Secrets from the Past by Barbara Taylor Bradford

It was a beautiful day.

This is a horrible opening line for a book. It does nothing. With an opening line perhaps the most visible in a novel, you'd think the author could do better or at least be a little more creative. Not only is it all weather, it begins with a pronoun. This line is worse than: It was a dark and stormy night... as at least that line suggests conflict but a beautiful day? Where does the story go from there? Just about anywhere, that's just how irrelevant this line is.

I always wondered what it was when referring to weather. What is it that is a beautiful day. Of course I could google it; Google has all the answers, but I have to admit I don't really care much.

The rest of the paragraph is about the weather, defining what beautiful means, adding only that this beautiful day is happening in Manhattan and that this is a first person narrative.

The next paragraph begins:

As I walked up Sutton Place, returning to my apartment, I began to shiver.

So this gets the walking cliche opening in addition to the weather opening. One more cliche and this is automatically an utter, epic fail. Let's see where it goes. The rest of the paragraph continues with more weather reporting and a fashion statement.

Paragraph 3 begins:

It was unusually chilly for March.

Paragraph 1 ended with: ...this cold Saturday morning; so we don't need any reiteration that it is cold. Readers figured that out in the first paragraph, even though it is a beautiful day, which as one reads on does not seem to be entirely accurate.

Before page 1 ends we get some back story pumped in without having any clue what the forward narrative is - that is to say, what this story is actually about. Writers who do this without presenting a forward narrative hook are at risk of not being read - at least not by me.

First thing said:

"It's Arctic weather, Sam."

It really doesn't sound like that beautiful of a day. This dialogue comes on page 2, so early dialogue is a plus. Yet here the dialogue neither reveals character or moves a plot point forward, it merely repeats the weather, which we already know all about - in spades.

This short two-page chapter 1 ends with the narrator certain she is in danger and that a story-worthy problem is about to present itself soon, perhaps as early as chapter 2, but if it doesn't, this is the narrator's way of guaranteeing that a story will emerge at some point in this novel, just not in chapter 1, which is, you know, usually where a story is supposed to start.

Verdict: Epic Fail

Just words on paper. Nothing to see here. Skip chapter 1 and you might get pulled in, though chapter 2 doesn't interest much either.

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni

That branch of the Lake of Como, which turns toward the south between two unbroken chains of mountains, presenting to the eye a succession of bays and gulfs, formed by their jutting and retiring ridges, suddenly contracts itself between a headland to the right and an extended sloping bank on the left, and assumes the flow and appearance of a river. 

What is this - a novel or a geological study? The next sentence:

The bridge by which the two shores are here united, appears to render the transformation more apparent, and marks the point at which the lake ceases, and the Adda recommences, to resume, however, the name of Lake where the again receding banks allow the water to expand itself anew into bays and gulfs. 

Obviously people had more time on their hands when this was first published than people have these days. This, however, should illustrate why opening with landscape and setting does not hook. It's as if the author wished he was a painter instead of a writer, and fails at both. Telling a story requires a different set of tools than those needed for painting a picture and no matter how wonderful one paints that picture with words, it will obviously lack in some shape or form. Of course a writer can paint a picture in the reader's mind, but I think it needs to be simple in order to no hinder the imagination.

The rest of the first long paragraph is continues describing the geology of the novel's setting.

With paragraph 2 we are introduced to a character:

Towards evening, on the 7th day of November, 1628, Don Abbondio, curate of one of the villages before alluded to (but of the name of which, nor of the house and lineage of its curate, we are not informed), was returning slowly towards his home, by one of these pathways. 

What follows is a lot of back story, and I mean a lot with a few fourth-wall breaks.

First thing said:

"Signor Curate."

I'm sure Goethe would roll over in his grave with my verdict of this opening if he cared what I thought, which I'm sure he doesn't. He said this was the greatest novel of his time, but that was a time when people had the time to waste and the brain to appreciate the nuances of storytelling and of life it portrays. But people today? We. Have. More. Important. Things. To. Do.

