# Putting it out there



## Terry D (Feb 7, 2019)

Another thread in this forum is discussing the ways writers open their stories, but, unfortunately like many threads which start off without a clear direction it has become a rather circular discussion. I think the idea of discussing the way we start our stories has value if we can get inside the author's head and understand why he or she made the decisions they did. We can't do that by looking at the words of writers who are dead, or at least not on these forums. With that in mind I decided to open this thread to post and discuss some of our own openings. My thought is to post one of my opening paragraphs and let folks ravage it like a paper boat in a hurricane. After awhile I'll post what I was trying to accomplish with it. Then maybe someone else will want to throw themself on the fire. For this thread I'd like to stick with short story openings since there is, I feel, a significant difference between what the opening of a short story must do, and the job of the opening to a novel. If this thread goes over maybe I'll start a separate one for novel openings. I'm not posting this on one of the creative boards because I have no interest in getting the whole story critiqued, I just think it might be fun to have a real frog to dissect here in class.

Okay, so here goes nothin'. This is the opening paragraph of a current short story I've been working on. Tell me if you would keep reading and why. What works? What doesn't? Does it fit your idea of how a story should start? Is there a 'hook'? Have at it.


 He prodded gingerly at the skin surrounding his eyes, or, more precisely, where his eyes had been, with the tip of one finger. Each touch sent ripples of pain through his face. The skin was tight, swollen, and sticky with fluid leaking like pus from his orbital sockets. Gently he ran his damaged fingers over the curves of his face feeling nothing familiar, only a landscape of knobs and ridges where the flesh had been attacked, tested, fed upon and then abandon in search of softer feeding ground. His enemies were lazy creatures, they would eat almost anything, but they preferred their food soft and wet. He placed his palm gently over his right eye. The skin pressed back against his hand like a warm, rotting plum.


----------



## moderan (Feb 7, 2019)

'plum'
Otherwise cool. I wanna know why they took the eyes. It's interestingly weird.
Try this'n, which nods toward a few classics:


> Crazytown, not sane, occupies one and a half acres of real estate in a desert city, known far and wide as Midtown, in a neighborhood that would be flattered to be called ‘barrio’. The run-down titty bars and cowboy churches are chockablock with the condemned motels and dilapidated duplexes and inconvenience stores that determine the ambiance and serve entertainment, drugs, and liquor to the populace.
> Pete the Perv, as he was properly known, was the maintenance man at 993 Creighton. He had the master key and was the sole gatekeeper as management had long ago abandoned the slowly-decaying buildings, providing a trust that kept the lights on. Pete collected rent when he felt like it or was broke but generally didn’t make a big deal out of it.
> Nobody really questioned the arrangement. It was just the way it was.


----------



## Guard Dog (Feb 7, 2019)

Terry D;

Yeah, a +1 on the "interestingly weird".

...though I think a good case can be made for "disturbingly weird" as well.

Regardless, it's an attention-getter.

Moderan;

This is funny... I just spent last night catching up on the Gotham TV series.

You just more or less described an area two of the MC's ended up venturing through, in search of that series' "proto-Joker".

...also a good hook, at least for me.


G.D.


----------



## EmmaSohan (Feb 7, 2019)

Terry D said:


> He prodded gingerly at the skin surrounding his eyes, or, more precisely, where his eyes had been, with the tip of one finger. Each touch sent ripples of pain through his face. The skin was tight, swollen, and sticky with fluid leaking like pus from his orbital sockets. Gently he ran his damaged fingers over the curves of his face feeling nothing familiar, only a landscape of knobs and ridges where the flesh had been attacked, tested, fed upon and then abandon in search of softer feeding ground. His enemies were lazy creatures, they would eat almost anything, but they preferred their food soft and wet. He placed his palm gently over his right eye. The skin pressed back against his hand like a warm, rotting plumb.



Instead of describing the situation, you drop us in the middle of what is happening. Nice. The story continues smoothly from the first line.

I have been thinking about how that unavoidably creates mystery, and how authors deal with that. You, I think, prolong it. We want to know who the MC is, and what happened, and who did it to the MC, and you don't fill that in. That's one approach.

I expect the next paragraph to continue the events of the story and slowly fill in the missing information. True? If it switches to a flashback, I would probably prefer a mixture of feedback and that first paragraph. (But I am not your target reader, I don't appreciate the genre you are in.) What is the next paragraph?


----------



## Guard Dog (Feb 7, 2019)

EmmaSohan said:


> (But I am not your target reader, I don't appreciate the genre you are in.)



Question; how can you tell what genre this is, with so little to go on?

Terry didn't say, and just from what we have here, it could fit in any number of places.

it could be horror... Science Fiction... A war story... Or even a romance.

( A fellow in a WW II concentration camp has his eye devoured by fly larva, gets rescued, then falls in love with a nurse while in the hospital. It could happen... )

If he'd told us what genre it is, then I'd have certain expectations and preconceived notions about where the story would go.

But as it stands... *shrug* The only thing to do is keep reading, and see what it turns out to be.

G.D.


