best openings and why
1.
The dead have highways.
They run, unerring lines of ghost-trains, of dream-carriages, across the wasteland behind our lives, bearing an endless traffic of departed souls. Their thrum and throb can be heard in the broken places of the world, through cracks made by acts of cruelty, violence and depravity. Their freight, the wandering dead, can be glimpsed when the heart is close to bursting, and sights that should be hidden come plainly into view.
-- C. Barker, The Book of Blood
Good first line. One that makes me think, “Okay. Now prove it.” So then he does, sort of, by explaining. It’s that hooker of a first line, and what follows, that makes me want to find out more. The notion that the supernatural worlds leaks into this mundane one through breaks seems an interesting one, and that these breaks are caused by “cruelty, violence and depravity” seems an even more interesting one, because it says that mankind has at least minimal influence upon the supernatural; he brings it here by doing evil. Yet even more than this “intellectualization after the fact,” I like the bit for its atmosphere and rhythm, the mood its use of language and imagery imparts. There’s an idea at work here, not just the mechanical contraptions of story. Ideas drive the machine. Give it spark, life, soul. Without ideas to support them, stories are about as interesting as wind-up toys. Barker convinced me with this opening that he had something to say, not just a story to tell.
2.
You could smell the kids before you could see them, their young sweat turned stale in corridors with barred windows, their bolted breath sour, their heads musty. Then their voices, subdued by the rules of confinement.
Don’t run. Don’t shout. Don’t whistle. Don’t fight.
They called it a Remand Center for Adolescent Offenders, but was near as damn it a prison.
-- C. Barker, Pig Blood Blues
Smell hooked me, here. How many stories start out with odor? Beats me, but in this case there’s an animalian nature to the opening that all the more befit’s the tale it tales, and it’s an interesting one, too. I also liked the dropping from the long opening sentences to the staccato four sentences, two words each, two syllables, too (well, except for the third pair), which reinforces “rules of confinement” by hammering down some of those rules. Then we’re told what’s up with those rules: these kids are inmates, not just schoolies. Therefore I have a sense of setting, atmosphere, mood. Not a character, yet, mind you, but a point of view, and an interesting one. One interesting enough to keep me around to find out what happens.
3.
Hell came up to the streets and squares of London that September, icy from the depths of the Ninth Circle, too frozen to be warmed even by the swelter of an Indian summer. It had laid its plans as carefully as ever, plans being what they were, and fragile. This time it was perhaps a little more finicky than usual, checking every last detail twice or three times, to be certain it had every chance of winning this vital game.
-- C. Barker, Hell’s Event
So I like Hell stories. What can I say? I’m keen on this one because Hell pops out in London during hot days, and what is Hell? It’s cold. That’s a mild contrast to usual notions of Hell, and I want to know what’s going on, here. What’s Hell’s game, after all?
4.
My God, she thought, this can’t be living. Day in, day out: the boredom, the drudgery, the frustration.
My Christ, she prayed, let me out, set me free, crucify me if you must, but put me out of my misery.
In lieu of this euthanasian benediction, she took a blade from Ben’s razor, one dull day in late March, locked herself in the bathroom, and slit her wrists.
-- C. Barker, Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament
Parallel structure hooked me, here, but not just that. Sure, sure, it’s interesting, if you’ll notice, how Barker’s first two sentences mirror each other, how the one sets up the problem, the second sets up the solution, and the third carries out that solution, but now you have to wonder “why.” Why is this woman so drudged-out, so frustrated? Also of interest is that Barker again puts words together in interesting fashion. It’s not just rhythms, either, but rhymes (incidental or not, they’re there, with pairs like “boredom” + “frustration” and all those “e” sounds in the second sentence).
5.
Winter, Lewis decided, was no season for old men. The snow that lay five inches thick on the streets of Paris froze him to the marrow. What had been a joy to him as a child was now a curse. He hated it with all his heart; hated the snowballing children (squeals, howls, tears); hated, too, the young lovers, eager to be caught in a flurry together (squeals, kisses, tears). It was uncomfortable and tiresome, and he wished he was in Fort Lauderdale, where the sun would be shining.
-- C. Barker, New Murders in the Rue Morgue
I immediately want to know this cat’s game. What brought him to this? What changed his thoughts about winter? It looks like it was more than mere old age. In order to find out, I had to read more … and did. Once again, I also liked the parallel structure here, setting up minor contrasts and parallels with one another, but even deeper ones between the happy scene and Lewis, the old man.
6-ish.
There are lots more openings I like, by other authors, too, but I think what works for me is always the same: that opening, whatever it is, has to interest me, and the more ways it interest me, the better. It also has to be free of distracting bobbles. One screw up with even something like rhythm will ding an internal bell for most readers, whether they’re aware of it or not, and an unseen thing like that is often what separates professional work from the not-so-professional. Kind of like listening to a professional musician versus a non-pro. That non-pro might make the fiddle squeak now and again when the bow gets too near the bridge, but the professional never will.
(I know I'm overstating the case, but good openings get far more right than they do wrong, just like good stories.)
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