Verdict: Fail

This is part of the series: the top 100 novels from Daniel S. Burt's book called Novel 100, the top 100 novels of all time. There is debate of course as to what should be on that list, but his opinions are as good as any. The Betrothed is the 87th greatest novel of all time.

Sincerely,

Theodore Moracht

The Weather Opening Cliche

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

Here  is the complete first line of the famous and somewhat infamous beginning penned by English novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his 1830 novel Paul Clifford. For all its now perceived corniness, this line still manages a hint of antagonism. So it's a little unfair that we quote this line when referring to the weather cliche or discuss cliche in general. Search the label weather opening cliche on this blog and you will find far worse weather openings than Bulwer-Lytton's.

There are so many novels on the market today that begin with situational weather on the first page, that if we reviewed them all here, the statistics would be lopsided, inaccurately portraying how overused this cliche is. It's mind-boggling how many books out there begin with weather, instead of character and conflict. It is by far the largest cliched beginning readers are confronted with. Weather either in the first sentence or second sentence or anywhere in the first couple paragraphs slows the pace and disrupts the unfolding of conflict and character - the two things that hook a reader. Why there is an urge to do this alludes me. If it is to establish mood, it is a cheap, hackneyed way to do so. A better challenge would be to establish mood though characterization and behavior. If it is to create an image for the reader, sort of like a fade in to a movie, then one is confusing mediums. A novel, does not need to begin like a film. However, there is a tendency to present the novel like a visual art form, with images and actions and less with emotions and ideas. Ideally, there should be a combination of all of the above.

I'm aware of the debate and of how many people disagree with this, but beginning a story with setting is not an effective way to hook, unless the setting is unusual, exotic or filled with conflict. Generally speaking, hook is made using character and conflict. This is the essence of storytelling. We do this every day, when we tell our stories to our friends and relatives. We begin with conflict: You'd never guess what happened to me... We do not begin: It was a sunny day, the temperature around the mid-thirties. the air thick with humidity... Or: It was raining and the air felt refreshed, when suddenly I was pushed in front of a car.

A storyteller's natural instinct when telling a story is to lead in with conflict, not setting - unless the setting is important to the conflict as in: It was raining cats and dogs when I fell into a puddle and ruined my new leather gloves.

Therefore, instead of saying a weather opening is always wrong, it is better to say that there are degrees of the weather opening, from less effective and necessary to more effective and essential.

1. An opening sentence that is all about weather and nothing else. Zero conflict, no characters, just rain, snow, sleet or sunshine. Epic and utter fail and is actually worse than: It was a dark and stormy night..., as at least that line had required a little more creativity when it was written so long ago.

Examples:

 The July heat was unbearable.
- Death in Breslau by Marek Krajewski

On the surface this line might sound like it has a hook, but bad weather, even if it is figuratively unbearable, does not make anyone go: Oh, my God, I must read on!

It had been raining hard since five o'clock that morning.
- Hell House by Richard Matheson

2. An opening sentence that is about a character caught in bad weather. This opening suggests conflict, but being in bad weather is not a gripping read and usually does not involve a story worthy problem.

Example:

As the dawn was beginning to extract the outlines of things from the night and the rain, if someone had happened to pass by the foot of the monumental staircase leading up to Capodimonte, they'd have seen a dog and a child.
- The Day of the Dead by Maurizio de Giovanni

Lily Thomas lay in bed when the alarm went off on a snowy January morning in Squaw Valley.
 - Winners by Danielle Steel

3. An opening sentence that is about weather but tries to be creative by comparing it to something unusual, or revealing something unusual about setting, like snow in Africa or weather on some other planet. While still about weather, which is tiring, at least there is an attempt at creativity.

Examples:

The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit.
- The Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

4. An opening line that uses weather to reveal a character's disposition or state of mind, which in turn foreshadows conflict, or uses weather to reveal something unusual about character (how he or she is reacting to it for example that reveals something important).