----------



## EmmaSohan (Feb 7, 2019)

Guard Dog said:


> Question; how can you tell what genre this is, with so little to go on?
> 
> Terry didn't say, and just from what we have here, it could fit in any number of places.
> 
> ...



Pretty sure there's at least one alien in that paragraph? I get the same feeling I get when someone describes an alien in detail -- I'm bored. I don't like strange for the sake of strange. There is nothing interesting in that paragraph to me, and it gets repetitive. _That's for me_. Other people write those. Other people like them.

Maybe genre is the wrong word. What I meant to say, is that my feelings there are irrelevant -- people are going to like that, and I have no useful info on how that's done.


----------



## Guard Dog (Feb 7, 2019)

EmmaSohan said:


> Pretty sure there's at least one alien in that paragraph? I get the same feeling I get when someone describes an alien in detail -- I'm bored. I don't like strange for the sake of strange. There is nothing interesting in that paragraph to me, and it gets repetitive. _That's for me_. Other people write those. Other people like them.
> 
> Maybe genre is the wrong word. What I meant to say, is that my feelings there are irrelevant -- people are going to like that, and I have no useful info on how that's done.



I read it several times, saw 'enemy', but nothing specifically extraterrestrial. 

If this person is in a place where flies and other insects are a major source of discomfort, then they could be the critter being spoken of.

The only 'alien' sounding stuff was the description of the damage done to the person's face. And I can tell ya, insects feeding on a live person can and will leave the individual looking... less than human... even if they survive.

Again, we don't know yet.

Edit: There's also an inference here that the 'enemies' are small... which made me think 'insects', right or wrong.

G.D.


----------



## Phil Istine (Feb 8, 2019)

Terry D said:


> Another thread in this forum is discussing the ways writers open their stories, but, unfortunately like many threads which start off without a clear direction it has become a rather circular discussion. I think the idea of discussing the way we start our stories has value if we can get inside the author's head and understand why he or she made the decisions they did. We can't do that by looking at the words of writers who are dead, or at least not on these forums. With that in mind I decided to open this thread to post and discuss some of our own openings. My thought is to post one of my opening paragraphs and let folks ravage it like a paper boat in a hurricane. After awhile I'll post what I was trying to accomplish with it. Then maybe someone else will want to throw themself on the fire. For this thread I'd like to stick with short story openings since there is, I feel, a significant difference between what the opening of a short story must do, and the job of the opening to a novel. If this thread goes over maybe I'll start a separate one for novel openings. I'm not posting this on one of the creative boards because I have no interest in getting the whole story critiqued, I just think it might be fun to have a real frog to dissect here in class.
> 
> Okay, so here goes nothin'. This is the opening paragraph of a current short story I've been working on. Tell me if you would keep reading and why. What works? What doesn't? Does it fit your idea of how a story should start? Is there a 'hook'? Have at it.
> 
> ...



I felt a bit grossed out and part of me wanted to stop reading.  This was in conflict with my curiosity that wanted to find out not so much what happens next, but how that situation occurred in the first place.
Yes, I would continue reading, but would need you to start drip feeding answers fairly soon.

Moderan:



> Crazytown, not sane, occupies one and a half acres of real estate in a  desert city, known far and wide as Midtown, in a neighborhood that would  be flattered to be called ‘barrio’. The run-down titty bars and cowboy  churches are chockablock with the condemned motels and dilapidated  duplexes and inconvenience stores that determine the ambiance and serve  entertainment, drugs, and liquor to the populace.
> Pete the Perv, as he was properly known, was the maintenance man at 993  Creighton. He had the master key and was the sole gatekeeper as  management had long ago abandoned the slowly-decaying buildings,  providing a trust that kept the lights on. Pete collected rent when he  felt like it or was broke but generally didn’t make a big deal out of  it.
> Nobody really questioned the arrangement. It was just the way it was.



There's enough there to keep me reading, but I find the writing style feels slightly awkward for me. I'm pretty sure I could tune in to it though.  Looking up 'barrio' broke it up for me as well.  I suspect much of this is about living in the UK where some of the wording is different.
Including a 'perv' who appears to have unfettered access gives it potential.

You've set the scene well, but I would want an incident of some kind to occur fairly soon.


----------



## Guard Dog (Feb 8, 2019)

Phil Istine said:


> ...would need you to start drip feeding answers fairly soon.



Yeah, the bottom of this one would be a good place to be, or have some promise of getting to...

...at least if you want a person to keep reading.



G.D.


----------



## luckyscars (Feb 8, 2019)

Great idea for a thread! 



Terry D said:


> He prodded gingerly at the skin surrounding his eyes, or, more precisely, where his eyes had been, with the tip of one finger. Each touch sent ripples of pain through his face. The skin was tight, swollen, and sticky with fluid leaking like pus from his orbital sockets. Gently he ran his damaged fingers over the curves of his face feeling nothing familiar, only a landscape of knobs and ridges where the flesh had been attacked, tested, fed upon and then abandon in search of softer feeding ground. His enemies were lazy creatures, they would eat almost anything, but they preferred their food soft and wet. He placed his palm gently over his right eye. The skin pressed back against his hand like a warm, rotting plumb.



