Heard this on PBS radio today and I couldn't find a past thread on it though it started with a Tweet from last month.
Adding ‘And then the murders began’ instantly makes any book better
Bolded below is the key idea from the exercise:
[Leaves to review/edit first chapter of WIP one more time.]
Adding ‘And then the murders began’ instantly makes any book better
Lots of Tweets followed playing with the idea. Some of them are hilarious.There’s a set of commonly shared rules that tend to make fiction writing better—”show, don’t tell,” and the like—and last week, author Marc Laidlaw added a new one to the list. He posited on Twitter that any story can be enhanced by following the first line with “and then the murders began…”
Bolded below is the key idea from the exercise:
The trick works because, although it can be a joke, it also reveals an underlying truth about storytelling. Any opening is better when you simulataneously reveal some tantalizing detail and create a question in the reader’s mind. In the case of “and then the murders began,” you’re introducing the shock and intrigue of serial murder, but it’s not yet clear who’s killing, who’s dying, or why. It doesn’t matter what sentence comes before a barnburner like that, it’s always going to work.
As a meme, though, it’ll probably be fairly shortlived. People picked it up and played with it on Twitter for a few days, trying to create funny juxtapositions with famous first lines, but the best possibilities were soon exhausted. And then the murders began…
[Leaves to review/edit first chapter of WIP one more time.]