Getting One’s Bearings in the Story

By Sarah Callender  |  March 7, 2024  | 

A big-eyed blue and yellow cartoon fish with a speech bubble that says, "Where am I?"

Two weeks ago, my husband and I splurged: we went to Mexico over my mid-winter break, just the two of us, to celebrate our 25th anniversary. We hadn’t done anything so splurgey since 2018 when we went to Mexico to celebrate our 20th anniversary.

I love Mexico.

I love the tacos they have in Mexico.

I don’t love the sun they have in Mexico, and sand and I have never had a healthy relationship, but in addition to the tacos, así como las oportunidades de celebrar aniversarios especiales, I love dusting off my rusty Spanish and heading out on a quest to find gritty, tourist-free gems. Including taco-gems.  

On this trip, we flew into Cancun (¡No gracias!), bee-lined to Tulum, 90 minutes south, got settled in our $54/night hotel, and went in search of tacos. Y madre de dios, los tacos!

But even after four days of wandering and exploring, even using street food as my North Star, I could not get my bearings in this wonderfully gritty and unpolished part of Tulum. By this I mean, simply, that I couldn’t understand what Tulum was. 

I do wonder if Tulum, with its massive growth and development, has also not yet figured out what it is. It’s not its fault. You can’t know what you are when you aren’t in charge of the pace of your own growth. You can’t know what you are when you haven’t been allowed time to reflect on what you want to become. An identity crisis is inevitable.

At the same time, I was listening to Trust, a novel by Hernan Diaz. I’ll be honest: had it not been my book club’s pick for March, I would not have continued listening, largely because, much like I couldn’t get my bearings in Tulum pueblo, I could not get my bearings in the story. I couldn’t understand what the story was, who I was rooting for, what I was hoping for. I even started over, listening to the first chapters again, thinking that I was the problem. But that didn’t help. It also didn’t help that the cover of the novel suggested–to me–that this was sci-fi, likely involving aliens and their attempt to put NYC under a glass cloche, thereby containing capitalism, greed, and a real estate mogul. But that’s on me. I know what I should and should not do with a book’s cover.

The tandem experience, however, of feeling out of place in a novel and a little lost in taco-heaven, made me think about why I read and why I travel: to experience something new, to slip into the shoes of another, to learn about unfamiliar worlds, to eat literal and metaphorical street food, preferably without getting the poops. 

But how arrogant to think that I should understand, in only a matter of days, a new neighborhood in a new city in a country that is not my own. I was trying to fit “Tulum” into a clearly-labeled box, one where I would get to experience exactly and only what I was seeking. It makes me cringe to type these words, but they are true. I needed more time in this part of world. I also needed to let go of my ridiculously American, ego-filled perception of an entire country.

As writers, we might say a reader who expects to understand the world of a novel in just a few paragraphs is just as arrogant. But I think that’s a mistake.

Mexico shouldn’t and doesn’t care if a sun-wary American tourist doesn’t immediately understand what a small town on the Yucatan peninsula is. 

But we writers should care whether a reader returns to our story. We should help our readers have some understanding of what the story is from the get-go. To pique a reader’s interest, to allow the reader to feel at least a little grounded, we need to care very much about the opening paragraphs of our story. 

Ideally, these first paragraphs do at least a few of the following:

  • Establish a compelling narrative voice
  • Allude to the protagonist’s desire or need
  • Center the reader in the world of the story
  • Pique the reader’s interest

While I am so glad I kept listening to Trust, the first sentences did not establish, allude to, center, or pique. And once back at home, detoxing and detaco-ing, I looked up the introduction of Trust and saw immediately why I had not been hooked. Here’s the opening: 

Because he had enjoyed almost every advantage since birth, one of the few privileges denied to Benjamin Rask, was that of a heroic rise: his was not a story of resilience and perseverance or the tale of an unbreakable will forging a golden destiny for itself out of little more than dross. According to the back of the Rask family Bible, in 1662 his father’s ancestors had migrated from Copenhagen to Glasgow, where they started trading in tobacco from the colonies. Over the next century, their business prospered and expanded to the extent that part of the family moved to America, so they could better oversee their suppliers and control every aspect of production.