This is the type of beginning I call 'the close up'. 

Effective when it employs good visual imagery, as this does. The hook is in the sheer strength of the imagery with the proximity to person 'he'. It remains effective by closely following the way a typical person might react to whatever the hell is going on here. By not breaking that credibility, it remains gripping.

I'm not sure what immediately follows this excerpt but I hope to god it consists of no more anatomical descriptions because, for me, this is about the sweet spot for this type of 'introduction'. There's just a claustrophobia to it. A lot to visualize here very quickly and through essentially the same medium. I am presented with a dense packing of images and have to put them together quickly. 

...Which is okay, just so we are clear. It just can get exhausting. Purely because of the _quantity_ of images. It's a heavy meal. And that's true even if the _quality_ of the images is exemplary.

 Would I read on? Yeah, I would, on the understanding that the subsequent text is going to present a different visual - less of a 'wall of words' and a more gradual, nuanced approach. It's if/when that does not happen I personally tend to lose a little interest. Other readers mileage may vary.



moderan said:


> Crazytown, not sane, occupies one and a half acres of real estate in a desert city, known far and wide as Midtown, in a neighborhood that would be flattered to be called ‘barrio’. The run-down titty bars and cowboy churches are chockablock with the condemned motels and dilapidated duplexes and inconvenience stores that determine the ambiance and serve entertainment, drugs, and liquor to the populace.
> Pete the Perv, as he was properly known, was the maintenance man at 993 Creighton. He had the master key and was the sole gatekeeper as management had long ago abandoned the slowly-decaying buildings, providing a trust that kept the lights on. Pete collected rent when he felt like it or was broke but generally didn’t make a big deal out of it.
> Nobody really questioned the arrangement. It was just the way it was.



In stark contrast to Terry's, this kind of opener usually makes for a fairly easy read, partly because it closely resembles the style of a news report: A traditional overview followed by a sense of 'zeroing in' on the main character and event. Seems very natural. Quite conservative, even. 

In this case however the conservative delivery is effectively contradicted by the odd. Deformed versions of the everyday. The counterbalance of conventional style with unconventional substance makes this effective. 

Would I read on? Probably yeah, but  of that is our of curiosity rather than engagement or investment. That's, again, largely because of the more distanced perspective. In this case I'm observing a scene. In the prior example I was 'in the scene'.


So as not to armchair quarterback, an opener of my own, from my work in progress:

_
__The Chase Bank credit card, like the old man who wielded it, had seen better days. Better days and better cups of coffee.

The woman standing behind the point-of-sale at the United Dairy Farmers eyed him wearily when he approached, like he was part of a television show that was playing but to which she had little mind to pay any attention to. He smiled back, thinking she looked like a twelve year old boy with her short hair. One stood atop a pile of Yellow Pages from some twee commercial.

"That all?"

"Yes ma'am."

She coughed into her hands. "Dollar nine."

 Only when she spoke did she sound older. Much older. Her voice was hoarse-voiced and grouchy, the kind that normally comes at the end of phones to cab operators. __The drawer sprang open with a rusty cough and __she nodded lazily over at the counter where the hot dog machine lay dead. __“Cream and shugger."

“Got it.” The old man took the receipt and his change, shoving both into his pocket. A miserly thing to expense, but he always had._


----------



## Guard Dog (Feb 8, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> ...some twee commercial.



Some " 'tween commercial", maybe?

So far, so good, otherwise.




luckyscars said:


> “Got it.” The old man took the receipt and his change, shoving both into his pocket. A miserly thing to expense, but he always had.[/I]



"A miserly concession to expense"... possible? Followed by "but he always made such."

Or even just "A miserly concession to expense"?

I'm not sure which, or either... but this last line loses and confuses me.

Past that, a good beginning. I'd read on.



G.D.


----------



## moderan (Feb 8, 2019)

> You've set the scene well, but I would want an incident of some kind to occur fairly soon.


Incidents happen. Before and after. This section is no longer the beginning.


> Would I read on? Probably yeah, but of that is our of curiosity rather than engagement or investment. That's, again, largely because of the more distanced perspective. In this case I'm observing a scene. In the prior example I was 'in the scene'.



In this case, the narrator is actually pulling away from the previous scene and setting the table for the next. This is a motif of the story and there's a reason for it.


----------



## bdcharles (Feb 8, 2019)

Terry D said:


> Okay, so here goes nothin'. This is the opening paragraph of a current short story I've been working on. Tell me if you would keep reading and why. What works? What doesn't? Does it fit your idea of how a story should start? Is there a 'hook'? Have at it.
> 
> 
> He prodded gingerly at the skin surrounding his eyes, or, more precisely, where his eyes had been, with the tip of one finger. Each touch sent ripples of pain through his face. The skin was tight, swollen, and sticky with fluid leaking like pus from his orbital sockets. Gently he ran his damaged fingers over the curves of his face feeling nothing familiar, only a landscape of knobs and ridges where the flesh had been attacked, tested, fed upon and then abandon in search of softer feeding ground. His enemies were lazy creatures, they would eat almost anything, but they preferred their food soft and wet. He placed his palm gently over his right eye. The skin pressed back against his hand like a warm, rotting plumb.



