I can't recall where on AW I saw this, but I remember reading that you should not start a story with dialogue. Can someone explain the rationale behind this guideline? Thanks!
He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the gulf stream and he had gone eighty four days now without taking a fish.
JanDarby said:The issue is usually that dialogue isn't meaningful without context. Even something shocking, like:
"I almost died last night."
doesn't have as much impact as it would have if we knew who was speaking. We can't be entirely sure how to react. Either way, it's sad or scary, but it's hard to tell exactly how upset we should be, how shocked we should be, and if we're honest, we don't know the person who almost died, so we're not invested in his/her situation. Consider how different your reaction would be, depending on whether the speaker is a child or someone who's 103 years old and lingering in a painful deathbed, where death would be a relief.
It can be done and done well. One of Jenny Crusie's books starts with a line where a character says, "Don't jump. Blood is hell to get out of silk." And it works, but that's partly b/c she's known for her snarky dialogue, and someone less skilled might not be able to make it work as well.
Oh, and another issue is that in the wrong hands, starting with dialogue (usually of the shocking sort) can promise the reader something the book doesn't actually deliver. This has to do with hooks generally, where an author will work so hard to come up with a compelling first line, that it's out of synch with the rest of the book. I once read a book that had a great, funny, compelling first line, and I bought book based on that and some general buzz about it, and the rest of the book had absolutely nothing to do with the first line. The first line promised a funny, contemporary book, and the actual story was a time-travel, so after the first scene, it was essentially a historical story, which might have been well done, but I was so annoyed that it wasn't what the first line promised me, that I didn't read the rest.
So, you can start with dialogue, and it can be a compelling hook, but be aware that dialogue without context can be misleading or can lack the emotional impact of dialogue when the reader knows and cares about the speaker.
JD