These sentences did not pique my interest or ground me in the story. The narrative voice was dry, and I didn’t immediately see a desire or a conflict in Rask. And where on earth were the aliens?!? I simply could not get my bearings. 

Of course, after listening to the whole story, the style, the narrative distance, and the rather “blah” collection of opening details made sense, but perhaps Diaz was giving readers too much credit? Perhaps he trusted that readers would stick with him, would trust his storytelling, no matter what? But what if they didn’t? What if he lost readers because they couldn’t get their bearings in the story?

I don’t want to lose readers. Not even one. And, I’d love to share three novels with opening lines that have indeed hooked me, centered me, compelled me to keep reading. Check out the first sentence from Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession: 

Leonard was raised by his mother alone with cheerfully concealed difficulty, his father having died tragically during childbirth. 

I don’t know everything about this story, but I love the narrative voice (dry, wry, witty, tender), and the irony in the last seven words of the sentence made me snort-laugh. This sentences tells me all I need to know: I am in good hands with such a witty storyteller.

Here is the opening paragraph from Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow:

Before Mazer invented himself as Mazer, he was Sampson Mazer, and before he was Sampson Mazer, he was Sampson Masur–a change of two letters that transformed him from a nice, ostensibly Jewish boy to a professional builder of worlds–and for most of his youth, he was Sam, S.A.M. on the Hall of Fame of his grandfather’s Donkey Kong machine, but mainly Sam.

From these sentences, I understand that Sam has had to shake his identities, not once, but several times–Why? I know he is a builder of worlds–like me! And the mention of Donkey Kong plunks me in a decade for which I feel sweet nostalgia. I am curious about what I don’t know and comforted by what feels familiar.

Here’s one more, the opening lines from Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead. 

First, I got myself born. A decent crowd was on hand to watch, and they’ve always given me that much: the worst of the job was up to me, my mother being, let’s just say out of it.

I almost put this book down many times, not because I couldn’t get my bearings, but because I cared so much about this luckless narrator that his story was almost too heartbreaking to bear. But from the first line, Kingsolver warns me (via the narrator): There will be heartbreak. If you’re okay with that, then sally forth, friend. Kingsolver makes the reader a promise, and boy does she deliver. These days, that’s definitely not nuthin’.

Dear WU-er, would you be willing to share the opening chunk of your Work in Progress? Or, would you mind posting the opening lines of a novel or memoir that successfully establishes a compelling narrative voice, alludes to the protagonist’s desire and the conflict, centers the reader in the world of the story, or piques the reader’s interest?

Thank you, as always, for reading and sharing!

[coffee]

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37 Comments

  1. Liz Fenwick on March 7, 2024 at 10:30 am

    For what it’s worth, here’s the opening of novel ten.

    The beige folder sat in the centre of the desk. It was a challenge. My uncle had placed it there a few minutes ago in silence as if he were handing out an exam paper. Perhaps that was exactly what it was, a test. My bodily responses were identical to the many exams I’d sat. My heart sped up and drubbed louder blocking out all rational thought, my palms were sweaty and my mouth was bone dry. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t good enough. The walls closed in on me. I shouldn’t be here but this was exactly where I was supposed to be. Where my father wanted me to be. Where my mother needed me to be and the last place I wanted to be. In that – my uncle and I could agree. He didn’t want me here and I, Kerensa Margaret Barton, had no place being here at all.

    Outside the office window seagulls wailed in the cool north wind. It blew down to the harbour. The March sun held no warmth or maybe that was just me chilled through. The fields were filled with unpicked daffodils oddly shouting joy when I was still dressed in black. It had been three weeks since my father’s funeral and despite my mourning clothes I still couldn’t process it. He couldn’t be gone. But he was and I was sitting at his desk.