Hmm, to me it's too prosaic (heh, what do I expect from prose?!). In a short story I need just enough sense of the scene, the time, the area, the person, and not just what is being experienced; if I am to be pinned inside a char's head it needs to be really voicey. There are also a few mistakes and overly-easy constructions. Sorry. I am actually interested in this situation but would say this is too early a draft for me to get yanked in just yet.





moderan said:


> 'plum'
> Otherwise cool. I wanna know why they took the eyes. It's interestingly weird.
> Try this'n, which nods toward a few classics:
> 
> ...



Yeah, this sound cool. I like your Hill House-esque opener and the rough-round-the-edges style. I would - I know, people don't want critique - take out a little of the overwrite "determine the ambiance" (the text does that already), "was the maintenance man" and "he had the master key" (we see that), and so forth. But I'd go on with this.


----------



## moderan (Feb 8, 2019)

bdcharles said:


> Yeah, this sound cool. I like your Hill House-esque opener and the rough-round-the-edges style. I would - I know, people don't want critique - take out a little of the overwrite "determine the ambiance" (the text does that already), "was the maintenance man" and "he had the master key" (we see that), and so forth. But I'd go on with this.



It's really not (over-write). I'd argue that all day, but I'm trying to keep from arguing here. It never ends well. Thanks for the kind words and I'll just wear the rest.


----------



## bdcharles (Feb 8, 2019)

moderan said:


> It's really not (over-write). I'd argue that all day, but I'm trying to keep from arguing here. It never ends well. Thanks for the kind words and I'll just wear the rest.



No, you're right. It could easily be voice or style. Just hard to say from a small extract.


----------



## Terry D (Feb 8, 2019)

moderan said:


> 'plum'
> Otherwise cool. I wanna know why they took the eyes. It's interestingly weird.
> Try this'n, which nods toward a few classics:



I'll come back to your opening in another post, Mod. I want to give it the attention it deserves. Thanks for the input. This is from a 1,000 word flash piece I've been working on and "interestingly weird" is just what I was looking to achieve. I'll go into more detail later in this post. 'Plum' yeah, honest to Cthulhu I know the difference between 'plum' and 'plumb' but apparently my fingers forgot.



Guard Dog said:


> Terry D;
> 
> Yeah, a +1 on the "interestingly weird".
> 
> ...



"Disturbingly weird" is even better, G.D. thanks. Knowing I had a very limited word count I was trying for a gut-punch right up front. There was no time to ease into the story. Check out my explanation below to see how good your guess in one of your replies to Emma was.



EmmaSohan said:


> Instead of describing the situation, you drop us in the middle of what is happening. Nice. The story continues smoothly from the first line.
> 
> I have been thinking about how that unavoidably creates mystery, and how authors deal with that. You, I think, prolong it. We want to know who the MC is, and what happened, and who did it to the MC, and you don't fill that in. That's one approach.
> 
> I expect the next paragraph to continue the events of the story and slowly fill in the missing information. True? If it switches to a flashback, I would probably prefer a mixture of feedback and that first paragraph. (But I am not your target reader, I don't appreciate the genre you are in.) What is the next paragraph?



Thanks, Emma. I very much appreciate your time to read and comment, particularly since the genre isn't your cup o' tea. I'll take 'smooth' all day long. I do go into flashback mode after a couple of paragraphs to bring the reader up to speed about what's going on. 



Phil Istine said:


> I felt a bit grossed out and part of me wanted to stop reading.  This was in conflict with my curiosity that wanted to find out not so much what happens next, but how that situation occurred in the first place.
> Yes, I would continue reading, but would need you to start drip feeding answers fairly soon.



Thanks, Phil. I feel successful when I push readers to the tipping-point you are talking about between revulsion and curiosity. Since I'm a firm believer that flash fiction at its best tells a complete story, this one does start explaining itself very soon.



luckyscars said:


> Great idea for a thread!
> 
> 
> 
> ...



"Close up" is an apt description. Thanks, Lucky. The second paragraph does get less graphic, but I try to keep the sense of claustrophobia intact. I'm not trying for torture-porn in any way but the strength of this story (if it has any) is in the brutality of the situation, not the actual events, if that makes any sense?


Okay, here's why I did what I did and how that fits into the rest of the tale. As I said before this is a flash piece targeting 1,000 words, so every paragraph, generally, is about 10% of the tale. I want all my flash fiction to be full stories, not scenes, or vignettes. To do that, I need a beginning, a middle, and an end. Events need to happen fast and there's not much room for developing every aspect of a good story; setting, time, characterization, tone, conflict, and resolution. I usually pick one or two to anchor the story and run with them, just dipping my toe into the others. In this one I picked tone, conflict, and resolution. 

CAUTION: From here on there be spoilers!

