 Horror/Scary: July 05, 2023 Issue [#12047] |
This week: At The Beginning Edited by: W.D.Wilcox  
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The story so far: in the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
-The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams (1980)
Mother died today. Or maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure.
-The Outsider by Albert Camus (1942)
It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.
-The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (1963)
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
-Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949)
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
-Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (1915)
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At The Beginning
The first lines of a novel or short story must grab the reader's attention, enticing them to continue past the first page and continue reading. The first sentence provides you with an opportunity to showcase your writing style, introduce your main character, or establish the inciting incident of your narrative.
Writing a great opening line isn’t as simple as typing “Once upon a time…” The first scene of your novel needs to capture your reader’s attention and introduce them to the characters, mood, and themes of your novel. Here are some different types of openings to explore when writing the first draft of your novel:
1. State your theme. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy begins with the line, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” This line establishes the novel’s theme of dysfunctional families. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice opens with the line, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Austen’s opening sentence encapsulates the centrality of the desire for socially advantageous matrimony, a theme that she explores throughout the rest of the book. Consider the central theme of your story idea and brainstorm ways to distill it down to a single sentence.
2. Begin with a strange detail. An opening line can hook readers by introducing an uncanny detail right off the bat. A classic example is the opening line of George Orwell’s 1984, which references clocks striking thirteen. In the first paragraph, readers understand that something is unusual about the world of the novel. Additionally, the number thirteen comes with a host of ominous and supernatural connotations, setting the novel’s foreboding tone from the very first scene.
3. Establish your character’s voice. The first chapter of J.D. Salinger’s first novel The Catcher in the Rye immediately gives readers a sense of the main character’s point of view: irreverent, detached, and jaded. Brainstorm a simple, effective way to introduce your protagonist’s general attitude and tone in the opening paragraph.
4. Introduce your narrative style. Sometimes, an introductory line can appeal to readers through pure lyricism and narrative style. Quick staccato bursts of pure syllables introduce readers to Vladimir Nabokov’s distinct writing style in Lolita, and his technical ingenuity provides incentive enough to continue reading. If you have a signature style of writing, let it shine for the first time in your opening sentence.
5. Convey the stakes. The opening of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez instantly greets the reader with the sobering fate of Colonel Aureliano Buendía. From the first line, readers know that the colonel’s journey will end with him staring down a firing squad, suggesting that his story is one of life and death. Rather than acting as a spoiler, this third-person opening encourages us to read the rest of the story to discover the backstory of how the protagonist ends up dead.
6. Set the scene. Chapter one of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath begins by setting the scene for our main character. Plath uses a combination of sensory details (the stifling summer heat) and morbid events (the Rosenbergs’ execution) to present an opening scene that is uncomfortable and claustrophobic, providing an ominous backdrop for our first-person narrator’s confusion and ennui.
*Written by MasterClass
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DEAD LETTERS
Beholden  says:
Thank you very much for including my short story, The Night Halloween Became Real, among your Editor's Picks.
If you want me to stop then stop writing such good stories. 
And then we have, 'Acting Like A Monster':
Beholden
Who's acting?
Serena Blade 
Not intentionally, no. But I am sure we are all monsters in someone's memory.
Turkey DrumStik 
I must admit I've done so more than once.
Finder101 
In the eyes of some people, probably always...
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