    • Sarah Callender on March 7, 2024 at 12:12 pm

      Wow, Liz. Book TEN! That’s incredible. And thank you for sharing your opening. I love the conflict you establish … her doubt, her insecurity butting up against her sense of obligation. Add a dollop of grief, and you have a delightfully messy situation for a mourning protagonist. Even if we haven’t been in this exact situation, we have all experienced some form of grief, and we have been dropped into a situation where we feel woefully inept.

      You have engaged the reader’s empathy AND curiosity! Thank you for sharing.



  2. Therese Walsh on March 7, 2024 at 10:39 am

    Establish, allude to, center, pique… I always know what I will get when I read a Sarah Callender article.

    happy face
    I’ll share the first lines of I ONLY CRY WITH EMOTICONS, written by our friend and WU colleague Yuvi Zalkow:

    “My boss tells me it’s embarrassing that I’ve been here for six years and I’m still at Goldfish status. Ever since we installed the gamification plug-in, he knows exactly how many Likes I’ve gotten from coworkers, exactly how many Comments I’ve made, exactly how many Best Answers and Virtual Pints of Beer I’ve received. He even knows how many animated cat gifs I’ve giffed, which is 0.”

    I hope you found some wonderful tacos, Sarah. Thanks for a great read!



    • Sarah Callender on March 7, 2024 at 12:14 pm

      I think I ate at least 70 tacos. And I am SO glad you shared dear Yuvi’s opening. I LOVE that book, and I love his writing. (Yuvi, we love you!)

      xoxox!



  3. Benjamin Brinks on March 7, 2024 at 10:55 am

    From WHAT MIDNIGHT BRINGS (working title):

    When I first laid eyes on the sublime vision that was Jean Davenport I wasn’t, like most, dazzled. My first thought was that she wouldn’t last long at the Reading Public Library. I mean, for how many days could a young woman with Ivory Soap skin, Fort Knox hair, Vogue Magazine cheekbones, and Ming jade eyes be content with stamping due dates onto the circulation cards of books borrowed by John Q. Public?

    Terrific post, thank you.



    • sarah callender on March 7, 2024 at 12:52 pm

      Benjamin, I absolutely love the fabulous description of this librarian. Fort Knox hair! That’s brilliant. And the narrative voice is absolutely engaging … I’m not just saying that. Can’t wait to read it. It makes me miss the librarians of my childhood. Long live the card catalogues! Thank you for sharing. 😊



  4. elizabethahavey on March 7, 2024 at 11:14 am

    Amazing post as aways, Sarah. Here is mine:

    She never meant to run this far, rows of cottonwoods arching overhead, so many crows caw cawing in the swaying branches, Ella Singleton again on Greenwood Avenue, the corner home where her mother Cecile had raised her. Ella checked her watch, fifty minutes until her 3-11 shift… enough time to discover if it was still there, the abandoned house at the end of their street. In childhood, a place of danger, of ignoring Cecile’s warnings…Bingo Gallagher, Rick the Skinny daring neighbor kids to climb crumbling, shattered walls, escape iron rebars that reached out to gouge any kid who scrambled, jumped. A place of escape, child Ella lying on smooth stones, falling asleep under overhanging branches, tangles of weedy trees that magically protected her during a spring shower…all before, the child who screamed.



    • Sarah Callender on March 7, 2024 at 7:22 pm

      There’s so much I love about this, Beth, and “setting” is at the top of the list. Names of neighborhood folks (Bingo Gallagher and Rick the Skinny) and imagery like the arching cottonwood, tangles of weedy trees, shattered walls, iron rebar create an overgrown, magical, and somewhat unkempt place … though unkempt isn’t quite the right word. I can visualize where Ella is, and I want to know WHY she never meant to run this far, and WHO the screaming child was. Such beautiful hooks and imagery, Beth. Thank you!