This is one of the stories I wrote for this year's Grand Fiction Challenge, but, of course, not the one I'll be submitting for that contest. The story is in a 'frame'. It opens in the current time, then flashes back to show how we got here, and then rolls back into the present for the end. I find that a frame structure works well for flash fiction because you can start with a powerful scene with no build up and after you get the reader involved you can step back a bit and do some 'splainin. I tried to use the strong visuals in the opening paragraph to get some empathy for the protagonist -- empathy most readers will lose during the flashback. What reader wouldn't feel something for a character whose eyes had been eaten out of his face? This character is in deep do-do. And I wanted the reader to wonder why. The 'hook', if there is one, is intended to be the phrase "...or, more precisely, where his eyes had been,...". People are sensitive about threats to their eyes and I used that. The only other really key part of that paragraph, for me, was the introduction of "his enemies", which serve as the story's antagonist. I was tempted to try and keep the identity of the antagonist a mystery and have a big reveal at the very end, but decided not to worry about keeping secrets, because I thought the big surprise (which I doubt would have stayed a surprise) would be amateurish. Instead the 'enemy' is revealed during the flashback. So, my goals for the intro were to 1. Establish the 'hook' 2. Introduce the antagonist 3. Create empathy for the protagonist 4. Be very visual.

As for the genre, it's horror, I guess. Most of my stuff has horrific elements. I can also see this story fitting in the old pulp 'adventure' category. Here's a quick plot synopsis:

A lone big game hunter, after illegally killing a jaguar in the Amazon jungle, breaks his leg while crossing a fallen tree. Immobilized and in shock, the hunter watches helplessly as his kill is devoured by army ants (10 points for Guard Dog!), knowing that soon the ant swarm will find him.

If there's any interest in seeing how I cram all that into a bit of flash-fiction, I can post the entire story in the Workshop. Thanks again, everyone, for the good discussion.


----------



## Terry D (Feb 8, 2019)

> Crazytown, not sane, occupies one and a half acres of real estate in a desert city, known far and wide as Midtown, in a neighborhood that would be flattered to be called ‘barrio’. The run-down titty bars and cowboy churches are chockablock with the condemned motels and dilapidated duplexes and inconvenience stores that determine the ambiance and serve entertainment, drugs, and liquor to the populace.
> Pete the Perv, as he was properly known, was the maintenance man at 993 Creighton. He had the master key and was the sole gatekeeper as management had long ago abandoned the slowly-decaying buildings, providing a trust that kept the lights on. Pete collected rent when he felt like it or was broke but generally didn’t make a big deal out of it.
> Nobody really questioned the arrangement. It was just the way it was.



This is a great contrast to what I posted. It has a nice 'settling-in' feel. I have the impression I'm in for a longer read and that's okay because there's a good flow to the language that keeps flowing forward. Good information is being shared even though there's no 'action' quite yet. I'd keep reading just to go walk-about in this decrepit town. I was going to say that there is no traditional 'hook', but then I realized there is. It's just artfully subtle (IMO). The hook for me is in, "...as management had long abandoned the slowly-decaying buildings, providing a trust to keep the lights on." That makes me want to know why 'management' would make such an un-business-like decision. It also hints at a dystopian world. I wonder why, when reading about Pete the Perv, my mind conjured up an image of Steve Buscemi, or was it Giovanni Rabisi? Thanks for sharing.


----------



## moderan (Feb 8, 2019)

Pete the Perv is probably closer to Uncle Hank. But yeah. Accurate assessment. Definitely dystopian, but with a twist. There's actually a scene before this that helps to explain why Pete has that nick, but it isn't suitable for this venue. Let's just say that Onan would approve.


----------



## luckyscars (Feb 8, 2019)

Terry D said:


> The second paragraph does get less graphic, but I try to keep the sense of claustrophobia intact. I'm not trying for torture-porn in any way but the strength of this story (if it has any) is in the brutality of the situation, not the actual events, if that makes any sense?




You mention it being flash fiction, which would negate a lot of the issues with claustrophobia and heaviness I mentioned before - it's pretty much impossible to write flash fiction and spread anything out.  I was thinking this was the beginning of a novel and the topic was mainly on books (as the originating topic had focused on novel beginnings). So the fact it is not changes the dynamic entirely.

A factor that has not been mentioned (at least I missed it) is the length of the story. The shorter the story, the more impact each line, each word for that matter, has to have. 

If this _were_ a longer piece, even if it was just marginally longer (so a standard length short-story), and this scene was to be progressed at more or less this pace and in this voice, I would personally look at introducing other elements to illustrate the emotive quality rather than focusing on visceral shock. Interweaving inner-dialogue can work if it's a single-character scene. Perhaps a dalliance into first-person, a forming emotions and thoughts, confused ones, hallucinations. All of these things can add a different layer to the construction.

 Something like this:

*He prodded gingerly at the skin surrounding his eyes, or, more precisely, where his eyes had been, with the tip of one finger. Each touch sent ripples of pain through his face. 

'Don't cry.'

A dulcet voice in his head was speaking. A low, soft-edged voice that sounded not unlike his mother's had once, back when she was still alive and he was a small boy who had skinned his knee or burned his fingers. The voice was like honey. 

'Crying won't help any.'