Examples:

She hurries from the house, wearing a coat too heavy for the weather.
- The Hours by Michael Cunningham

It was an unusually warm day for April, but the weather did nothing to brighten Khalid Yassin's mood.
- The Deadliest Game by Hal Ross

5. An opening sentence that is about weather that reveals conflict of the novel. This is the only acceptable use of weather as an opening. Natural disaster fiction would fall under this category. A novel that is about tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, snowstorms, etc. It's only in this case in which opening with weather is not only acceptable but, indeed, should be a requirement. With no reason to withhold this information, reveal the weather as a story antagonist early.

Example:

Ella Santos stood on the sidewalk with a cigarette in her hand, watching the snow fall and feeling more alone than she ever had in her life.
- Snowblind by Christopher Golden

As this book is about a snowstorm that brings icy figures who steal people away, it is fitting that this story begins with weather as that is what sets the conflict of the novel in motion.

This is what happened. On the night that the worst heat wave in northern New England history fainlly broke - the night of July 19 - the entire western Maine region was lashed with the most vicious thunderstorms I have ever seen.
- The Mist by Stephen King

I don't like the opening line; it's redundant and used, one supposes, to establish tone. I've read others say it is pure genius, which further puzzles me. The next line and rest of the paragraph is about the weather, and the mist that the whole premise for the story is based around and which is vitally important to the conflict, as it is the mist in which the creatures hide.

Of course there are plenty of other examples, just go to the library and start opening random books, you'll be surprised how many open with weather or with references to weather on the first page. With so many modern novels beginning with the cliche, I was curious if this phenomenon of opening with weather can be truly dated to the 19th century, as Edward Bulwer-Lytton's work indicates and so I started flipping through the old classics.

Thomas Hardy does not begin with weather in any of his major novels. For the most part neither does Charles Dickens, though there are a couple exceptions:

London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.
 - Bleak House by Charles Dickens

In these opening lines the weather is used not merely to paint a landscape painting picture but to create a rather unusual image of a Megalosaurus.

Thirty years ago, Marseilles lay burning in the sun, one day.
- Little Dorrit by by Charles Dickens

This opening line, however, is a fail, and from the major novels I checked the only Dickens novel that begins with weather. If a character was literally burning it would incite emotion. Dickens goes on with more weather in this opening before coming to a man in prison with a chill.

Here is another example:

Jeanne finished her packing and went over to the window, but the rain showed no sign of stopping.
- A Woman's Life by Maupassant

All in all, I was not able to find many examples of weather openings from a 100 years or more ago. Not that there aren't, I'm sure there are, just that it doesn't look like it was as common as it is today.

Then there are the writers who are stuck in a rut. I wonder if they are aware of it. Henning Mankell, in particular, is obsessed with the weather opening.

Frozen snow, severe frost.
- The Man from Beijing by Henning Mankell

I always feel more lonely when it's cold.
-  Italian Shoes by Henning Mankell

One day in the cold month of July, 2002, a man by the name of Jose Paulo opened up a hole in a rotten floor.
- A Treacherous Paradise by Henning Mankell

And in particular fog.

In the beginning, everything was just fog.
 - Wallander's First Case by Henning Mankell

Fog.
 - The Man who Smiled by Henning Mankell

It's so cliche, it's eye rolling. Though to be fair Henning Mankell employs other cliches to begin his stories, as well.

Oh, and I don't think it's necessary to open with weather, even as a joke, as in the beginning of A Wrinkle in Time by  Madeleine L'Engle: It was a dark and stormy night. Any writer caught doing that has only revealed that he or she is not well read. It's not clever.

It's been done before.

Trust me: It's been done before.

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Gifted and Talented by Wendy Holden

Isabel stared out of the train window.

In this opening line there is nothing but a name and a window. No conflict here, it's not even dramatic. It is not special, odd, or out of the ordinary. So this line is an epic fail and will hook no one except people called Isabel and window cleaners - and that's being optimistic or even naive. The next line:

The English fields flashed by, sometimes with cows in, sometimes sheep, sometimes nothing but a couple of troughs or an oak tree with russet-leaved branches.

