee crouched on a desert ridge, peering across the expanse of sand toward an Iraqi ammunition depot.

From The Serpent's Kiss.

The Serpent was coiled to strike. That was how he thought of it; how he thought of himself.

From Angels Falling (subject to change)

Lieutenant Charlie Walker hid on a hillside overlooking Cheyenne Hills, a sprawling five-star resort outside Colorado Springs at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.

And from a story I just started:

Dr. Daniel Webber walked out of the Science and Engineering Building on the campus of Oakland University.

I have to say, that doesn't work when you hold it up by itself, but I'm just getting started. Also, after the first paragraph we realize that Webber is under surveillance by two people in a car, so I think it still works.

One of the reasons I bring this up, not just as a way to avoid other work, is both the importance of the opening sentence and how we sometimes overrate it. Ideally everything works in your story, and I think it's good to get off to a nice start--something startling or bold or weird, but the bottom line for me for openings in fiction is we start pretty much in the midst of things. A gent on Joe's blog mentioned screenwriting advice, "Come to the scene late and leave it early," which I thought was worth noting and probably printing up above my desk.

In Dirty Deeds Meg is being interrupted by the work she's doing and called into a meeting, but the work she's doing is very important to the plot and it sets up a lot of things.

In Pitchfork these two characters are very important and what happens in that first section is the foundation for everything else that happens in the book. This is the first Iraq war and they're Special Forces and Coffee is setting up a laser siting system so a bomber can blow up the ammunition depot, and Derek is the expert in biological and chemical warfare who is monitoring the fallout of the explosion so he can communicate the risk to Allied troops heading that way. Either way, these two men are going to momentarily have front-row seats to a really big bang, and it may be filled with hazardous chemicals and biological agents.

And the Serpent thing ought to suck readers in.

And for the Angels Falling, it's worth noting that by the end of that first paragraph we have a guy hiding in the mountains over a resort in a camouflage suit aiming his sniper rifle at soldiers in a checkpoint below.

First lines are important. First paragraphs are even more so. They talk about how agents and editors will take 50 pages to make up their mind about a manuscript, but I've also heard 20 and frankly I suspect it's about 5. So you'd better hook 'em early with something.

And how many times have you walked through the bookstore, picked up a book with a promisingly lurid cover and interesting-sounding title, opened the book to the first chapter, read a line or two and then ditched it or bought it?

I've mentioned Victor Gischler's Gun Monkeys before. Here's his opening paragraph. You tell me whether it's a good opening.

"I turned the Chrysler onto the Florida Turnpike with Rollo Kramer's headless body in the trunk, and all the time I'm thinking I should've put some plastic down. I know the heap was a rental, but I didn't like leaving anything behind for the inevitable forensics safari. That meant I'd have to strip all the carpeting in the trunk, douche out the blood with Clorox, and hope Avis took a long time to notice. I should've just taken a second and put some plastic down. Shit."

Best,
Mark Terry