He didn't cry. Couldn't, even if he wanted to. The skin was tight, swollen, and sticky with fluid leaking like pus from his orbital sockets and a man without eyes could not cry.

'A blind man,' mother corrected, her cold hand pressing over his own where it was still exploring the holes. 'That's what you are now, my sweet boy, a blind man. What you'll forever be if you'll live.'

Gently he ran his damaged fingers over the curves of his face feeling nothing familiar, only a landscape of knobs and ridges where the flesh had been attacked, tested, fed upon and then abandoned in search of softer feeding ground.

He wondered if he wanted to live.

Perhaps he had no choice.

His enemies were lazy creatures, they would eat almost anything, but they preferred their food soft and wet. He placed his palm gently over his right eye. The skin pressed back against his hand like a warm, rotting plum.*

^ Not great, and I don't mean to bastardize your work, but I like these sorts of heavy scenes to be broken out in this way and figured it was best to kind of demonstrate.

Slight tangent: It also only occurs to me now that you mention in the first line 'where his eyes had been' and indicating the eyes no longer there and yet in the penultimate line it mentions 'he placed his palm gently over his right eye'. So where is this eye? Is it detached or...? I assumed from earlier that the eyes were gone but maybe read it wrong?


----------



## bdcharles (Feb 9, 2019)

Here's one from me that I am currently shopping:



> Hexatina Sanders-Wittye, Sunflower to her father, is dead to her mother.
> 
> Hexatina – or Tina, depending on which schoolfriend you ask – slouches on a riverbank, aged approximately nine. Twigs press themselves into her stick-thin body like friendship requests, and the minnows swim in a rapid swarm, the late morning sun glittering off their silvery bodies as they dart this way and that. How would it be, her child’s mind wonders, if right there, beneath the arboreal shade at the edge of the trickling brook, she could guess at their intent, maybe even influence their movements? Her eyes twitch to one side and the fish jerk anew, but whether they follow the path of her stare is impossible to say. She rolls onto her back and contemplates the sunlight coming through the woodland canopy, bound for its mid-year zenith.
> 
> She’ll be hungry soon.



It's a 2,480 word short. Any help I can get with it would be, frankly, a lifesaver


----------



## EmmaSohan (Feb 9, 2019)

Guard Dog said:


> I read it several times, saw 'enemy', but nothing specifically extraterrestrial.
> 
> If this person is in a place where flies and other insects are a major source of discomfort, then they could be the critter being spoken of.
> 
> ...



There's an interesting point here. An action start works because it leaks information about setting and characters.



> The monitor lady smiled and tousled his hair and said, "Andrew...."



That tells us the main character is male. Card didn't have to toss in the tousling, but that puts a fairly narrow window on his age. Less certainly, no one seems to be angry at him. Terry wrote:



> Gently he ran his damaged fingers over the curves of his face feeling nothing familiar, only a landscape of knobs and ridges where the flesh had been attacked.



Knobs and ridges is not the way we normally describe a human face, so it suggests alien.

Terry could be intentionally trying to lead the read astray, especially if this is a short story. (Andrew could be 18 and Card was deliberating leading the reader astray, but he had no motivation to do that.) So "leaking" misleading information would be perfect and worked perfectly on me.


----------



## Terry D (Feb 9, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> You mention it being flash fiction, which would negate a lot of the issues with claustrophobia and heaviness I mentioned before - it's pretty much impossible to write flash fiction and spread anything out.  I was thinking this was the beginning of a novel and the topic was mainly on books (as the originating topic had focused on novel beginnings). So the fact it is not changes the dynamic entirely.
> 
> A factor that has not been mentioned (at least I missed it) is the length of the story. The shorter the story, the more impact each line, each word for that matter, has to have.
> 
> ...



Sorry for the misunderstanding. In the OP to this thread I mentioned that I wanted to focus on the openings to short stories, with the intent of starting another thread for novel openings because there is such a great difference in what you can do. But you are absolutely correct that another great difference exists between flash fiction and longer form short stories. If I was intending this tale to be longer, say 3 or 4 thousand words, it would start very differently.

About the eyes; I think the second paragraph would help clarify things. The man's eyes have been eaten, but the lids and the skin around them has swollen to close off the orbits. That's what the protagonist is feeling, the swollen tissue around the eye.



EmmaSohan said:


> Knobs and ridges is not the way we normally describe a human face, so it suggests alien.
> 
> Terry could be intentionally trying to lead the read astray, especially if this is a short story. (Andrew could be 18 and Card was deliberating leading the reader astray, but he had no motivation to do that.) So "leaking" misleading information would be perfect and worked perfectly on me.



The information included in my opening is not intended to be misleading, just incomplete. The character's face has been disfigured by the multiple bites of army ants, the swelling of his injuries have created a face that doesn't feel familiar. All becomes clear in short order.


----------



## Terry D (Feb 9, 2019)

bdcharles said:


> Hmm, to me it's too prosaic (heh, what do I expect from prose?!). In a short story I need just enough sense of the scene, the time, the area, the person, and not just what is being experienced; if I am to be pinned inside a char's head it needs to be really voicey. There are also a few mistakes and overly-easy constructions. Sorry. I am actually interested in this situation but would say this is too early a draft for me to get yanked in just yet.



