CRAFT: Attention Grabbing Beginnings (Part 3)

I really enjoyed picking out paragraphs for this series of posts. It took me some time to wade through my shelves and decide which openings grabbed my attention but it was fun.

This week sentence structure played a big part in why I chose these two books as great beginnings. See what you think...

The next scene, from Nina Bang’s A TASTE OF DARKNESS, starts from the hero’s point of view.
Werewolves-furry pains in the butt.
Werecats-sneaky, whisker-twitching manipulators.
Werejerks-every freakin’ loser with a were in front of its name.
Reinn hated them all. But most of all Reinn hated his job. Guardian of the Blood. What a crock.
He’d been a warrior in some form or another for most of his thousand years of existence. When he’d finally decided to walk away from that life, he’d bought a house and property in the Colorado Rockies, and then settled down to be alone. That was it. He. Wanted. To. Be. Alone. No friends, no emotional chains, no vulnerabilities.
Yeah, he was one cold bastard. But he was one cold bastard who was still alive.
Phew, that’s one dark, tortured hero. More questions? No answers? Oh, didn’t that happen in the last scene we read?
Take another look at the passage. Reread the first three lines. Do you detect a staccato rhythm in the descriptive phrases? Like the internal ravings of someone angry at the world. Hmm, emotional overtones.
Also note the broken structure of the sentence towards the end – He. Wanted. To. Be. Alone. Attention grabbing? You betcha. Effective. Yep.
And what about this? No friends, no emotional chains, no vulnerabilities. More strong emotion that creates a need to find out why. You’ve got to read on to find out more.

“The King must die.”
Four single-syllable words. One by one they were nothing special. Put together? They called up all kinds of bad shit: Murder. Betrayal. Treason.
Death.
I’m a huge fan of J.R.Ward but even if I hadn’t been, this opening scene from LOVER AVENGED just grabbed me and I was skimming the words as quickly as I could to find out who, why, where and what the heck was going on.
Very sharp, short sentences. Each word carefully chosen for maximum impact. Tension and excitement. The last four one-word sentence just go from icckk, to uh-oh, gasp, and ewww. The mind is calculating scenarios and the eyes are racing down the page wanting to read more. Know more.
The illiteration of the ‘s’-sound in the first sentence is great – single syllable words. And the character has attitude – look at the phrasing of the fourth sentence – They called up all kinds of bad shit… Pretty powerful for a such a short opening scene.

Last post for this series next week!

Rain on a Tin Roof

Ahh, what is it about the metallic pinging sound of rain droplets hitting the ol'corregated iron roof? The noisy drumming of a steady downpour is soothing an brings a smile to my face.
The land certainly needs it at the moment - the wheat crops are looking yellow with stress, the cracks in the soil in my backyard are big enough for you to look into and see daylight from the other side of the world, and the bush/grass is dry enough to already be a major fire threat and Summer hasn't even started yet.
That we're getting some good rain as I type is a Godsend - thank you, Lord.

Cool Quote

"Writing is a craft, but there are elements 
of sorcery to it. One has to work the spell 
over and over . . ."


(Gregory Macguire in an interview 
in Writer's Digest, October 2009)

CRAFT: Attention Grabbing Beginnings (Part 2)

How have you gone reading some of your "keepers" and looking at their opening few paragraphs? Did you analyse what made them appealing? Was it the author's voice? Did they open with riveting dialogue or a fantastic action scene or something usual with an unusual twist?

Here are two more of my favourite openings...

Not many people can handle the pain of being ripped apart, of having your limbs twisted and morphed until you are convinced your mind will shatter into a thousand tiny shards.
I can. And I’m tired of hiding my true nature so that humans can sleep better at night, convinced their actually in control of this tiny blue-brown planet. They need to know the truth-they need to realize that they’re not at the top of the food chain.
Far from it.
An unknown character’s point of view begins this scene in RED by Jordan Summers. The subject matter certainly grabs your attention in the first eleven words, doesn’t it? The second half of the sentence just makes you wince and wonder who this character is. Surely it can’t be the hero or heroine?
The ominous overtones deepen in the second paragraph. Why is this character tired of hiding his/her true nature? Why are they hiding anyway? Is this a world that doesn’t tolerate non-humans? Why do they feel the need to show humans they’re not at the top of the food chain? What did they do to the character to provoke him/her out of hiding?
Hey, more questions and a need to read on to find out the answers.

In SHADOW TOUCH by Marjorie M.Lui we meet our heroine in a strange situation.
Shortly before being shot in the back with a tranquilizer dart and dumped half-dazed on a stretcher, right before being stolen from the hospital by silent men in white coats, Elena Baxter stood at the end of a dying child’s bed, her hand on a small bare foot, and attempted to perform a miracle.
She was good at miracles. She had been practicing them for her entire life, and at twenty-eight years of age, had become quite proficient at the art of doing strange and wonderful things.
I don’t know about you but my mind immediately said, “Hey, what?” when I read the part about being tranquilized and kidnapped. I just had to read on to find out why someone would do that.
Then I discover our heroine is a woman I can like – she’s at a hospital helping a child she doesn’t even know, risking exposure to use her supernatural ability to heal the child. How can we not care for her and worry when we discover she’s been harmed?
What do I do? Read on.