  5. Denise Willson on March 7, 2024 at 11:30 am

    Great post, Sarah. Hope you escaped the poops. :)
    Hugs,
    Dee



    • sarah callender on March 7, 2024 at 12:54 pm

      Yes! Que suerte! Thank you for asking the most important question! 😂



    • sarah callender on March 7, 2024 at 12:56 pm

      I did! And really, that’s the most important part of the whole story! 😂



  6. Veronica Knox on March 7, 2024 at 12:48 pm

    Hello, Sarah,

    Your many amazing posts have made me brave enough to stick my neck out. Thank you for that. So, here is my opening for ‘KIDOLOGY’ (a working title):

    For as long as I can remember, I have been equally praised and accused of being a perpetual child, but other than having invisible childhood friends all my life, I was never a child. Not a real one. A true child is content to be anywhere there’s dogs and cats and ice-cream.

    Now, I happen to love cats and dogs as much as anyone, but I never felt truly safe unless I was alone in my room reading a book, and besides, I’m deathly afraid of ice-cream.

    My mother called me Cheerless. She was a spouter… my Mum. Less is more, she used to spout, so I thought cheerless was a compliment for the longest time. I was wrong. She made sure I knew that, too. I was born wrong she said. Not quite right. An odd duck.

    Trust me. If there’s anything I know for sure it’s that odd ducks hate surprises. I am an uncommonly odd duck, and I thought nothing could surprise me until the disembodied voice on the 61-bus introduced itself.



    • Sarah Callender on March 7, 2024 at 7:39 pm

      Wow, Veronica. This line really got me: “I was born wrong she said.” I love that it has no punctuation, no quotation marks. It’s even more startling for it’s simplicity. I know you didn’t ask, but I wonder if you even need the second paragraph? I think the last sentence of the first paragraph says everything you need to say. And I really want to know more about the voice on the bus! I didn’t see that coming, and my curiosity is piqued.

      Thank you for sticking your neck out! What you shared here is a gift!



  7. Vijaya on March 7, 2024 at 1:39 pm

    Sarah, happy 25th anniversary!!! I didn’t know tacos were your mission!!! I loved the street tacos in Mexico too–we visited many times while I lived in CA. The carnitas with fresh salsa on corn tortillas….and eating mango on a stick. Yum. Like you, I can run off without getting my bearings and get awfully lost…such a great reminder to ground our readers. Thank YOU! Here’s the opening of my spiritual journey, Falling:

    I grew up in India, where the air itself is religious, perfumed with the incense of millions and millions of prayers, predominantly of Hindus and Muslims, but also of Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Buddhists, and Jains. My patrimony is Anglican, given that my great-grandfather the Reverend Appaji Trimbak Ramchandran Pathak converted from Hinduism to Christianity. Though he was a Brahmin priest, he became convinced of the truth of Jesus Christ and the one true triune God, so much so that he gave up his multitude of Hindu gods. I do not know all the trials he faced on his way to his priesthood in Christ, but I am grateful for his courage to convert in a largely Hindu nation.

    When I was two months old, my parents brought me to be baptized at a Methodist church in Khandwa, the small village in central India where I was born, most likely because the pastor there, Reverend Sham Rao, was a family friend. On the Feast of Saint Patrick, I began my new life in Christ. My earliest memories are of my mother reading to us from the family Bible—in Marathi—and me falling in love with our Lord Jesus, conversing with Him about everything. I belonged to Him, and He was mine, all mine. I’d sit on half a chair, reserving the other half for Jesus, causing me to fall off the chair. I’d fall whether I was sitting on the swing or the steps. I was also very much aware of my guardian angel and had complete confidence in his protection. I lived without any sort of fear. My mother worried greatly and tried to tell me cautionary tales, but to no avail.

    Upon re-reading, I’m tempted to forget the memoir. I think my great-grandfather’s story would make for wonderful historical fiction. What do you say?



    • angobro on March 7, 2024 at 2:06 pm

      Vijaya, this is beautifully written! Years ago, I worked in publishing and would have advised you to keep it as a memoir. This level of writing is unusual in a memoir, and I hope to see it published one day.