Well... it's not a draft -- yes it is, it's just the final draft. This is the start to a story of just 1000 words, so, to tell a complete story with that limit, I can't really afford the words to get lyrical. Also, the theme of this tale is uncivilized, primal, so the construction is bare-bones. It's supposed to be more Hemingway than Faulkner (not that I'm comparing myself to either. I would be interested to hear what you perceive to be mistakes and over-easy constructions.


----------



## Guard Dog (Feb 9, 2019)

Terry D said:


> The information included in my opening is not intended to be misleading, just incomplete. The character's face has been disfigured by the multiple bites of army ants, the swelling of his injuries have created a face that doesn't feel familiar. All becomes clear in short order.



Terry, this gets back to what I said about the reader's knowledge base and experience; Somebody like me who's spent a few days with a knot of tissue on their arm or leg from an insect bite/sting, or a ridge/welt from an allergic reaction to whatever toxin the critter has passed along will recognize it for what it is.

( I got about a dozen stings when I was a kid, from a nest-full of paper wasps. I probably looked a lot like your MC... only I still had eyes. )

For people without that experience, it's just foreign and confusing. So they tend to see something that's just not there.



G.D.


----------



## luckyscars (Feb 9, 2019)

Terry D said:


> Sorry for the misunderstanding. In the OP to this thread I mentioned that I wanted to focus on the openings to short stories, with the intent of starting another thread for novel openings because there is such a great difference in what you can do. But you are absolutely correct that another great difference exists between flash fiction and longer form short stories. If I was intending this tale to be longer, say 3 or 4 thousand words, it would start very differently.



No need to apologize. It just occurred to me while picking through it that my impression of this opener would be entirely different in a flash context than in a short story than in a novel. 

When I see relentless heavy-pressings of imagery and description in the early passages of a novel, its usually off-putting initially because I feel like the entire novel (several hundred pages of it) is going to be like that. Which, of course, may or may not be accurate, its more of a reflex reaction, a sense of 'do I really...want to carry on?' When it occurs in something I know is short and sweet, its an easier swallow. Kind of like eating a spoonful of Tabasco sauce as opposed to a whole bottle. 

Anyway, good work. If you want to post it in the workshop I would be happy to give it a more in-depth critique...


----------



## bdcharles (Feb 10, 2019)

Terry D said:


> He prodded gingerly at the skin surrounding his eyes, or, more precisely, where his eyes had been, with the tip of one finger. Each touch sent ripples of pain through his face. The skin was tight, swollen, and sticky with fluid leaking like pus from his orbital sockets. Gently he ran his damaged fingers over the curves of his face feeling nothing familiar, only a landscape of knobs and ridges where the flesh had been attacked, tested, fed upon and then abandon*ed* in search of softer feeding ground*s*. His enemies were lazy creatures, _[<- comma splice - they ~can~ work but not sure this is the voice for it]_ they would eat almost anything, but they preferred their food soft _[repetition of "soft" very soon]_ and wet. He placed his palm gently _[<- gently is used twice too]_ over his right eye. The skin pressed back against his hand like a warm, rotting plum.







Terry D said:


> Well... it's not a draft -- yes it is, it's just  the final draft. This is the start to a story of just 1000 words, so, to  tell a complete story with that limit, I can't really afford the words  to get lyrical. Also, the theme of this tale is uncivilized, primal, so  the construction is bare-bones. It's supposed to be more Hemingway than  Faulkner (not that I'm comparing myself to either. I would be interested  to hear what you perceive to be mistakes and over-easy  constructions.



I see the "plumb" has been fixed, so, let's have a look. I blued out one or two omissions that I saw. In the main the idea is fine - I'm interested and invested - but the biggest thing, for me, was probably the number of "He [verb]'ed the [noun]" constructs: "He prodded gingerly at the skin", "He ran his damaged fingers", "He placed his palm" that set too much unchanging rhythm for my taste. I like a measure of syntactic variety, and there are some repetitions here, as per the italics. Also "Sent ripples of pain" seems a little too shopworn for me but it could work in moderation. "Gently ran damaged fingers" - I would ideally like more sensory verbs - "Damaged fingers tickled the curves of his face".

Don't get me wrong: in and of themselves these are all absolutely fine and the writing really has no issues (standout phrases are: "landscape of knobs and ridges", "sticky with fluid leaking like pus","the curves of his face"), but for an opening paragraph, I tend to expect something: bedazzelement, maybe, a statement piece of sorts. I suppose I expect a little context too. What is the mood of this area or this moment in time? What is around us? If the theme is primal, the words "more precisely" don't seem to fit, particularly in the opening sentence. For that sort of vibe I would imagine there might be a number of sentence fragments. Or you might go straight in and say "He prodded gingerly at the sockets where his eyes had been" otherwise readers could feel they've started in the middle of a moment, not in an _in media res_ way but as if everyone had started without us and assumes we already know what is what. Why not build out the scenery? Invoke senses. Drop us in. Use one or two minor devices maybe, as you do with "each touch". "Beneath the heat of Pangaea's burning sun he prodded the tender sockets where his eyes had been." I mean, that's not perfect but see if you can't zing us with that opening line.


