INTRODUCTION I. OPENING STRATEGIES 1. Who Speaks? Choosing Narrators 2. Dramatic Openings 3. Colluding with Readers / Second Person 4. Character Narrator 5. Where to Start? Biblical Openers 6. Setting the Scene: The Wide-Angle Establishing Shot 7.
Beginning at the End 8. Literary Births 9. In Medias Res: The Inciting Incident 10. The Covenant: Taking the Leap II. SEVEN DEADLY SINS: COMMON ERRORS 1. Default Omniscience: Failure to Properly Engage a Narrator and Inhabit That Narrator''s Perspective 2. False Suspense: Capricious Withholding of Information 3. Dramatized Routine or Status-Quo Syndrome: Failure to Distinguish between Events and Routine 4.
Information vs. Experience: Supplying Abstract Ideas and Conclusions in Lieu of Concrete Evidence 5. Imitation Story: Cliché at the Root of Conception 6. Disappearing Scenes: Failure to Distinguish between Background, Flashback, Frame, and Present Story 7. Sentimentality: Implying or Describing Emotions in Excess of Experience 8. (Bonus Sin) Grim Determination: The Deadliest Sin? III. FIRST PAGES ANALYZED Introduction: How to Use These First-Page Analyses A. Point of View: Who Speaks? 1.
Song of the Dust Bowl: 1936 (First Person / "Voice" / Style Born of Urgency / Child Narrator) 2. The Logging Road to the Cabin (Third Person / Information vs. Evidence / Default Omniscience) 3. A Pair of Foggy Sisters (Third Person / Default Omniscience / "Said") 4. Where the Hernandezes Live (Third Person / Subjectivity / Information vs. Experience / Inhabiting Scene) 5. On the Couch (Third Person / Free Indirect Discourse / Dramatized Routine vs. Drama) 6.
Drive-by Girl (Dramatized Routine / Interior Monologue / Free Indirect Discourse) 7. A Woman Bedazzled (Unreliable Narrators & Narratives vs. Unreliable Authors) 8. The Curfew (Second Person) 9. Narrating from the Great Beyond (Dead Narrator / Gratuitous Narrative Devices) B. Structure: Where to Begin? 10. Megan''s Life: A Surfeit of Beginnings (Where to Begin? / Inciting Incident / Death) 11. Flying with Mum and Dad (In Medias Res/ Framing the Question) 12.
A Fateful First Encounter (First Glimpse / Atmosphere / Framing Device / Authorial Intrusion) 13. Living with Lyle (First Glimpse / Mistaken Identity / Whose Viewpoint? / Implication vs. Statement) 14. After the Fire (Nested Scenes / Russian Doll Syndrome / Past Perfect / Dialogue Tags) 15. The Unwritten Masterpiece (Sleeve Rolling & Throat Clearing) 16. Strawberry Fields (Starting Off with a Dream) C. Plot/Suspense 17. A Stubbed Toe in the Library (Plots A & B, Inciting Incident / Retrospective Narrative) 18.
Clouds Across the Moon (False Suspense / Trusting Your Narrator / Prologues) 19. A Stranger Approaches (False Suspense / Artificially Withheld Information) 20. Conducting Olivia (False Suspense / Grounding Scenes / Context / Accident as Inciting Incident) 21. Taking the Yoke (Foreshadowing / Implications vs. Statement) 22. Hanging from a Cliff (In Medias Res/ Premature Climax) 23. Romance & Fireworks (False Suspense / Pointed First Sentence) D. Characters 24.
Meeting Ewan (First Glimpse / Evoking Characters / Memoir) 25. Painting the Nude (Stereotypes / Fictional Artists) 26. A Balcony Overlooking the Bay (Dramatized Routine / Fictional Artist) 27. An Opening in Search of Itself (Unreliable Narrator / Mental Illness / Abstraction / Metaphors) 28. Finding Jenny (Indolent Character / Mental Illness / Sensational Event Conveyed by Torpid Scene) 29. A Self-Conscious Queen (Judgments, Labels, and Epithets / Dramatized Routine) 30. Up a Tree (Child''s Perspective / Blunt Sentences) 31. Mean December Wind (Retrospective Narrator / Strong Verbs / Appealing to Senses) 32.
