Free Write Great Fiction--Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell Page B

opening lines? First, they give the name of a character. This specificity creates the illusion of reality from the get-go. A variation on this is to begin with a pronoun:
She heard something moving in her bedroom
.
    What I like about the Koontz approach, however, is that a name gives that extra measure of verisimilitude and makes the “willing suspension of disbelief” that much easier.
    The second thing to notice is that something is happening or about to happen to the character. And not just anything — something ominous or dangerous. An interruption to normal life.
    Give readers a feeling of motion, of something happening or about to happen. Give them this feeling from the very start.
    If you begin with long, descriptive passages (something that was much more acceptable in the past), the feeling you’ll create is not one of motion but of stasis.
    Don’t misunderstand. Descriptions are not out of bounds —
so long as you include text that gives the feeling of motion
.
    And only a character can be in motion. So — give us a character as soon as possible. Take a look at this next example from Anne Lamott’s
Blue Shoe
:
    The world outside the window was in flames. The leaves on the pistachio trees shone fire-red and orange. Mattie studied the early morning light. She was lying on the side of the bed where her husband should have been sleeping.
    Here Lamott starts with description. But she gets a character into it in the third sentence. And then she drops in a line of something amiss — her husband is not there, where he
should have been
.
    We have a feeling of motion, that Mattie is in the midst of a troubling situation
and is going to have to do something about it
.
    That’s what a feeling of motion is. Not necessarily overt action (though that works, too) but the sense that action is or is about to take place.
    Unless something disturbing happens to your Lead early on, you risk violating Hitchcock’s Axiom: A good story is life with the dull parts taken out.
    So stir up the waters.
    What happens doesn’t have to be huge, like a house blowing up. It can be something as seemingly innocuous as a telephone call in the night or a bit of unsettling news.
    For example, we meet Margaret Mitchell’s Scarlett O’Hara at the very beginning of
Gone With the Wind
this way:
    Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.
    This is Scarlett and her world at the beginning — she can catch men with her charm. She likes to do so.
    She meant what she said, for she could never long endure any conversation of which she was not the chief subject. But she smiled when she spoke, consciously deepening her dimple and fluttering her bristly black lashes as swiftly as butterflies’ wings. The boys were enchanted, as she had intended them to be …
    So far so good. Scarlett is charming the twins, controlling them. Then the conversation turns to the upcoming barbecue at Twelve Oaks. The twins want to tie up Scarlett for the waltzes, and promise to tell her a secret if she’ll consent. The secret is that the engagement of Ashley Wilkes and Melanie Hamilton is going to be announced at the party.
    Scarlett’s face did not change but her lips went white — like a person who has received a stunning blow without warning and who, in the first moments of shock, does not realize what has happened.
    Disturbance! A few pages later, we learn why:
    Ashley to marry Melanie Hamilton!
    Oh, it couldn’t be true! … No, Ashley couldn’t be in love with Melanie, because — oh, she couldn’t be mistaken! — because he was in love with her! She, Scarlett, was the one he loved — she knew it!
    So the world Scarlett thought she ruled — the world of beaux and marriage — has been riled up.
    Consider the opening from Jonathan Harr’s brilliant book,
A Civil Action
. This is nonfiction, the