----------



## Terry D (Feb 10, 2019)

bdcharles said:


> I see the "plumb" has been fixed, so, let's have a look. I blued out one or two omissions that I saw. In the main the idea is fine - I'm interested and invested - but the biggest thing, for me, was probably the number of "He [verb]'ed the [noun]" constructs: "He prodded gingerly at the skin", "He ran his damaged fingers", "He placed his palm" that set too much unchanging rhythm for my taste. I like a measure of syntactic variety, and there are some repetitions here, as per the italics. Also "Sent ripples of pain" seems a little too shopworn for me but it could work in moderation. "Gently ran damaged fingers" - I would ideally like more sensory verbs - "Damaged fingers tickled the curves of his face".
> 
> Don't get me wrong: in and of themselves these are all absolutely fine and the writing really has no issues (standout phrases are: "landscape of knobs and ridges", "sticky with fluid leaking like pus","the curves of his face"), but for an opening paragraph, I tend to expect something: bedazzelement, maybe, a statement piece of sorts. I suppose I expect a little context too. What is the mood of this area or this moment in time? What is around us? If the theme is primal, the words "more precisely" don't seem to fit, particularly in the opening sentence. For that sort of vibe I would imagine there might be a number of sentence fragments. Or you might go straight in and say "He prodded gingerly at the sockets where his eyes had been" otherwise readers could feel they've started in the middle of a moment, not in an _in media res_ way but as if everyone had started without us and assumes we already know what is what. Why not build out the scenery? Invoke senses. Drop us in. Use one or two minor devices maybe, as you do with "each touch". "Beneath the heat of Pangaea's burning sun he prodded the tender sockets where his eyes had been." I mean, that's not perfect but see if you can't zing us with that opening line.



Points well taken. Thanks for the well considered input.


----------



## Guard Dog (Feb 10, 2019)

Terry... Don't worry too much about the 'Plumb'... 'cause the fellow could'a used a plumb_er_, ta help with that nasty drip he had goin' on. :devilish:



G.D.


----------



## Hill.T.Manner (Feb 10, 2019)

Guard Dog said:


> Terry... Don't worry too much about the 'Plumb'... 'cause the fellow could'a used a plumb_er_, ta help with that nasty drip he had goin' on. :devilish:
> 
> 
> 
> G.D.



Fairly certain G.D. is my spirit animal. haha


----------



## Guard Dog (Feb 11, 2019)

Hill.T.Manner said:


> Fairly certain G.D. is my spirit animal. haha



Then your ancestors must be a bit more than a half a bubble off'a plumb, ta send you a crazy old dog like me as a spirit animal. :nightmare:

...damn, there's that word again.

G.D.


----------



## Terry D (Feb 11, 2019)

Guard Dog said:


> Terry... Don't worry too much about the 'Plumb'... 'cause the fellow could'a used a plumb_er_, ta help with that nasty drip he had goin' on. :devilish:
> 
> 
> 
> G.D.



I have always struggled with spelling (although this time it was more a miss-type than misspell). In my very first rejection letter, many moons ago, an editor told me that J.F.K. and Hemingway were both terrible spellers, but that it is still "off-putting" to editors. I've tried very hard ever since to improve. Spell-check has been a blessing for me because I've had to correct the same words so many times that my spelling has actually improved.


----------



## Guard Dog (Feb 11, 2019)

Spell check has actually made my spelling worse.

I tend to get lazy and look for those red bars, rather than concentrate on doing the job right the first time.

...then there's those instances where ya spell the word right, but it's the wrong word, and you don't catch it 'cause... there's no red bar. :-|

( Like plum/plumb. We won't discuss how many times I do that. )


G.D.


----------



## wagtail (Feb 15, 2019)

bdcharles said:


> Here's one from me that I am currently shopping:
> 
> It's a 2,480 word short. Any help I can get with it would be, frankly, a lifesaver



Here's my thoughts, hope they make sense. (I'm not sure how this forum works re critting, ie because your excerpt was in a quote box, is that to protect first rights? I wasn't sure, so didn't copy it into this reply.)

First off I adore the name Hexatina etc. The first sentence has me asking questions, so I'm going to keep on reading to get me some answers. Exactly what an opening should do.  

I'd consider cutting the second alternative name in the very next sentence (it's a lot to get my head around so quickly - Hexatina (etc), Sunflower, Tina -- could Tina come in later?)

Can't put my finger on why, but I love the 'aged approximately nine' line. I think it's the voice.

I stumbled with the 'friendship requests' simile. It jerked me out of the dreamy, yet-to-be-solidified world I had Hexatina sitting in and it made me stop and wonder about what sort of world this actually is.

Love the description of the fish and the growing mystery surrounding Hexatina.   

Ooh that last line. My first reaction was 'eek' -- like a vampirish hunger? But on a reread I realised it could be entirely innocent. So once again, I'm going to keep on reading. 

Good luck with your shopping.


----------

