Hook, Line and Stinker

The three best ways to open a story:
1) Dialogue 
2) Scene setting
3) Characterization

And do it quickly: Not too much description on the first page. Just enough. Place the hook, then get out for a bit, and come back.

The internet is littered with advice like this. This particular version came from a Facebook post by Jason V Brock (that's a link to his Wikipedia page).

Personally I think it's like all advice (on writing and everything else). Listen to all of it, take it seriously and then do what works for you.

With that in mind, here's the opening sentences to some recently completed stories:

They say the man from Suffolk seemed in fine fettle they day he died. ~ A Clowder of Cats

Dougal Brown ate dirt. ~ Digger

The Coachman’s Arms brought comfort and a wide range of beers and wines to its patrons.
 ~  The Codger

“I figure I have an hour, maybe less, and so for those of you who come in to find out what the hell happened. Excuse the chains, but this is it. An eyewitness report. ~ The Resolute Report

I have 123 photographs of my back. ~ The Tao Of The Tattoo

Richie returned to consciousness in a room that smelt like the high school locker room after a championship game. ~ Rite Of Passage 

The Sharps rifle is the finest weapon ever invented by man, the .50 calibre shot can be fired by a competent marksman at a rate of up to ten rounds per minute with deadly accuracy. ~ Walking The Line 

And for a bonus, the opening line of the yet to be finished Pisces of Fate, the sequel to Engines of Empathy

In the warm tropical waters of the Aardvark Archipelago swims a fish that no one likes. 

Why we need really shit writers...

Dustin LaValley made the following post on the Horror Writers Association Facebook page today.

I am of the internet generation of dark fiction authors. Those of our generation who create work worth the damn are far and few between.

I fully blame the internet for the overwhelming presence of the ignorant, self-righteous, the stupid, the dipshits who write and the dipshits who only publish zombie fiction and vampire fiction (which is dying... so luckily, zombie is next... hopefully). It is depressing to see those who are creating work that is done so in an individual voice, with flowing prose and new formulas, challenging format and in all, writing unique pieces... being ignored like a fussing child while those who write the same fucking thing in the same fucking formula with no voice and no distinction between their work and the work on any fan fiction message board by bored housewives trying to escape their unideal existences.

We need to step up. We need to say no. We need to come together and create a new golden era. We will never experience what the 1970s-early 1990s gave, the authors and their work, but if we achieve one-forth of that... we will be in a better world.

We intelligent are letting the stupid rule the world. We need to to man-up and put this to an end.

I found this really disappointing, that a member of the HWA and a prolific author (even one who's novella was proclaimed "Book of The Year!" by the magazine he is a staff writer for...) but mostly what bothers me is the enthusiastic response he has received from other HWA members on Facebook (Note: I am not a member of the Horror Writers Association). So I wrote the following response from the perspective of an indie writer and horror writing fan... 


There have ALWAYS been crap books out there. Horror and every other form of genre fiction has more than it's share of complete turds in the pool. Lots of successful authors have a few clunkers in their catalogue. If we get elitist about it and say "You can't publish cos I hate vampire stories!" Then we are failing as writers and readers. Organisations like the HWA should be supporting anyone who wants to add their voice to the tumult of horror fiction. Everyone has their own interpretation and everyone has the right to give it a go. Yes, 90% of the books I have read this year have been steaming piles of shit. But I gave them a go, because I believe in giving everyone a chance. Some authors have made me roll my eyes and give up after a few chapters, but a few, a precious few, have taken me somewhere else and given me the chance to be totally entertained by what they have written. But if we prevent any one of those writers, the good and the shockingly awful, from practising their art, then we have failed them, we have failed the millions of readers that we all crave and worst of all, we have said, "There is no learning curve in writing horror. You either write EXACTLY what we write and as well as we THINK we write it, or get the fuck out." 
So what you are railing against is freedom for writers to develop their skills and find their voice. You are saying no matter how immature, or naive or full of your own self-worth you are, you are no where near as full of shit as we are.

If you want better reading material, support the developing writers who are writing complete shit to become better and to keep exploring and challenging the boundaries of the horror and dark fiction and spec fiction genres. A world where people who give it a go and fuck things up aren't allowed to learn and are banned from following their dreams by some Literati of self-absorbed horror critics is not the world I want to live in.

edited for edityness

Editors As A Species

  Yes, editors are human. We have families, day jobs, hobbies, and our own writing, editing, submitting and re-writing to get on with.

We did however take on the job of reviewing submissions for (in my case) anthologies and production scripts. So we don't complain. We do however read some of the most god-awful literature ever excreted from the backsides of some barely literate apes.

We don't get paid for this. In fact the last anthology I edited I personally put up the US$350 to pay our writers $25 for each successful submission. The publisher wasn't able to pay anything but I wanted quality stories, and I got them.

We don't get paid. We instead get to pore over the full range of experience and ability in the written word. We get stories that are so disparate from the guidelines we wonder if the submitter made a mistake and sent us the wrong file. We get stories in foreign languages, in unopenable file formats, in stupid fonts, in weird colours. We get stories that are incomprehensible, lacking in any form of grammar, spell or punctuation checking. We get piles and piles of complete turkey-droppings. And then...

...We find something that takes our breath away. A story we simply have to have. The story you read and it sticks with you. The story you wish you had written. The story that makes you wonder, what the hell am I doing? If there are writers out there who are this good, I may as well just pack up my pencil and go fishing instead.

Those are the ones that make it a joy to write an acceptance letter. Those are the ones that make all the soul-destroying, "please don't take it personally, but your story isn't what we are looking for", sanitised responses, when all you really want to do is email them saying, "Are you kidding me? Please never submit anything to anyone ever again, in case by some bizarre accident it accidentally gets published and the collective IQ of the world drops sharply as a result."

So like every other writer, editors go through the pangs of rejection and the joys of acceptance. There is nothing like putting together a publication of stories that are your favourites. Giving money to people for writing is the greatest feeling in the world. Their gratitude is genuine and the lessons we can provide to those who aren't there yet are sincere.

Spare a thought for the editors. That we respond at all is indication enough that not only are we human, we still have some faith in literate humanity left.

cheers
Paul

PS: I write reports for the government all day. At night I write and edit short stories, novels, audio-plays, screen-plays and the occassional offensive limerick.

Problem #1 with Self-Publishing.

Your story is shit.

Some people can't actually write. 

Of course this isn't you. Your mum loves your novel. Your writing group think it's great (as long as you say the same about their sample chapter). Vanity publishers are falling over themselves to make special offers that will make publishing your opus a breeze! They even want to give you FREE copies of your book with every publishing package you buy! 

All his praise and attention leaves amateur writers completely blind to the fact they can't write for shit.

 We all know a lot of people who call themselves "writers" or "authors" and yay for them. But think of all the things you do on a daily basis - do you refer to yourself by something you do, but don't get paid for? 

Every time a "writer" declares themselves as such - inquire as to their publishing history. If they haven't got a publishing history they shouldn't be calling themselves writers any more than a teenage boy should be calling himself a "masturbator". 

Not actually being able to write is however no barrier to a writing career earning real money. The important step that is so easily skipped over - is learning how to write. It's up to the individual how they learn to write. Take a class, get a degree, read hundreds of books, and write every day. All standard advice from famous authors for hundreds of years.

The key thing is that no one just writes – you learn it like any other skill and keep learning it until you stop doing it.