C. Aubrey Hall's Blog, page 42

Staying Grateful

Sometimes, feeding the muse has nothing to do with busy little activities directed at enhancing creativity. 

The situation:

Distraction is a bane we writers all have to dodge as much as possible.  Life hands us plenty of interruptions.  But what about those distractions we create for ourselves?

Since last week, I've been stewing over how to arrange my living room furniture.  Now it's never been in place since the Great Move of last summer.  But the recent advent of delivery men, repairmen, and a weekend guest dictated that something must be done.

So I shoved chairs around and cleared trails wide enough for men wearing toolbelts to walk through.  I got the guest room ready.  All fine and good.

Then my guest said casually, "What if we arranged your furniture this way?"

We set to work and shifted lamps, tables, chairs, and stacked-up pictures that I refuse to hang until the furniture is in place.  When we finished, I hated it.

Since the departure of my well-intentioned guest, I've been trying to shift everything again.  As if that weren't challenging enough, I'm also suffering from the desire to cram yet another Victorian cabinet into the mix.  (Smart people collect thimbles or souvenir spoons; I haul home massive hulks of walnut furniture!)  And I although I probably should remove about one-third of what I presently own, I'm determined to make the impossible work.

Determined–there's a word for you.  As a novelist used to inventing story worlds to my own specifications, I am determined to do the same to real life.  (I think the Greeks called it hubris.)  I am also stubborn, and when I want something I don't give up.

That's terrific in landing book contracts and meeting deadlines but perhaps not as desirable when trying to wedge furniture into configurations ill-suited to the square footage.

Still, it's an unnecessary problem requiring a creative solution.  As such, it's a distraction of the worst kind because it's draining creativity from my mind.  My attention is focused more on where to put the coffee table than how to introduce a new character into the chapter-in-progress.

The lesson:

Last night, a storm came brewing from the west just as I pulled supper from the oven.  Suddenly, golf balls of hail were bouncing off yard, windows, and roof.  Wind gusts of 70 to 80 mph whirled across the back patio, and the rain obliterated any view of the neighboring house behind mine.

No tornado sirens wailed, but I was afraid the windows might shatter, so I took shelter in the closet.  Later, it hailed three more times, and the power went out until the small hours of the night.

Today, I surveyed the damage. 

The fern survived; the stand did not. Maybe welding can mend it.

 

 

My flowers have been stripped.  The wooden trim on the house has been chipped.  A lovely flower pot of heavy Italian clay is smashed.  One of my cast-iron fern stands lies in pieces. 

Plastic just isn't the same!

But I am lucky.  No shingles lost.  No windows broken.  I have phone service again.  The air conditioner is running once more.  The power surges didn't kill my computer.

The point:

So this morning, as I cleaned up some of the flower beds and tried to rescue the vine that's been growing in the Italian pot for years, I felt gratitude that this scary storm left me so unscathed.  I thought about the folks in Joplin and Alabama who are dealing with much worse.  I thought about my next-door neighbor, whose upstairs windows are broken out. 

Hail left these iris in tatters.

I thought about how there are times in life when it's best to stop creating problems for yourself and just stay quiet.  To remember to be grateful for what you already have, as well as what you haven't lost.

Before the storm, this pot held jaunty red petunias.

There are always going to be things in this world that are bigger than I, and I should remember that.

Where my sofa looks its best matters far less than what my character needs to say in the next paragraph.

Sometimes, the best way to fill your well is not to squander what's already in it.

This rose survived unscathed.

S-T-R-E-T-C-H!

Just as people hit the gym to keep their muscles toned and singers run through scales before they practice their arias, so should writers keep their techniques supple.

Exercise #1:

Pick an area of writing that you do especially well.  Maybe you're really adept at description, or maybe you always manage to set a hook at the end of each chapter.

Now find a couple of modern authors–preferrably still in print–that are known for their skills in that same technique.  Let's say you're looking at how they manage hooks.

Skim through Chosen Author's first, best, or most famous story and see how he or she handles hooks.  Are you doing as good a job?  Set aside your ego and be honest.  If yours are not comparing well, what is Chosen Author doing that you aren't? 

Maybe some of your hooks are actually better or more surprising.  If that's the case, give yourself a pat on the shoulder.

Then look at whether Chosen Author is offering a variety of hooks, keeping scenes or chapters ending in unpredictable ways.

Do you have variety, or are you clinging to a couple of tried-and-true-but-weary tricks?

