We’re starting March out right. We’re going to give you a series of helpful cues each week. It’s called WHAT IF? Friday. We could call them exercises, but that word sounds like work. Call these jumper cables for your writing, or Kiwi juice for your imagination – we’d prefer that.
Your first WHAT IF? is about beginnings. The beginnings of stories, to be exact.
“First sentences are doors to worlds.” – Ursula K. Le Guin
So many writers fuss about where to start and how to begin their story. They think they must know the end before they can even set down the first sentence. Writer, give yourself a break! Stories usually tell us about themselves as we move with them. It is rare when we know our journey’s end on page one.
A good compass for your story may start with a rowdy sentence, a surprising short paragraph, the description of a setting, some dialog … anything that sets the tone.
And, if a writer grabs a reader in this first graph, the reader will read the second graph. Then they might read the first page. If you can seduce them into reading your first chapter, you probably have them hooked. Good.
Here are a few sample first graphs and sentences:
The Hummingbird Wizard, Meredith Blevins
“Jerry and I grew up before smog was invented. We both left Los Angeles when the hills disappeared and the ocean got tired of movie stars.”
“Hawk was restless in the youth’s chest. She turned and turned, uneasy on her perch. Sometimes she beat her wings against his ribs. He was afraid she would lunge against his chest wall and scream.
“He couldn’t tell anyone.
“He had to talk.”
“Eden.”
Aphrodite, Isabel Allende
“I repent of my diets, the delicious dishes rejected out of vanity, as much as I lament the opportunities for making love that I let go by because of pressing tasks or puritanical virtue. Walking through the gardens of memory, I discover that my recollections are associated with the senses.”
The Old Man’s Love Story, Rudolfo Anaya
“There was an old man who dwelt in the land of New Mexico, and he lost his wife. She died in his arms one night.”
Poseidon’s Arrow, Clive Cussler
October, 1943, The Indian Ocean: The light of a half-moon shimmered off the restless sea like a streak of flaming mercury.
Velocity, Dean Koontz
“With draft beer and a smile, Ned Parsall raised a toast to his deceased neighbor, Henry Fiddle, whose death greatly pleased him.”
…..
All right, we are going to give you the basis for a beginning. You choose the setting, the genre, the time period, the POV, and if it will start with narrative or dialog.
The Friday, WHAT IF…? for March 1, 2014:
It is a café, it is 11:00 p.m., a young woman sits, empty dishes in front of her.
Now, use that scenario to create your first graph or sentence. Post it if you like. We’ll post one, too.
Have fun and, please, let your imagination off the leash!
About Meredith and Win Blevins
The empty dishes sat in front of Marissa. One for each solider she had just fed. The glasses stood like tombstones on the table, the dishes littered with the remains of food. She couldn’t help but wonder if it were an omen for something yet to come.
Great tone! And we would bet that image of empty glasses as tombstones popped into the writer’s mind, Jocelyn Pedersen, and was as much of a surprise to her as it was to the writer. A lot of the time images are like that. You close your eyes over your keyboard, be still, and up the images pop. It is one of the best feelings, that great surprise, that terrific find that you have just mined from … who knows where. And who cares? It is a gift.
THANK YOU for sharing this.
best — win and meredith
Ok – from “Tea with Henry” –
On January 28, 1547, death unleashed his fell breath throughout Britain with unmerciful swiftness and cruelty. Time itself seems to have frozen under the thick mantle of snow on the ground and the sheen of ice that coated all the trees, lending the appearance of fragile glass ornaments. Yuletide festivities were already a distant memory as the people struggled merely to stay warm.
Confused here. This relates to…?
W & M
Across the table Sherri stared at the empty space once occupied by Bill. Now all that was left were the empty dishes from their meal together. Would it be their last? It was what Bill said before leaving that left here with doubt. “I’ll always remember the great times we had together.” Bill’s been away on various jobs before, so why was this different? After two hours of sitting there, clock now reading 11 pm, Sherri decided to find out.
(I like these and find they are great help getting the ideas flowing. Thank you.)
We like them, too, for ourselves. It’s great to have a platform where you’re given the scenario, sometimes hard to come up with, and then a story happens. It feels like sitting right inside the center of magic because, yes, a story WILL happen. Isn’t it amazing?
Thank you for sharing your story. Now… How is Sherri going to start on her mission? We want to know!
best to you — win and meredith
Okay, you got me curious to see if I could do it and yes, it WAS fun!!! So here’s my little beginning (of what, I have no idea, but now I’m beginning to WANT to know!):
Maggie blinked her eyes open and grabbed onto the table in front of her as the room came into focus.