      • Vijaya on March 7, 2024 at 4:44 pm

        I’ve just returned from Adoration to see your lovely encouragement. Thank you. Middles always have me chasing shiny new ideas… I will keep on it.



    • Sarah Callender on March 7, 2024 at 7:44 pm

      Wow, this is beautiful, Vijaya … rich, lush, funny too, especially the part of sweet you falling off the chair or the swing. That’s so charming. How far along are you in the writing? Not knowing your great-grandfather’s story, I would have a hard time knowing which direction is better, but I do know this: Your writing is so beautiful. I’d read your words in an genre! I guess the question is this: Which seems like more fun? I’m so glad you shared. Thank you!



      • Vijaya on March 7, 2024 at 11:14 pm

        Thank you, Sarah. I’m in the early/middle stages of the memoir and I do love where it’s going–deeper! But it’s messy; I’m still a teenager in my faith (15 yrs this Easter) and constantly discovering riches beyond my imagination. God is so good! I must finish. The story about my great-grandfather is in an embryonic stage–he doesn’t even have a folder yet. It would be fun to explore later as I go down the rabbit hole of research. Thank you, my friend, for helping me think this through.



        • Sarah Callender on March 8, 2024 at 12:42 am

          Yes! This memoir needs to be told, and maybe (probably! definitely!) the story of your great-grandfather will need a folder sooner rather than later. What fun to have a memoir cooking and a work of historical fiction on a low simmer. God IS good. xo!



  8. Patricia Young on March 7, 2024 at 2:10 pm

    Tacos are also my passion and have remained so since I was a little girl. I’ll never forget the luscious bites of beef and potato ones my parents, towing our small travel trailer, picked up alongside the roadway leading to our desert camping oasis alongside the Pacific Ocean on the Baja peninsula sixty years ago. The last time I saw Tulum I took my 16 year old son to view the ruins. It was still a small town of srtreet vendors lined up on the sand road leading to the ruins. I did see it again, on HGTV a few years ago as poeple tried to find a $200k vacation home there and I hope to never see it again. It’s too sad.

    This story will be sent out for agent representation in the next month, set in Quebec, Canada in the 1600s: Wish me luck!

    I have no time to look for my own children or their father as we dart around bushes and scramble over fallen trees that lay in our way. I want to leap like a wawashkeshi (deer) racing through the forest, but the young child I could save is clamped in my arms. I protect him from dead branches that tear at us, while blackberry thorns scrape my legs. I feel my blood well up and trickle, but I dare not stop. The Nadawe (Iroquois) are behind us. I fear their warriors will catch us, but more, I fear the speed of bullets from their guns.



    • Margaret Webster on March 7, 2024 at 8:00 pm

      Hello Patricia,
      I’ve been interested in this conflict since reading Madeleine Takes Command when I was in grade school, circa 1960. You certainly get the story off to a heart-pounding start. I hope you’ll let us know when it’s available. Wishing you much success.

      ~ MaggieJ



    • Sarah Callender on March 7, 2024 at 11:54 pm

      Patricia, thank you for your Tulum-related empathy. The other times my husband and/or I have been to other parts of Mexico, we have left with a promise (to ourselves) to return. But this trip, we both said, “No need to go back there!” And I hate to say this, but the real estate development is just beginning. The number of signs advertising new construction just made me sad.

      But what does NOT make me sad? Your fabulous opening. The uniqueness of the setting is truly refreshing, and I can feel the movement of this mother (as well as her fear) through the imagery and the syntax. The present tense puts me right there in the forest too.

      Pursuing representation is such an adventure! I wish you all the luck! Please keep us all posted. Whenever one of us gets an agent or sells a manuscript, we all celebrate!

      Thanks so much for your comment and for sharing your beautiful words.



  9. Bob Cohn on March 7, 2024 at 5:08 pm

    Establish, Allude, Center, and Pique, huh? Those will be my checklist for opening lines. Thank you so much. Great post! I’d welcome similar guidance you might share for other lines I might want to write.

