Clark's Scribbles

Opening Lines are Overrated

Opening lines are overrated. Some swear by them. How-to books insist you need that one line that will hook readers and drive them to plow through a 400-page story. I just completed a workshop that devoted a whole class to the topic. The leader trotted out the opening line of a bestselling novel: “Susie did not come down for breakfast.”

That line does grab one’s attention. Diners in a restaurant would pay attention if someone stood and proclaimed, “Susie did not come down for breakfast.”

I once met a Japanese woman who was reading The Prophet to teach herself English. I began reading the book aloud so she would know how it sounded. Soon about two dozen strangers had gathered to listen to my rendition of that masterpiece.

An opening line is like an emergency vehicle with lights flashing and siren blaring. If one speeds past while you’re running errands, you know something must have happened. There’s a story. But do you follow the ambulance to get to the bottom of it?

If that same vehicle is parked in front of the house across the street, you will probably try to find out what is going on. You are interested in the lives of people you know.

The author of this novel follows up on her bizarre opening statement by introducing Susie’s family. That is technically a data dump but it serves to build a connection between readers and characters. The introduction makes Susie’s family acquaintances like the people living in the house across the street.

The two elements work together. The reader is willing to listen to the mundane details of an ordinary family’s life because the opening line grabs her attention. Those details connect her to the family. Once connected, Susie’s failure to show up for breakfast becomes a matter of deep concern.

Follow-through is a crucial element of most successful actions. A batter must connect with the ball to get a hit, but his follow-through determines where the ball goes after it leaves his bat. And that may be the difference between a hit and an out.

A long arcing pass that falls into the receiver’s hands as he sprints to the end zone is a thing of beauty. It’s fodder for highlight reels. But the passer’s footwork and body mechanics – his technique – determine the ball’s trajectory. Technique is an unassuming servant who works her magic in obscurity.

In a recent blog post (killzoneblog.com/2022/08/the-three-types-of-opening-lines.html), James Scott Bell discussed three types of opening lines:

Action: The opening line drops the reader into some intriguing action.

Voice: The opening line is clear, unique, arresting, and immediately lets the reader know what kind of story lies ahead.

Wood: The opening sets the stage for the story (my take on Bell’s explanation).

More simply, the opening line tells the reader what happened, or who was involved, or when and where it happened. The rest of the book explains how and why.

For Action/What, Bell references successful novels like John D. MacDonald’s Darker Than Amber, which begins, “We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody dropped the girl off the bridge.”

For Voice/Who, he likes Mickey Spillane’s Vengeance is Mine, which begins, “The guy was dead as hell.”

Incidentally, Charles Dickens used a very similar opening for A Christmas Carol. “Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatsoever about that … Old Marley was dead as a doornail.”

Charles Frazier’s debut novel, which won the National Book Award and sold 3 million copies while sitting atop the New York Times bestseller list for 61 weeks, is another example of a story with a “voice” opening. The first lines set the tone with an observation that combines the story’s plot with similes appropriate to Inman and other impoverished, rural characters. “At the first gesture of morning, flies began stirring. Inman’s eyes and the long wound at his neck drew them, and the sound of their wings and the touch of their feet were soon more potent than a yardful of roosters in rousing a man to wake.”

The remainder of the chapter introduces Inman and places him in the Old South. No one sentence serves as a hook. A vivid portrait of the man and his circumstances captures the reader and pulls her into the story.

A Wood opening is not looked upon kindly by Bell. “There’s an old saying: Your story begins when you light the fire, not when you lay out the wood. I like that. It holds for any genre. But with literary fiction, and epic fantasy or history, an exception is sometimes made. Presumably, fans of these genres are patient in the beginning, knowing they are in for a long immersive ride.”

Bell goes on to assure the rest of us that even these genres can start with action.

Holding an audience’s attention, whether a single reader or a large group, is an art. Getting someone to follow you through essential backstory or world development, whether that world is the old South or “… a galaxy far, far away,” requires exceptional skills.

Mort Sahl bragged that his pal Lenny Bruce had such mastery of his delivery that he could draw his setup out for ten minutes before dropping the punch line.