What the hell? She was supposed to be in bed, not having a meal at the café down the street. Yet the dirty dishes in front of her indicated as such and she wasn’t wearing her pajamas. Instead she had on a sweater and jeans. Oh shit. That wasn’t a good sign. She placed a hand over her racing heart.
A waiter approached and laid the check on the table. “Ma’am, we’re closing up. You have to leave.”
She grabbed his arm. “What day is it?”
“It’s 11. We’re closing.”
“Not time. Day. Day!”
His eyes widened and he shrugged free. “Friday. The eleventh.”
“The eleventh?” No, that couldn’t be. She’d just lost two days. Two freakin’ days! Shit. What had she done this time?
Stacy, thanks for taking us into the land of the paranormal. So many readers, and writers, are loving that world today.
The feel of urgency and disbelieve is palpable. Great dialog with the waiter. We feel the anxiety level rise!
Best — M & W
I love writing prompts! :)
She could almost imagine there was food on the dishes in front of her. Years worth of dust and mold hadn’t quite covered the scent of yeast and strong coffee.
“What are you doing?” Jacob hissed. “In and out. Those are the rules. Your rules.”
Cracked red vinyl flaked off as Katie slid out of the booth. “Just wishing for an espresso.”
Jacob used his gun to push the cafe door open. “Daydream all you want, once we’re back at camp.”
So, here we learn how much we can do without a boatload, and pages-overload, of words. We have a feeling, we see a place, we sense the grim menace before we see the gun. We smell the scene — our oldest sense, and one we should all engage when we can. It brings floods feelings to scenes without words. And, of course, cracked vinyl seals the deal!
THANK YOU!
Meredith & Win
Here’s my opening graph:
The moon had long since replaced the last shards of sunlight as Eleanore sat, hands in her lap, head hung low, her eyes starring at a dinner plate as empty as her broken heart.
And now I want to know about her broken heart. Hooked again.
This is turning out just wonderfully. I love reading these starts. It’s like getting to see a fetus that may, or may not, come to be. But it is beautiful. All the words are beautiful however they end up. Beautiful lights right now.
It is a café, it is 11:00 p.m., a young woman sits, empty dishes in front of her. – That woman is me, looking down at the contents of the just delivered box from my husband. He couldn’t make it, again. This time…not his fault. The contents… his wedding band, still attached to his finger, and my shock and horror was being replaced by a burning anger and the question to be answered, was he still alive or dead? Either way,I had a mission.
Gordon — We are hooked! You’ve got us for a page, and then a page becomes a chapter… Etc.
It’s so much easier if you just give yourself one bite to begin with. The meal proceeds from there.
Our e-mail server, AWeber, is down. When it’s up, we’ll have this post out to our large mailing list (you guys always get it first!), and we’ll see what other stories come alive. Looking forward to that.
Gordon, thank you again.
Meredith and Win
Can’t wait to see what others write!
Okay, that was fun! Here comes:
It is a cafe, it is 11:00 p.m., a young woman sits, empty dishes in front of her. This dinner did not go as she thought it would. Certainly she had not planned for anyone to die. She figures this is probably the end of her To-Die-For Cafe, as well. The irony in the name flickers at her in mirror image from the neon script on the front window.
This is going to be hell to clean up from. Never mind the headache from Momma Kate’s “I told you so!” This woman never missed a chance to let her know how bad a decision she was in taking in when Aunt Stella passed on.
The young woman shakes her head. Looks around, images of the last hour superimposed on the now quiet room. There is medical paraphernalia on the floor, where only moments prior there was Edna sprawled, arms askance, face contorted into something Marlene would not want to see again even in her ugliest nightmare. Raccoon eyes with spit and smeared mascara everywhere. Edna spent a fortune on smear-proof stuff. “My eyes are too sensitive for the cheapo stuff, Mar,” she’d croon, eyeing Marlene’s cosmetics bag with pitiful critic. Well, much help that was for her when it counted. Sensitive or not. Speaking of, how was she supposed to know that Edna was allergic to Cinnamon, anyway? It is a Cafe, for heaven’s sake.
Or was.
(to be continued?…)
This is a grand beginning. (And tell us if it was fun — we are curious folks.)
Putting on a coach’s hat, I would say — you have the set up. I wonder if it would work to begin:
This dinner did not go as she thought it would. Certainly she had not planned for anyone to die. She figures this is probably the end of her To-Die-For Cafe, as well. The irony in the name flickers at her in mirror image from the neon script on the front window. This is going to be hell to clean up.
What thinks you, Dear Na’ama Writer? The strengths of both?
Told ya it was fun in my first line… :)
Yeppers, I like your suggestion lots. Far better, actually.
(I’m told I’m coachable, if stubborn, the latter of which I think is incurable…)
Hugs your way!
!!!
Hey, you’ve got a coach if you ever want one.