    I was slogging through a mountain of unopened mail when the chime under my desk said someone had entered the waiting room; I had no appointments scheduled. -From my detective story/mystery, The Third Scotch, a cozy mystery.

    As we made our way through the noisy agora, Amenos was transfixed by the lifelessness of the face on the head that hung there. -From Shadow of the God, a retelling of the Oedipus myth.



    • Sarah Callender on March 8, 2024 at 12:11 am

      Bob, those openings are fantastic! You know what I love about both? The simplicity and the effortlessness. There is a quiet confidence in your writing, and that confidence puts the reader at ease. It’s a beautiful thing to read writing that isn’t trying too hard … though of course, writing that feels effortless to a reader requires a ton of effort from the writer. Keep it up! Thanks so much for your comment and for sharing.



  10. Alea on March 7, 2024 at 8:01 pm

    My mother sold my death before giving birth.
    She got with child, went out, and found a buyer. Ten gold imperials, twenty, thirty, whatever the going rate was she took it. Made her mark on the contract and handed me over less than a day old. Might be a father’s mark relinquishing claims in return for gold, for all I know, as I’ve never seen the paper giving over ownership. If not, he still shares responsibility for not caring or leaving her alone and in need.
    Just the same old story told day after day, year after year. I’ve got a lot of company in my misery.
    (from my current wip)



    • Sarah Callender on March 8, 2024 at 12:17 am

      Wow, Alea! I am hooked. I love that I can’t tell whether this takes place three hundred years ago OR fifty years in the future. Both are compelling and delicious. The voice of the narrator is just as compelling … there’s a wonderful edge to the tone of the narration. More, please! :) Thanks so much for sharing.



  11. Bill Reid on March 7, 2024 at 8:10 pm

    Great post. Thanks.

    From my WIP (heading to the editor next week).

    My oncologist said it was Game Over. He didn’t put it like that, of course. He blathered on about compassionate care for my end of life journey for ten minutes without ever using the word die. I lost interest after thirty seconds. When his spiel ran down, I thanked him for his wise advise and went home.



    • Sarah Callender on March 8, 2024 at 12:25 am

      Thank you, Bill. And so exciting that it’s heading to the editor next week! My dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in the fall, so I now read your words from a vantage point I didn’t have a year ago. And I’m so curious about the narrator! Saying “my” oncologist instead of “the” oncologist strikes me as interesting, and of course I want to know what the narrator does once he’s/she’s home … and what the reaction reveals about the narrator. You establish so many interesting and appealing hooks in just a few lines. Beautiful! Thanks so much for sharing.



  12. Grumpy on March 7, 2024 at 9:21 pm

    All these openings are great! This is very inspiring. I offer not work of mine, but my favorite opening sentences of all time (so far), although the novel itself, “Brooklyn Follies,” by Paul Auster, is not one of my favorites; for me it was a good read but not fabulous until I got to the ending, which was dynamite.
    Auster is tricky, and in part I kept going because I was waiting for the twist, which didn’t happen until the actual last page. However, this opening!! Its matter-of-fact tone, as much as the mystery of “why?” seems perfectly brilliant.

    I was looking for a quiet place to die. Someone recommended Brooklyn, and so the next morning I traveled down from Westchester to scope out the terrain….



  13. MaggieJ on March 8, 2024 at 12:30 am

    Sarah, thanks for your post and this topic. First pages are so important and your suggestions are excellent. I’d like to share the opening of my historical WIP. It begins in England, but most of the book takes place in Ontario, Canada. About 100,000 orphans and children with no one to care for them were sent from England to Canada in the years between 1869 and 1930. My main character, another Sarah, tells her story:

    London, England
    September 1876

    Some things about that day I remember. The woman’s hard hand on my wrist hurrying me along so fast I had to take some running steps to keep up. I can see her hand yet on the iron latch of the big gate, pushing, pushing … and then the tall, narrow house within frowning at us. Blackened brick walls loomed all around, high and secret.