It is easy to bear with someone who is saying something interesting. Lee Child’s dissertation on automatic handguns is engaging. (A Jack Reacher Novel: The Enemy p.245)

A Civil War novel given to me several years ago opened with a gang of Confederate soldiers getting ready to rob a bank in Colorado. When the author launched into a classroom-style lecture on why the Confederacy needed gold, I closed the book and never opened it again.

Just as epic fantasy and historical stories can begin with action or character, an action novel can open with a setup that leads into the story.

Bell opens his novel Try Dying with: “On a wet Tuesday morning in December, Ernesto Bonilla, twenty-eight, shot his twenty-three-year-old wife, Alexandra, in the backyard of their West Forty-fifth Street home in South Los Angeles.” Bonilla then drove to a spot overlooking a freeway and blew his brains out in such a way that his body fell onto the roof of a passing car, killing the driver.

This is setup – laying down the wood for the fire. It is a brief prologue to the story’s “intriguing action.”  Remember: “Your story begins when you strike the match…”

But the author pours on lighter fluid before striking his match. “…The driver, Jacqueline Dwyer, twenty-seven, an elementary school teacher from Resida, died at the scene.” This short sentence creates sympathy. Without it, the murder-suicide-accidental death would be “… simply another dark and tragic strange coincidence…”

Then Bell throws on the match. “But the story did not go away. Not for me. Because Jacqueline Dwyer was the woman I was going to marry.”

With that, the reader is primed to follow Ty Buchanan on his search for the truth about Jacqueline’s death. A search that costs him his job, his house and his car. A search that leads him afoul of the law and drug dealers who come close to killing him. Readers follow him all the way to the end, where he solves the mystery and emerges a better man.

The opening to my novel, Demented, takes a similar approach. This is self-promotion, but I can speak authoritatively about that opening. It is borderline. Two dozen of my fellow writers reviewed and commented on it at a meeting of our writers’ group. A dozen Beta Readers gave me feedback on the novel and a couple of editors had a go at it. Some liked the opening. Others didn’t. Some had strong criticism.

I tried several alternative versions, but in the end, I decided this was the best I could come up with. First, the kindling:

“They gathered at the same table in the Il Mediterreano on Connecticut Avenue in D.C. every Friday night. They called themselves The Gal Friday Group. Most of them had mid-level jobs as administrative assistants, accountants, or lawyers. Cindy Foster had been promoted to manager of the Tax Services department at the D.C. office of America First Financial Services recently, but the group decided she could stay because she was one of the founding members. Ellen Magee was a partner in a law firm, but it was a small one, so that didn’t count. There were twelve women in the group, but there were always a few no-shows.”

Then the lighter fluid:

“Ellen turned to look. Two men had entered the restaurant and were walking toward their table. Their expensive suits and flashy ties were overkill for the Mediterreano. The man in front was middle-aged, medium height, balding, and bespectacled. The second was a six-foot-tall, 220-pound athlete. He had sharp, Teutonic features with blond hair and blue eyes. His gaze was fixed on Cindy as he made his way into the restaurant.”

And finally, the match:

“[Cindy] paid for her meal and went to the ladies’ room. 

When she came out, Adan was waiting for her. “Didn’t you use to be Cindy Smith?”

She glared but said nothing. 

He squinted and bit his lip. “Ah’m trying to remember where we first met.”

“At my wedding reception,” Cindy snapped. “You showed up without an invitation.”

Adan screwed up his face in a doubtful expression. “No.” He shook his head. “Ah’m sure you are the Cindy Smith I dated in college.”

“You have me confused with somebody else.”

He grinned. “You were a year behind me at Georgetown. You were the last good girl Ah dated.”

The way he said “good girl” made her stomach churn. She fought to stay in control, but when she looked into his face — and she could not help looking — she saw that sadistic grin and those predatory eyes. She could feel him on top of her. The metallic smell of testosterone made her itch all over. A scream tried to force its way out. 

Cindy choked it back and pushed past him. She charged through the restaurant, past the patrons enjoying an evening out. Cindy caught Ellen’s worried expression out of the corner of her eye but kept going. She did not stop until she reached the ticket kiosks on the second level of the Metro station. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She leaned against one of the boxy machines for some time, sobbing and fighting for control.”