I Have to Ask...I Just Have to

[queenoftheskies]

After so many people have participated in that most marvelous of novel (and some short story) openings meme, I have to ask.

Now that you've looked through your own openings, and the openings of others, what stood out for you?

What do you think makes a good opening? What grabs your readers' attention? What makes them want to read more?

What grabbed you about other people's openings that you read? And, on the flip side, what mistakes did you see most frequently?

Did you learn anything from looking at the openings of others that you can apply to your own work? Or do you think you have openings down pat and really understand what to go for in order to hook your reader?

Comments

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Flat-out description of a scene -- like just describing the setting -- really bores me. Give me character!

Lack of voice. (Which is really only easily gauged in the first paragraphs, not the first sentence.) I need a voice in novels.

Looking at my three novel openings side by side, I noticed how misleading Girl #6 is. In fact, when I looked at that first page, the interesting part came in the paragraph following the one I'd posted. The voice is right, but it totally doesn't give any hint of the type of novel that's to follow.

The Last Rite opening took me a long time. I hadn't written that scene until I'd completed the rough draft and thrown away the beginning I'd originally had. I seem to follow that pattern -- I can't nail the beginning until I've hit the end. And it took one major rewrite to bring out the voice that I think is Last Rite's strength. It's unique; it might be off-putting but I came to grips with that a long time ago. That novel is going to be one people either like or hate, I suspect.