Now look through Chosen Author's most recent book.  Are the techniques that initially made Chosen Author famous still in play( maybe a bit worn by now), or is Chosen Author serving up surprises?  For example, I think John Sandford writes the best scene fragments in the business, and from book to book he never quite does them the same way.  Still distinctive to the Sandford style, but always fresh.

What can you learn from this?

Exercise #2:

For the next drill, pick an area where you know you're weak.  Let's say you aren't very good at introducing characters.  You've read useful texts on the subject, such as those by Jack Bickham, but you still can't seem to bring people into your fiction with any verve.

Once again, go to your shelves.  Select an author whose characters you really admire or respond to.  How does that writer introduce them?  If necessary, copy a passage on your computer, print it out, and lay it side by side with a page from your manuscript.  (No, I don't care if you have a big monitor capable of splitting the screen.  You don't want to do this on the computer.  Print the samples out on paper, preferably with both in identical courier font.)

Compare the two, not to squelch your bruised ego further, but instead to try and find where the pins and seams are.  Think it over, then open a new document file and write your character introduction anew.  Print that out and compare it with Chosen Author's.

Don't expect or try to become identical.  You must keep your individual style, your voice.  The object is emulation, not imitation. 

I happen to admire John D. MacDonald's character introductions very much.  He spends as much care making minor characters vivid as he does the major players, yet he never leaves you in doubt as to their level of importance to the story.

Rekindle the Passion

Which book first gave you the notion of writing your own stories?  

How long has it been since you read it?

Don't you think it's time you opened those pages again, and jumped inside?

For me, the Tome of Supreme Inspiration was THE THREE MUSKETEERS by Dumas.  I was nine years old.  It was the first "grownup" book I'd attempted to read.  It took me a week to get through it.  And the story and characters absolutely blew me away.  I fell in love with Athos and swooned over the romantic tragedy of his doomed relationship with Milady.  The machinations of the evil Richelieu . . . the race to recover the queen's diamonds . . . what a story!

When I finished, I simply couldn't go back to children's books.  And I started what's been a lifetime's project of putting words of my own on the page.

When was the last time I read THE THREE MUSKETEERS?  I can't recall, but it's been too long.

I think, all these years later, it's time to revisit the story with an adult's perceptions and see if Monsieur Dumas can rekindle the flame once more.

Listen!  The carriage-and-four is at the gate.  The footman folds up the steps and closes the door.  The coachman cracks his whip.  And I'm off to my rendezvous with the court of Versailles and the lantern-lit streets of old Paris.

 

Reading … What's That?

Some of the titles currently stacked on my desk.

Next on my list of suggestions for feeding the writing muse is to read constantly.  A few years ago I wouldn't have thought it necessary to urge writers to read.  After all, isn't reading what brought us to the dance in the first place?

Still, I continue to be shocked, astonished, stunned, appalled, outraged, incredulous, flabbergasted, and perplexed by the wannabe writers I meet who do NOT read. 

"I used to read," they hasten to assure me, probably because I'm staring at them dumbfounded.

But the assurance rings hollow.  Would you want to go to a dentist who used to work on teeth, but hasn't picked up a drill in the last ten years?

Some of the books currently stacked on my desk.

Writing requires a tremendous outflow of our creative energies, emotions, insights, and sheer ability to entertain.  It's vital that we be diligent about keeping more ideas flowing in.  To do that, we need the words of others.  Not to steal, of course!  But to be soothed by and taught.  It's so necessary that we have storylines, settings, characters, dialogue, phrasing, and imagery pouring into our minds.

Today, I'm reading John Sandford's latest crime thriller, BURIED PREY.  He always brings a new technique or variation to how he handles his material.  As much as I enjoy his plots and stories, I also learn a little on the technical side as well.

Biographies stacked in the living room

No matter how much we adore the written word, we can still become squeezed by deadline pressures or the crazy-busy chaos of everyday life.  Fend it off, and keep reading.  Read every day.  Read a book a week, or twice a month.  Take chances on authors you've never heard of.  Explore genres beyond your favorites. 

Granted, when I'm writing a book I don't want to start imitating the style of other authors.  It's a hazard–especially when I'm deep in the pages of someone I particularly admire.  (I pick up accents and vocabulary, too, whenever I stay more than a couple of days in a new location.  Call me a chameleon!)

But neither–in the fevered midst of creation–do I want to stop reading.  It's like oxygen to me.

