First things first – our story’s opening sentence

An email about Thrillerfest’s “best first sentence” contest reminded me it’s been way too long since I posted about opening sentences. Fortunately, Reedsy’s “First Line Frenzy” event with editor Rebecca Heyman was coming up. I sent in one of my opening sentences. So did more than 2,000 other writers worldwide, over a range of genres. Although Heyman had time to deal with fewer than 30, the results were instructive.

What did she like?

n  Pertinent details. (But see the caution below about getting to the heart of the character.)

n  Short and punchy (although she made exceptions).

n  Funny and intriguing. (For which she could forgive a writer whose sentence otherwise got a little “weird.”)

n  Something out of the ordinary. Regarding a sentence that basically started with a character opening his mail – “find something more interesting that’s going on here.”

n  Solid analogies.

What didn’t she like?

n  Starting with the word “it.”

n  Too many questions, not enough details.

n  Grammar problems. Watch the order of clauses. And mind the punctuation. Opening sentences probably don’t have enough going on to warrant the use of semi-colons. (Also see Heyman’s warning about run-on sentences below.)

n  Word use. Watch out for articles such as “the” and “a” which Heyman called “pointing” words.  and “a” Also word endings – a sentence full of verbs ending in “-ing” got a knock.

n  Run-on sentences. (By which she meant “run-on” in the traditional sense of splicing multiple sentences together without punctuation. Not exactly the “just too long” sense in which some of us use the term, which also veers into dangerous territory.) “Way too many ideas” packed into a single (more or less) sentence – “just tell us the one important thing. You have to get our attention with a unified notion.”

n   Info dumps. “It’s not necessary to teach with a heavy hand. . . Show us the danger, don’t tell us it exists.”

n  Outward description that doesn’t get to the heart of the character. “I’d like to be more inside (the character’s experience instead of surface details.”

What was iffy?

n  Starting with dialogue. But there were exceptions. “I usually discourage starting with dialogue without context but (one can be) an interesting enough snippet that I’m not bored with it.” (Proceed with caution!)

n  Word repetition, such as the “week/weekly” in one example.

***

I also unearthed some basic no-nos for opening sentences, courtesy of North Texas science fiction/fantasy writer Alex Martinez, from a previous year’s Roanoke, Texas, writers’ conference. At that point, Martinez had nearly a dozen published books (probably many more by now!), and years of participating in writing critique groups. “I’ve heard a billion chapters, including plenty that make the same mistakes over and over.”

The easiest things to fix are the cliched openings, for which Martinez’s list of don’ts includes:

n  Don’t start with descriptions of weather (goodbye, dark and stormy nights!).

n  Don’t start with a character waking up.

n  Don’t start with a character looking in a mirror.

n  Don’t start with a dream sequence.

“Well, maybe you can have one of the dreaded cliché openings,” he admitted, “but they have to be really exciting.” On the other hand, he noted, “agents and editors know that first sentences are the easiest things to fix. . . Just try not to have typos in your first sentence.”

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I’ll conclude with some winners from Thrillerfest’s 2020 best first sentence contests for inspiration. I wonder which of these would have made editor Heyman’s thumbs-up list.

n  If there is a special place in hell for particularly heinous acts, I will be going there because I just bounced a blind man off my front bumper.

n  “Ten thousand bodies lie under the New Orleans sidewalks,” the tour guide told his group in a sepulchral tone, as he did every night below my Bourbon Street balcony.

n  She swore she’d never turn into her PI father. . . but that was before she ran over the body.

n  I wrote my first obituary when I was twelve.

And my personal favorite:

n  Dorie told the truth on the installment plan.

Happy writing! And if you should find yourself itching to try your luck with Thrillerfest’s contest, get a move on – it closes tomorrow, June 15!