Forum: Author Hangout

"You can have my dildo when you pry it from my cold, dead asshole"

"That's gross, mom!"

I wish there were more of them.

I think it's much derided without reason. When you read that, the plain language lets you know that the author's intention is to tell you a story.

AJ

... which is several different kinds of bad, and "plain language" is not a thing that describes it.

Which just goes to show you can turn anything into a turkey if you try hard enough :(

AJ

Nope, I tried really, really hard and I can't turn my dog into a turkey.

You can turn your dog into a cat by freezing him solid then running him through a bench saw so he goes, "Meowww."

I've never been good at either opening lines or quotable one-lines, but I've been working on my opening paragraphs. Rather than taking 3 to 5 chapters to get into the heart of the story, I'm now jumping right in. Here's the opening line from my just-published book The Holes Binding Us Together:

Interrupting her skipping, Peg stopped while wrinkling her brow. "This is a new one. I'm familiar with the others, but have never known one to just appear like this." She circled the same eight inches of concrete, carefully studying the empty space. "They're obnoxious enough, but holes that won't hold still are hardly helpful."

Another, not quite as strong from a now-dead almost complete first-draft (which never quite panned out) begins:

Opening his door and peeking out, Ben discovered his sister, Jackie, doing the same. "What's this about?" he whispered, hoping to be heard over the shouting from downstairs, yet still remain unnoticed.

A slightly less intriguing first line (this time, only a single line) is from my next book, tentatively titled Experiencing an Expanding Universe:

Staring out his temporary office window, Theo couldn't shake the perception he was somehow on the brink of a major breakthrough.

Though short and somewhat intriguing, it's generic enough to fit into ANY book, on nearly any subject. :(

"STOP IT. THAT HURTS. MOMMY HELP ME, MOMMY, I NEED YOU PLEASE HELP me…" Then nothing. "Mommy, I need you. I had a bad dream."

I'm sorry, but if I read that opening line, I'd likely put the book away. Not only is it badly phrased, but you immediately cancel the key segment designed to capture the readers attention. That's the literary equivalent of "Never mind, nothing to look at here, folks".

I'm nobody.

The woman staring across the sad, flaking grey metal table clearly knew that already. She never bothered asking my name. "

That's a good one, but it suggests that the entire premise of the book is one women's sense of worthlessness. That's fine if it is, otherwise I'd shift the focus slightly.

'It was a cloudy night in mid-December in the Manistee National Forest; it was after midnight and my mode was blacker the then night outside.'

Rephrasing slightly (to shorten and tighten the impact):

'Twas a cloudy mid-December Manatee Forest post-midnight night, and my mood was darker than the overcast unseen sky.

By the way, it's a great scene setting!

I died first, so I made cookies.

Now that would certainly keep me reading, wherever it led!

A favourite from my own writing:

Silence draped over the suburban street like a hot and sticky blanket.

Drop the "over" and it's even stronger, but you're right, it's powerful, though missing the 'hook' to really pull the reader into the story. It's similar to my weather-related openings, where it sets the opening mood rather than draws readers into the story.

"He is the kind of guy who can most generously be described as an utter waste of a Y chromosome."

But that would make him a woman, and the language it's couched in implies women are therefore inferior to men :(

AJ

Apart from its role in mixing up the gene pool, endowing dinosaur-killing strength, and facilitating autism-related feats like flying to the moon, writing majestic symphonies and taking twenty years to build a matchstick model of the Titanic, the Y chromosome is pretty much a waste of space.

Girl Power!

AJ

You really have a downer on women at the moment, don't you! Equating male greatness to wealth cf 'So what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?'

AJ

Unless it's fluorescent yellow, in which case everyone will see you...

But they're so ubiquitous nowadays that nobody notices them ...

Are fluorescent panties a thing?

AJ

If you have to ask, you probably don't want to know the answer.

You're right - they're not yellow :(

AJ

In the fen, not too far from the outskirts of the tiny hamlet, is a lump of broken sandstone known as the Angel Stone.

To me, that shows the writer is about to tell a decent story, one that's good enough not to need gaudy window-dressing.

AJ