So I read in genres very different from what I happen to be writing.  For example, if I'm working on a fantasy then I'll read mysteries and thrillers.  Once I'm done with a rough draft, then I'll dive into whatever I've been stockpiling.

Reading ensures that my story sense is still running true.

Books stacked on the piano.

If you've gotten lax about finding time to read, then there are various ways in which to reform the habit.  Figure out what time of day works best for you, then make an appointment for yourself.  It can be helpful to form (or join) a bookclub.  You can start a book journal, where you record the titles of what you're reading with perhaps the date you finished and a sentence-long synopsis of the plot.  You can read aloud daily to your children, if they're of an age to appreciate books you can all enjoy–or encourage them to read aloud to you.  You can set a stack of books on your desk and assign starting dates to them.  Research and collect the works of a chosen author and read them in publication order.  Or maybe just save up some splurge money and then fill a shopping basket with wild abandon at the bookstore.

Above all, keep reading fun.  Don't wade through dreary books that bore you just because they're something you think you should be reading.  Don't keep yourself from reading books that are as light and insubstantial as popcorn just because you think you should spend your time on more important tomes.  And if you want to read all the works of Charles Dickens, then do it!

On my office wall at campus there hangs a poster produced by the American Library Association several years ago.  It's a picture of Yoda, holding a book, and it says, "Read and the Force is with you."

Kind of true, don't you think?

Films I Like … and Why

Who can resist listing fave picks?  Of course, what galvanizes and inspires my imagination probably makes yours snore.  Even so …

THE HEIRESS, staring Olivia de Haviland & Montgomery Clift.  I love the sets.  The parlors filled with antiques are magnificent, if you happen to like pre-Civil War furniture and architecture.  Beyond that, the story itself is compelling, with nuanced characterization.  None of the three principal players is drawn simplistically.  You expect stereotypes, but you don't get them.

THE WOMEN, starring Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell, Joan Fontaine, Joan Crawford, and Marjorie Main.  Although there's a newer version of Clare Booth Luce's story now on film, nothing beats this version.  These actresses deliver their zingers, barbs, and witticisms with awesome skill.  The humor balances the drama of a once-happy marriage that's breaking up.  The fact that no men appear on the screen at all is amazing.

CASABLANCA, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.  I would say, who hasn't seen this wonderful movie?  Except I keep meeting people who haven't.  One of the best WWII movies ever made (not to mention one of the best films ever), it offers a solid central story plus charming–sometimes heartbreaking–little overlapping subplots.  A magnificent film.

THE LITTLE FOXES, starring Bette Davis and Teresa Wright.  I like almost all of Bette's movies because she rarely chooses a flat or simple role.  The title of this movie is taken from the Biblical verse about the little foxes that spoil the grapes.  Bette and her brothers are horrid, greedy people eager for her invalid husband to die so they can get their hands on his fortune.  The best moment in the film is a shot of her expression as she lets her husband die without trying to help him. 

THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, staring Charles Laughton, Cedric Hardwicke, Maureen O'Hara.  It's an early film, and the staging of the story reflects that.  Even so, Laughton's portrayal of Quasimodo is compelling, especially once the hunchback falls in love with Esmeralda and realizes he's too monstrous-looking for her to ever love back.

MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, staring Judy Garland, Mary Astor, Margaret O'Brien.  Simple story filled with bright musical numbers and gentle family dynamics.  I want to live in that house.  I want to be a member of that family.  It's a feel-good film, like wrapping up in Granny's quilt.

MIDNIGHT, staring Claudette Colbert, John Barrymore, Mary Astor, and Don Ameche.  A sophisticated little romantic comedy about an American chorus girl masquerading as a baroness in Paris.  Light, sparkling, witty.  Oh, to have those clothes!

A PORTRAIT OF JENNIE, staring Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotton, and Ethel Barrymore.  A surreal, haunting love story based on one of Robert Nathan's wonderful novels.  The concepts of alternative dimensions, time relativity, people caught in endless loops of tragedy are all here.  Even better, woven through the love story is the struggle of a young artist trying to find his inspirational subject.

REAR WINDOW, staring Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly, and Raymond Burr.  Forget that it's considered a cinematic masterpiece and just let it slowly pull you in as it builds suspense frame by frame.

PALM BEACH STORY, staring Claudette Colbert and Joel McCrea. If you've never seen a Preston Sturges film, then you're in for a comedic treat of rapidfire plotting, zany characters, unpredictable twists, and masterful dialogue.