Art''s Highest Purpose: To Complicate Our Feelings (Child Protagonist / Humor and Danger) E. Genres 165 33. Zechs''s Deal: A Routine Awakening (Sci-Fi or Speculative Fiction / In Medias Res/ Dramatized Routine) 34. To the Core (Science Fiction / Humor / Tongue in Cheek) 35. U''gen Cadets (Speculative Fantasy / False Suspense / Clarity & Precision) 36. A Dragon''s Protection (Fantasy / Appealing to the Senses / Metaphysical Elements) 37. Celestia''s Last Battle (Prologues / Fantasy / Adjectives / Suspension of Disbelief / Telling vs. Showing) 38.
A Psycho in the Making (Horror-Thriller Genre / Psychopathic Characters / Muffled Implications) 39. Death on the Freeway (Detective Fiction / Clairvoyant Dreams) 40. Bases Loaded (Crime Thriller / McGuffins / Dramatized Routine as Harbinger of Violence) 41. Hit and Run (Detective Fiction / Noir / Hardboiled Prose) 42. Detective in a Department Store (First Sentences / Information vs. Evidence / Dramatized Routine) 43. Mommy Get Your Gun (Satire / Spoof / Importance of Grammar) 44. Lady Pamela''s Surgeon (Romance / Bodice Ripper / Where to Begin?) 45.
The Pleasures of Genre (Regency Romance / Strong Verbs / Close Third Person / Feelings) F. Memoir 211 46. Tanks & Miracles (Memoir / War / Memoir vs. Autobiography / Theme) 47. A Pilot''s Probation (Memoir / Vocation / Memoir vs. Autobiography) 48. From "Loss . But Not Lost": A Deathbed Scene (Memoir / Death / Show, Don''t Tell / Inhabiting Scenes) 49.
A Surprise Phone Call (Memoir / Scene vs. Summary / Clutter / "Glance" / Verbs) 50. A Rude Awakening (Memoir / Relationship / Judgments / Righteous Indignation) 51. The Year of 14 Jobs (Memoir / Implication vs. Statement / Abstract vs. Concrete) 52. The Road Train (Memoir / Travel / Flashback / False Suspense vs. Generosity) 53.
The Substance Abuser''s Wife (Memoir / War / Drug Addiction / Cliché at the Root of Conception) 54. An Addict''s Perspective on Addiction (Memoir / Addiction / Reflection / Unreliable Narrator) 55. Clinic Caper (Memoir / Humor / Story vs. Anecdote) 56. Leaving Jumana (Memoir / Framing Questions Effectively) 57. I''m Not Chinese (Memoir / Precision, Authenticity, Humility) G. Style 251 58. A Stormy Opening (Writing Up a Storm / Poetry vs.
Histrionics / Inadvertent Comedy) 59. A Letter from Tehran (Sentimentality / Grounding Scene in Setting / Implication via Action) 60. A Lion in the Room (Defamiliarization / Throat-Grabber Openings / Metaphor) 61. Back to School Night (Scene vs. Summary / Description vs. Exposition / Show, Don''t Tell) 62. The First Day of the War (War / Tense / Authenticating Details) 63. Gramma''s Death Bed (Framing Device / Perfunctory Adverbs / Death) 64.
The Sympathetic Medic (Adjectives) 65. Home from Fairview (Mental Illness / Abstract vs. Concrete / Similes and Metaphors) 66. The Girls in the Band (Modifiers / Statement vs. Implication / Less = More) 67. A Hole in the Heart (Abstraction / Grounding in Scene / Metaphors / Subjectivity) 68. When I Met Lucia (Abstract vs. Concrete / Opinions & Information vs.
Evidence) 69. Beth''s Wish (Whose Drama? / Overwriting / Implication vs. Statement) 70. A Woman of Valor (Genericism / Authenticating Details / Cliché) 71. Five Years with Sam (Poetry at the Expense of Meaning) 72. Canary Wharf (Overwriting / Sensationalism / Adverbs) 73. Kidnapped (First Sentence / Grounding Scene / Flashback / Revision / Past Perfect) 74. A Twice-Drowned Narrator ("Titanic Lit" / Dead Narrators / Details / Baroque vs.
Austere / Devices) 75. Meatloaf Night (Child''s or Child-like Perspective / Dialogue / Constraint = Style) IV. SOME EXEMPLARY OPENINGS V. SOME EXEMPLARY FIRST SENTENCES AFTERWORD: ARTISTIC VS. COMMERCIAL SUCCESS SUBJECT INDEX WORKS AND AUTHORS CITED INDEX.