 Short Stories: June 01, 2005 Issue [#398] |
 
Short Stories
This week: Edited by: ❀Leger❀  
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The purpose of this newsletter is to help the Writing.com short story author hone their craft and improve their skills. Along with that I would like to inform, advocate, and create new and fresh ideas for the short story author.
This week's Short Story Editor
❀Leger❀
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Amazon's Price: $ 12.99
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Great Beginnings
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago- never mind how long precisely- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me. ~~The opening paragraph from Moby Dick.~~
An excellent short story needs a great beginning. It needs something to catch your readers eye, to pique their interest and provoke them into reading on. Your first paragraph needs to draw the reader into your story and introduce them to your character(s).
Use your opening paragraph to the best of your ability. One with a topic sentence and some weak generalizations will lose your reader before you even get started! Give your reader something to start with, a solid beginning.
An opening paragraph needs to be coherent, concise and detailed. It sets the pace and tone for the entire story, so examine your opening paragraph and remove unclear and ineffective phrases. Do you give your reader a sense of time and place? Do you describe your character(s)? Are you pulling your reader into your story and involving their emotions?
If you can say yes, you have a great beginning!
Do you recognize these great beginnings?
A) A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments, and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edivice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.
B) In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
C) 1801 - I have just returned from a visit to my landlord - the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist's Heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us.
D) A little boy first sighted the masts of the ship Pharaon. She was coming home to Marseilles, France, with a cargo of cloth and dyes. As usual, a crowd gathered to watch the docking, an exciting event in 1815, for the handling of big sailing ships was an art. But the Pharaon proceeded toward port so slowly that the onlookers felt something must be wrong on board.
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Excerpt: I had been dreaming this morning, forcefully awoken by a throbbing head. Sitting up in my bed, I held fast to the fragments of my slumbering vision. They were like shattered pieces of mirror, each holding a likeness of a familiar face. Teasing my mind,souveniers of diminished mirth. One's mind will always reflect on days gone by. Cherishing the happier moments, smiles slowly fading with time.
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Excerpt: It was a miserable morning as Detectives Jena Young and Andy Donavon stood on the road above the Rocky Ridge lake flood drain watching Frank and Tommy from the rescue team trying to extract the body from the iron grate. The two men were having a difficult time extricating it because of the strong suction of the drain.
Excerpt: When I met Naomi, she was your typical Japanese lady just over 30. Where I was messy, she was tidy; where I spoke before the thoughts had formed in my mind, she took a few moments to reflect; where I raged with fury and shone with joy, she showed restraint.
Silence was her main tool of communication.
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Excerpt: Vampires-are they real? Do they exist? I discovered at the tender age of 5, not by choice that they did. Forgive my lack of manners, Dr. David Matthews. I’m a Hematologist by trade and soulless vampire hunter by choice. You’re probably thinking, “there’s a difference?” or the obvious one, “an odd combination”. I’m right there with you friend. But, while I’m packing to return to Texas, my home state, I’ll tell you about my angel. No, not “guardian angel”, although she has been. I’m talking about how she…wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me go back to the beginning; almost thirty years ago…
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This month's question: Do you have any favorite "great beginnings"?
Last month's question: How do you use the five senses to increase the quality of your writing?
Puditat  writes:
A nice editorial on the senses. I love to close my eyes and listen to what's happening around me. That way I pick up some great cues for my writing and even some plot/subject ideas, too.
Sounds like a great method Puditat!
robmartin writes:
A timely NL topic Legerdemain, considering how many discussions of the importance of dialogue I've been running across of late on WC. The senses are to place as dialogue is to character: they add dimension, depth, and texture.
Generally, writers don't have difficulty with visual description--it's natural to imagine what a setting looks like, so we often start there. However it's sound, smell, touch, and taste that pull the reader through the proscenium arch and into the environment. These other senses create an interactive feel.
When I've finished a descriptive passage, I read it back to myself aloud with the question in mind: am I doing more than seeing here? If the answer is "no," then I work in other sensory details--not so many that the passage becomes unweildy, but enough to change it from a photograph to an environment.
Thank you for featuring my story.
Thank you for sharing your hints.
Answer to above:
A) "Scarlet Letter" Nathaniel Hawthorne
B) "The Hobbit" J.R.R. Tolkien
C) "Wuthering Heights" Emily Bronte
D) "The Count of Monte Cristo" Alexandre Dumas
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