AMADEUS, staring Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham.  When this film first hit the theaters, I went and saw it seven times.  Never mind that I love Mozart's music.  The contrasts of raw genius packaged in stupid vulgarity versus mediocrity wrapped in so much yearning to achieve more are just sublime.

ALL THIS AND HEAVEN TOO, starring Bette Davis and Charles Boyer.  A terrific love story between two honorable people deeply attracted to each other in an era when divorce isn't possible.

IN NAME ONLY, starring Cary Grant and Carole Lombard.  Despite the casting, this isn't a comedy.  Instead, it's another love story between a woman of conscience and a man unable to get a divorce.  (Looks like I've got a common theme running here! The two films are set 100 years apart, but human nature doesn't change.)

TOVARICH, starring Claudette Colbert, Charles Boyer, and Basil Rathbone.  A comedy about exiled White Russians taking jobs as a butler and maid in Paris.  It turns serious near the end, when the grand duchess must make an important decision.  This film's a bit hard to find, but well worth the search.

THE UNINVITED, starring Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey.  It's often billed as the best ghost story ever filmed.  I have to agree.  Some terrific special effects, considering it was made in 1944.  There's also a nice love story plus the most gorgeous house.  I want to live there–without the ghosts, of course!

THE AFRICAN QUEEN, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn.  Setting: Africa at the start of WWI.  Situation: a boozy Canadian and a prim English missionary must escape the Germans along a dangerous river.  Objective:  turn a modest river craft into a floating torpedo and sink the German ship terrorizing Lake Victoria. A love story woven with terrific adventure, featuring truly indomnitable characters.

DOUBLE INDEMNITY, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray.  Novelist James Cain knew how to write about nasty people you wouldn't want to meet under a rock.  Watch Fred MacMurray succumb to Stanwyck's evil seduction; then wait for the plot to start twisting!

STEEL MAGNOLIAS, starring Shirley Maclaine, Sally Fields, Julia Roberts, Dolly Parton, Darryl Hannah, and Olympia Dukakis.  A terrific women's story about friendship, both comedic and tragic.

SCARAMOUCHE, starring Stewart Granger and Mel Ferrer.  The best kind of old-fashioned swashbuckler centered around love triangles, revenge, and the search for identity.  It features a marvelous sword duel at the finish.

A ROOM WITH A VIEW, starring Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham Carter, and Daniel Day Lewis.  Filled with enchanting sets and costumes, this love story is set amidst a charming comedy of manners.

THE WINSLOW BOY, starring Rebecca Pigeon and Jeremy Northam.  Based on a true story, this film is about a man's quest to achieve justice for his young son.

LITTLE BOY LOST, starring Bing Crosby.  Neither a musical nor a comedy, this story will tug at your heart as an American searches the orphanages of post-war France for his young son.

A LITTLE PRINCESS, starring Shirley Temple and Arthur Treacher.  What can I say?  I love this story in all its versions, book and film.  Shirley does a good job coping with the cruelty of Victorian England.  But the Wonderworks mini-series is even better. 

LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY, starring Freddie Bartholomew and C. Aubrey Smith.  This pair of fine actors really make this simple story shine.  Look for a small role played by Mickey Rooney.

MRS. MINIVER, starring Greer Garson and Walter Pigeon.  Greer is a marvelous actress.  This story is about a family trying to get through WWII, and yet it offers so much about kindness, decency, courage, and conscience.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, starring Elizabeth Garvie and David Rintoul.  Although there are numerous versions, my preference is this older, BBC-produced mini-series.  The casting is perfect, and their performances really capture the satirical wit of Jane Austen.

WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION, starring Charles Laughton, Marlene Dietrich, and Tyrone Power.  Billy Wilder was a genius, and here he serves up a stunning courtroom drama with some plot twists that will astonish you.

GALAXY QUEST, starring Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, and Alan Rickman.  "Never give up!  Never surrender!"  A brilliant parody of the original STAR TREK and its continued popularity at science-fiction conventions, this film is not only funny but very well written.  You don't have to be a Trekkie to enjoy the jokes.  An additional bonus is that it's the kind of movie that makes you walk around, spouting lines of dialogue.  (My favorite: "Whoever wrote this scene should DIE!")

MIRACLE ON 39TH STREET, starring Maureen O'Hara, Edmund Gwen, and Natalie Wood.  Do you believe in Santa Claus?  Natalie Wood steals the show as a sophisticated little girl who doesn't believe in fairy tales of any kind . . . until she meets a charming old gentleman.  Is he really Santa Claus?  (I believe . . . I believe . . . I believe.)

