That is the dream of every writer.
Every teller of tall tales struggles with that concept – the delivery such a subtle art.
Some argue over the power of the opening line – is it the critical event between reader and writer, is it the tantalising appetiser that will keep the reader coming back for more and more and more?
Can a few lines of our scripted prose keep them hooked?
Can an opening line deliver the whole book from page one?
It’s true that my favourite opening line is from an author I’m not really a fan of – I love his stories, just not his style.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
However, for this opening line, Mr Charles Dickens – Tale of Two Cities – take a bow.
This prose has so much going for it, yet it’s also one that today I’m sure would be broken up and lose its magic.
Who today would get away with a 119-word sentence?
It tells us so little of the time and place, and yet at the same time (with a little thought) it tells us so very much.
And that is the genius of such prose, it doesn’t talk down to the reader, there is no spoon feeding of anything, your ability to follow the story is taken for granted – and so the opening line works and works so very well.
So, how do you emulate this?
Me, I’ve tried and tried again and again to get the hook suitably baited – for the opening line to be a true aperitif of what is to come.
With Amy Grace and her opening adventure, I tried to set the time (late 1800’s), location – a train from Alexandria to Cario and then a small introduction of peril insofar as the train has broken down.
“Railways were synonymous with punctuality; they were an accepted byword for engineered Victorian efficiency. Yet Amy sat motionless in the afternoon heat, in a broken-down train, somewhere between Alexandria and Cairo. The intended three hours of travel would eventually draw out to become several long boring and uncomfortable ones.”
Did/does it work – I hope so.
My latest work in progress is a little novel called ‘HIM’, a tale of a man waking up in prison and trying to find his identity.
“So little liquid, so much potential compressed into it. It had gone cold, but he still sipped absentmindedly at his expresso. People came; people went. Life’s rich tapestry was a slowly changing tableau to his front. He watched but followed little. He should have been paying rapt attention, but he wasn’t. He was a middle-aged man in a nondescript jacket and open neck shirt relaxing in a Sardinian pavement café drinking coffee. He was sat alone, which for this café was unusual, he also had no open laptop, newspaper, or mobile phone competing for his attention, and that if noticed would have struck any viewer as approaching strange. But nobody appeared to paying attention to anything. Everything was slow, mañana personified. The sun was lazily sinking into the sea, the fishing boats half-heartedly bobbing with the lackadaisical tide, even the evening breeze moved with all the speed of a sulking teenager.
When the guns exploded and the tables were tipped over and the screaming and scattering of feet began, it was all too quick, too out of place for people comfortably slowing into the evening to comprehend. Light travels faster than sound, but it was sound that dominated everything.
Blood stained the pale stone pavement, screams of alarm startled the seagulls into flight, while the dead body repulsed the living who pulled themselves in the opposite direction, any direction that was away from the man whose life was spilling into the Romanesque cobbles.
All moved away less one man.
He didn’t move because he was the designated dead man.”
Does it work?
Again, I hope so.
I hope the reader can taste the story that is to come and that the way that it is written is both acceptable and pleasing to the palate.
Time will tell.
While I obsess on the trivial, worry about the placing of this comma and description (show don’t tell) of that thing, while I do these things, be kind to each other, hug those you love and tell them so.
Telling Tall Tales 