    I pulled free and tried to run.

    “None of that.” The hand clamped down on my shoulder and thrust me through the entryway ahead of her. The gate swung shut behind us, and the cold, smooth click of the latch raised gooseflesh on my arms.

    “You’ll be safe here, dearie.” She took hold of my hand this time instead of my wrist. “Regular meals and a warm bed. Yer luckier ’n most.”

    Up the steps to the front door. The hand again, working a knocker shaped like a curious, open-mouthed beast that seemed to be laughing at something. Not a nice laugh.



    • Sarah Callender on March 11, 2024 at 2:16 pm

      Oh, Maggie. This is such a delicious start! Your diction is a case study of how word choice creates tone … describing the woman’s hard as “hard” and “clamped” delivers so much. And the background of your story is fascinating! I’m so curious to know why so many children were transported … it’s ominous and it absolutely piques my interest. I cannot wait to read your book … someday soon, I hope! :)

      Thank you for sharing such a lovely example with the community!



      • MaggieJ on March 11, 2024 at 3:19 pm

        Thank you, Sarah! It’s a wonderful boost to morale to hear that my opening resonated with you.

        Urban poverty and untimely deaths due to accident or disease could devastate a family. In many cases it was a choice of seeing your children starve or surrendering them to a charity home. At the same time, there was a huge need for labourers in countries like Canada and Australia. What better solution, do-gooders thought, than to send the homeless children abroad to begin new and useful lives in former British colonies? The intentions were good; the execution of the plan was fraught with problems. There was almost no supervision once the children were placed with their new families. Anything could happen to them — and often did.



  14. Sarah Callender on March 8, 2024 at 12:32 am

    Grumpy! You are right … this is a brilliant opening. The first sentence is startling, morose, and worrisome. The second sentence, with its dark humor, provides such brilliant contrast. The “recommendation” of Brooklyn and the scoping out of the terrain (or all things) makes me trust and admire the narrator’s wit. Thanks for sharing such a lovely piece of work!



  15. Michael Johnson on March 8, 2024 at 1:42 pm

    I knew you’d get a lot of action by inviting people to share their openings, Sarah. And because I am no less vain and anxious about my work than everybody else, I send you this: It is the beginning of the prologue (probably) to book three of a trilogy.

    It had been raining for three days, which was fine with the visitor. Conditions were excellent for the phenomenon the humans here called the fata morgana.
    When he was younger, he had traveled to Glastonbury several times over four or five hundred years in the hope of seeing it. In recent months, for lack of other diversion, he had come almost every day. He always stood in this same spot at the base of the Tor, the strangely shaped hill that rises abruptly from otherwise flat farmland. From here, where a grove of good-sized trees had grown over the centuries, he could see clearly but was safely hidden from the sky.
    The Tor itself is treeless, a huge grassy mound with only one feature. It is crowned at its highest point by a ruined stone tower.
    As always, his appreciation for the scene was mixed with condescension—the djinn don’t need to build—but he had to admit it was picturesque. And it was said to be unworldly when a mist rose from the boggy flats and the fata morgana made the tower seem to float on a cloud in the sky.
    When he had first visited Britain, the path on the Tor had been a narrow trace in the grass, wandering to the crest among buried earthworks, their purpose forgotten even then. He remembered the excitement of the yokels a century or two later when a grand stone church had replaced the wooden church on the crest. Soon afterward had come the killings, and the church was burned as it had been built, in the name of the same mud-man god. You had to smile.



    • Sarah Callender on March 11, 2024 at 2:46 pm

      Michael, thank you for sharing! It’s a gift to read (and learn from) our community members’ writing, questions, and feedback.

      I found these opening lines wonderfully discombobulating! Mashing familiar places (Britain) with words that feel otherworldly is such a great way to pique a reader’s curiosity; and the fact that this visitor has returned to Glastonbury several times over the last four or five hundred years immediately tells me that while I might be in Britain, I am not dealing with a typical Brit.