STALAG 17, starring William Holden.  Another Billy Wilder film, this story centers on a German prison camp where successful sabotage maneuvers and escapes are being masterminded by the American inmates.  But someone is a snitch, in league with the Germans.  A fascinating array of characters.

I suspect this list might well stretch to infinity if I let it, so I'm stopping even while I'm tempted to keeping adding just a few more (PHILADELPHIA STORY, A TOUCH OF MINK, DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK, MCCLINTOCK, BALL OF FIRE, GILDA, CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT, etc).  My list may contain some of your favorites or perhaps it will lead you to some films you haven't seen before.   Happy viewing!

Seen a Good Movie Lately?

One of my favorite ways to replenish my creative well is by watching films that move my emotions deeply.

That doesn't mean I always want a tear-jerker.  Sometimes I'd rather laugh or I prefer to tense up through a thriller.  Sometimes I want to languish in a gorgeous setting.  Or I may simply enjoy the sheer brilliance of the writing or a fine acting performance.

We all have our lists of favorite films, movies we can watch over and over.  Have you viewed any of them recently?  If not, perhaps it's time to revisit those stories and characters.

There are times and reasons when we should analyze why a particular movie touches our hearts.  This is not one of them.  Instead, simply let the motion picture lift you into another time and place.  Rewatch the film as long as it continues to move you.  Later, you can search out why.

I happen to adore old movies, especially the black-and-white ones made in the 1930s and '40s.  My imagination is engaged more when the film's not in color, and the sets and writing are very much to my personal taste.  You, however, may prefer to focus more on recent movies, such as THE KING'S SPEECH or the newest PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN offering.  It doesn't matter.  Just be sure that you're not confining yourself to movies that offer frenetic movement instead of plotted conflict, or special effects instead of a developed story arc.  Such lightweight films have their place, of course.  They may entertain us, but they don't necessarily feed the muse.

Learn how to tell the difference.  Then give your imagination a really good meal.

Hi, Inner Child!

Now don't groan and roll your eyes.  I know what you're thinking.  We've heard the advice about nurturing Inner Child so often that if it were a plant, this suggestion would be overgrown, gone to seed, and covered with powdery mildew.

Even so, it's true.  We have to remember that our inner artist is a kid straight from NeverNeverLand, refusing to grow up.  Does that mean we can ditch deadlines and throw fits over disappointing royalty statements and sulk when our editor makes us rewrite?

(Only in the privacy of our home office!)

Nurturing Inner Child involves finding ways to sustain our artistic sense of wonder.  It means supporting our ability to see a story in any situation, encouraging our imaginative leaps of intuition, fueling our passion for what we're doing, and maintaining our faith that what we're writing has value . . . even if only our mom reads it.

When a writer allows the tedium of writing to overwhelm the fun, then said writer is kicking Inner Child to the curb.

Writing when you're burned out, jaded, cynical, dry of ideas, and passionless about the manuscript in hand means you're hacking your way through the material.  There can be no artistry.  Certainly there is no joy.

To seek to create without joy is to sift ashes.

Never grow so adult, so sophisticated, that you inure yourself to that internal zing that signifies excitement about the work at hand.  Never stand detached from emotion.  Embrace it in all its forms, however messy.  Don't worry if nonwriters think you're strange because you lose all sense of time in a bookstore or go dancing in the rain.  (Nonwriters are going to think you're strange no matter how you behave.)

You feed Inner Child by letting it play without rules and restrictions.  If that means collecting comics from the 1930s, so be it.  If it means taking an afternoon to pick out paint swatches for your dream office, do it.  You don't have to actually paint the room you work in.  And you don't have to feel guilty about whether or not you ever buy a paintbrush.

You shelter Inner Child by shielding it from any force that tries to ridicule or destroy it.  One of the appealing aspects about the television show CASTLE is how it depicts Rick Castle's character as a writer.  In one episode, the mystery investigation introduced him to a steampunk club.  Castle lit up with enthusiasm.  Viewers saw Inner Child come to life.  Before the show was over, Castle was playing in his writing office in a steampunk costume.  Silly, you say?  No, nurturing!

Taking care of Inner Child doesn't make you any less of a professional.  It doesn't mean you aren't disciplined or productive.  It doesn't turn you into a Bohemian or someone who talks about writing but never actually writes.  Instead, it means you're wise enough to value how hard Inner Child will work for you and how generous Inner Child will be to you when you treat it well.