I'll post another in this series next week. Stay tuned! :-)

CRAFT: Attention Grabbing Beginnings

As writers we hear about hooking your reader from the very first sentence. But what makes for a compelling read? What makes the beginning of a book a good one?
Is there a trick or particular secret to writing an attention-grabbing opening?
I’ve picked several opening scenes from books on my keeper shelf and, in the next few posts, I’d like to share what drew me in to each of them.
Let’s start with the opening scene from NIGHT PLAY by Sherrilyn Kenyon.
“I’m so sorry, Vane. I didn’t mean to get us killed like this.”
Vane Kattalakis ground his teeth as he fell back from trying to pull himself up. His arms ached from the strain of lifting two hundred pounds of lean muscle up by nothing more than the bones of his wrists. Every time he got close to raising his body up to the limb over his head, his brother started talking, which broke his concentration and caused him to fall back into his dangling position.
“Don’t worry, Fang. I’ll get us out of this.”
Somehow.
He hoped.
Wow. The hero in trouble from the outset; a life or death situation; edge of the seat stuff. And it began with a provocative line of dialogue. Active, immediate, tense, suspenseful.
What else happened when you read this? Did any questions spring to mind? They’re about to be killed? Why and by whom? Vane and Fang are certainly suffering. Why protract their deaths? Could it be for revenge? And why does Vane feel it’s his responsibility to get him and brother out of trouble? How’s he going to get them out of this situation? What’s going to happen next?
The tense situation compels you to read on and combines with the need for answers to these questions.

They were created, not born. They were trained, not raised. They weren’t meant to be free, to laugh, to play or to love. They were men and women whose souls had been forged in the fires of hell.
This brief excerpt comes from MEGAN’S MARK by Lora Leigh. The emotion that grabbed me from the start? Anticipation.
Look at the words used by the author that builds expectation and excitement from the first sentence – created, not born; trained, not raised; weren’t meant; souls; forged; fires of hell. Powerful, emotive words.
The structure of the sentences is also clever. Lora could have written – They weren’t born but created in a lab. Pretty boring statement. It’s much stronger flipping the words around - They were created, not born. That effect continues in the next sentence - They weren’t meant to be free, to laugh, to play or to love. She tells you what they weren’t meant to do rather than what they did do.
It made me want to know more – so, yep, I turned the page.

So, what captures your attention when you read a book? Post one of your favourite openings and let me know what worked for you.

I'll share some more of mine next week.

What are your favourite opening lines from a novel?

Over the next few posts I'm going to share some of my favourite opening paragraphs/sentences from a few books I have on my "keepers" bookshelf and look at why those beginnings grabbed my attention.
While I'm deciding which ones rate a mention (yes, there are THAT many), perhaps you'd like to share your favourite "grab you by the throat and won't let go" beginnings? Any genre, I don't mind.
What's prompting these postings? Having been a judge in a few contests, and having entered several myself ;-), I've come to realise just how important those opening few paragraphs are in hooking the readers attention.
Think about it - what do you do when you go into a bookstore and thumb through a potential buy? Unless you know the author and he/she is one of your favourites that you buy on name alone, how do you choose to spend your hard earned money? Is it based on the cover, the blurb or does the opening page or two become the deciding factor?
Share your opinion and your favourites - perhaps they might end up being one of mine. :-)

Eleni-fest is On!

Want a great month of writer-ly blogs full of information, interviews and interesting things? How about some great prizes to go with all that?
Yeah? Then head on over to Eleni Konstantine's website and check out her link Eleni-fest. It's on the whole month of October and she's spending it promoting anything and everything to do with writing.
Some of the things she's already talked about include critique partners, the Romance Writers of Australia annual conference "Hot August Nights" and she's interviewed historical romance author Anna Campbell. Anna is giving away a free copy of her latest book Tempt the Devil so make sure you leave a comment by the due date (if you want to know when that is get on over to Eleni-fest!).
Future guest authors/writers include Trish Morey, Anne Gracie, Keri Arthur, Tracy O'Hara, Erica Hayes, Christina Phillips, Rachel Bailey, Elizabeth Rolls, Denise Rossetti, Nikki Logan, Anne Oliver, Mel Teshco, and Anna Hackett. The dates for these are listed on her Eleni-fest page.
Eleni also has a swag of prizes and goodies to give away. Up for grabs at the moment include a copy of Valerie Parv's (et.al) Heart & Craft book and Tracey O'Hara's debut release Night's Cold Kiss.
What a great way to while away the month of October!