      I was a bit bumped by the shifts in verb tense, though maybe this was intentional? While the scene is primarily in past tense there are a few sentences where you shift to present tense. “The Tor itself is treeless, a huge grassy mound with only one feature. It is crowned at its highest point by a ruined stone tower” and “the djinn don’t need to build.” Again, this might have been intentional, and if so carry on! And you are working on book three of a trilogy?!? That’s truly amazing … huge congratulations to you! Thank you for taking the time to share with us.



  16. K. Saunders on March 14, 2024 at 5:17 pm

    I enjoyed your post. I will usually give a story a good shot before abandoning it. Here are the beginning paragraphs of my novel, BACK TO SQUARE ONE.

    Chapter 1 – Now What?
    Con’s face is tight as he shoves today’s copy of the Winnipeg Free Press toward me. We were up late last night celebrating my first success, preventing John Lennon’s murder and a dull ache pulses behind my eyes. I wrench the paper out of his hands and study the front page. Under a large photo of John holding up my letter is the startling headline, FBI Search for Accomplice.
    I plop onto the stool at the breakfast counter, where my bowl of corn flakes sits in a soggy mess and scan the article. It outlines the events of last night. Mark David Chapman has been arrested for attempted murder, after firing several bullets at John’s retreating back. Interviewed in the wake of the shooting, John explained he was wearing a bullet proof vest. Skeptical of the contents of a warning letter he’d received eleven days earlier, John had shown the typed missive to Yoko. She convinced him to purchase and wear the armor that evening. John yielded the document to police officers, who contacted the FBI.
    I ignore the whistling kettle, which Con attends to, and read on. The agency is investigating the origins of the letter to determine how the writer knew Mark Chapman and his plans to kill John. Authorities are asking Sarah Connor to come forward to explain how, if she wasn’t involved, she knew of the attack.
    I examine Con’s waiting face. “I’m sure they can’t connect me to the note … unless Kristy didn’t implicitly follow my provisions about mailing it.”
    The acrid smell of his bitter coffee reaches my nostrils. “You’d better check with her.”
    Conrad and I have been at odds lately. My being connected to this warning missive would be the last straw. I hope Kristy, on her visit to New York, dumped the letter out of the plastic bag into the mailbox, leaving no trace of DNA. I gnaw at my hangnail and pull the skin away with my teeth causing my cuticle to bleed. Con’s mouth tightens. The habit annoys him, but he says nothing, drains his mug, snatches his keys off the counter and heads out the door. A blast of frigid air assails my sockless feet.
    My eyes sweep over the disturbing words, halting at the appeal for Sarah Connor to come forward. I first used the alias at the bottom of my warning letters to Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King trying to prevent their impending assassinations, transcribing them on one of the classroom typewriters surreptitiously during typing class. The teachers never bothered me – an A student who always had her work done.
    Both men died tragically, the same way as in my previous life. How might the world have changed if they’d lived? Would King have become the first black American president well in advance of Obama?
    I tear the front page raggedly the length of the fold and stash it in the junk drawer. Sarah Connor, aka Jude Hutton, will not be voluntarily submitting herself for questioning.
    …



  17. Tom Pope on April 2, 2024 at 9:33 pm

    Sarah,

    In my challenge as a fiction coach/author, I enjoy networking with others. Y, me gusto a visitar Tulum. I went there to search for Maya ruins as I completed the circuit of Chi Chen Itza to Merida, to Uzmal and then Tulum.
    Hay que comida!

    As I read your first intro, I wondered about the use of the omniscient. Instead, the internal POV makes the reader feel closer to the P and almost feels like the first person.

    I usually think like a movie director. Imagine that passage’s content remaining. But shown as items hitting the P. What’s the crisis in that intel? How does P feel feel threatened? What first strikes P — the sounds, colors, images, even imaginations of a threat. I think that would have bypassed the dry opening you mentioned.

    What do you think?

    Tom Pope
    Fiction Coach/Author



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