Let Ray Bradbury be your inspiration.  This remarkable writer has been nurturing Inner Child all his life, and it has in turn supplied him–and us–with a wealth of amazing, wonderful stories.

Come on!  If you still doubt the merit of continuing to feed and shelter Inner Child, then answer this:  are you really wiser than Mr. Bradbury?

Filling the Well

It's easy for me to urge you to write every day.  But what will you write about?  What to do when the empty void of white space glows on your monitor, inhabited by nothing save a small, blinking cursor?

I've gone through times when my mind was teeming with so many characters and story ideas I couldn't begin to encompass them all.  I scribbled notes for plots and piled them on desk corners.  I filed others in folders and never found a chance to develop them. 

Then I've found my imagination as empty as the Sahara.  Oh, a random bit of dialogue or description might wander through my thoughts like a beetle crossing the sand.  But I had nothing to go on.

Years ago, one of my writing teachers told me that if I wanted a long career as a novelist to keep my well filled and never let it go dry.  Until then, I hadn't realized that a writer is responsible for her own plentifully supplied imagination.

So how to stay inspired?  Some of the following tips may be familiar to you; others may be new.  I'll be expanding on them in entries to come.

1) Remember that your inner artist is a child.

2) Immerse yourself in films that touch you emotionally.

3) Read constantly. 

4) Find the book that kindled your initial desire to write stories of your own, and read it again.

5) Do exercises that will stretch or challenge your writing skills.

6) Change your commute route and drive along streets that are unfamiliar to you.

7) Travel, even if it's just a short day trip to a nearby community.

Talk to people of different ages and types.

9) Visit museums.

10) Free write or journal.

11) Face your fears.

12) Choose a modern novel that's very successful and type the first three chapters.

Writing Inertia

For the past two weeks, I've been engulfed by the responsibilities and demands of my day job.  Meaning, when I've dragged through my front door each night, I've been too brain dead to even consider what I need to do next with my novel-in-progress.

Two weeks is a dangerous span of time for writers.  In two weeks of not writing, skills can atrophy with alarming rapidity.

It's just enough time to settle into the habit of not writing, and grow comfortable with that.

Beware!

In two weeks of not writing, you can forget where you had intended to take your plot next.  You can lose the momentum of that last scene that you had to leave unfinished.  You can relinquish passion for your project.  Worst of all, you can begin to doubt the validity of your idea, plot, and characters.

Inertia is defined by Webster's as remaining at rest or in uniform motion unless acted upon by some external force.

In other words, inertia means that if you're writing daily the momentum you achieve will continue until you hit a plot snag to be solved.  Inertia means that if you've stopped writing, you will continue to not write unless you force yourself to leave the doldrums.

It's been said that it takes 30 days to establish a habit.  If you stop writing, the habit of nonproductiveness will form much quicker than that.  Before you know it, your imagination will be calcified.

Effective Openings

How do YOU start your stories?

With description?  Do you paint a word picture of the setting, establishing mood while you're at it?

With character introduction?  Do you provide thorough background information on the protagonist's life up till this point?

With a historical overview?  Do you explain how your complicated story world came into being, including the mythologies of nine newly invented supernatural races?

Hmm.

Jack Bickham taught me that a writer has approximately the first 25 words in which to grab a reader's attention. That means the first sentence of the story had better be a doozy of a hook.

You can't warm up your writing engines.  You can't leisurely lead readers into your story.  You shouldn't explain.

Instead, hit the ground running, plunging your protagonist into immediate trouble or shocking readers in some way or charming them or foreshadowing disasters to come or enticing their curiosity.

Too cheesy a technique, you say?  Too over the top?  Too obvious?  Too commercial? 

Too … dare I say it … effective?

When it comes down to the reality of getting your story into the hands of readers, would you rather open with your protagonist examining navel lint or follow some of these examples?

She undressed slowly, dreamily, and when she was naked she selected a bright red negligee to wear so that the blood would not show. [from IF TOMORROW COMES by Sidney Sheldon]

"Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast. [from CHARLOTTE'S WEB by E.B. White]

When I heard the first scream, I turned away and covered my ears with my hands, pressing hard until my head hurt. [from CURSE OF THE BANE by Joseph Delaney]

We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody dropped the girl off the bridge. [from DARKER THAN AMBER by John D. MacDonald]