This line is setting and contains errors in parallel structure. The cows are in what? And why aren't the sheep in too? Then the final paragraph of this spectacularly boring paragraph:

Beneath the surface of the fields the ancient plough and furrow pattern rippled like the sea.

How can plough patterns be beneath the surface of a field? Are they not what would define the surface of the field, or am I missing something?

The first sentence of the second paragraph:

Isabel glanced at the man and woman opposite.

Opposite what, the field? The cows? Or could it be that they are opposite her? Readers will need to rely more on their brains and powers of inference to figure out what is going on rather than on the writer's writing abilities. There are many more examples of poor sentence structure in this work that would get a C or D in any middle school program.

Emotion is expressed, funnily enough by characters blinking hard. They do a lot of hard blinking.

First thing said:

"Every room's got central heating and there's a laundry and kitchen at the end of every corridor."

As this is a romance novel, proper syntax and clarity is obviously not necessary when it comes to expressing the flavors of the heart.

Verdict: Epic Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

How to Fall in Love by Cecelia Ahern

How to Talk a Man Down

They say lightning never strikes twice.

Great, begin with a cliched phrase that belongs to the world, has no copyright and betrays a lack of creativity.

Next line:

Untrue.

Next line:

Well, it's true that people say it; it's just untrue as a fact.

I think we are supposed to laugh. In any case, tell us something we already know. Not very gripping and certainly not the way to hook the reader. With this type of fiction, the so-called chick-lit genre,  it is more important to establish the tone and attitude before introducing the story that is conflict and character. All I can say is that I'm glad the masses are finally tiring of this.

What comes next is what looks like a copied and pasted encyclopedic article about lightening and the odds of striking things. NASA-funded scientists discovered that cloud-to-ground lightning frequently strikes the ground in two or more places and that the chances of being struck are about forty-five per cent higher than what people assume.

The tone, like, totally, changes, girl. Like, really.

Anyway, after that comes paragraph 3 with some different tone and a weather report. The narrator says she found herself somewhere she had never been before and then goes on to explain that that is not a metaphor for a new psychological space, but that she is in a new geographically new place. Really. Talk about over explaining.

Despite the narrative mood swings, scientific information dumps, weather reports and back story, there is a scene buried in chapter 1, in which the narrator tries to talk some guy out of killing himself, but it is all telling and poor Simon, the suicide guy, sees no way out of this novel other than put the gun to his head and pull the trigger. Fortunately, for the rest of us, all we need to do is close it to be rid of it.

First thing said:

"Oscar."

Verdict: Epic Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

A Song for the Dying by Stuart MacBride

"Now I'm no' saying he's gay - I'm no' saying he's ho-mo-sexual - I'm saying he's a big Jesse.'

Beginning with dialogue is always a risky business. It'd better be something engaging as most people are not interested in listening in on strangers because listening in on random blabbering is never as much fun as it is to blabber. Overall, this line reveals a little about a character, but I'm really reaching for something nice to say when I say this. Even though this is not gay-bashing per say, it is somewhat tired, overused and worn out. It just doesn't have the conflict punch it once had in the 1950's.

Then the next character says:

"Not this again..."

Then we get some epic purple prosy descriptive writing, the kind writers write when they were in high school and think they are in love for the first time. I'm speculating, but this is the kind of writing that might be the result of love coupled with teenage angst or of overactive hormones and lack of experience, or a combination of all of the above if it's really bad. This is really bad. We are still on page 1. Take a look:

A crescent moon makes a scar in the clouds, glowering down at them as Kevin picks his way through the frost-crisped grass, breath streaming out behind him. Nipples like little points of fire. Fingers aching where they stick out past the end of his sleeve, wrapped around the torch. The legs of his glasses cold against his temples.

Looks like someone is making a run for the Man Booker! There's more, but you get the idea.

Kevin might want to get those obtrusive man-nipples examined, and perhaps surgically removed. The disembodied body mimicking subjects of sentences sounds pretentious, acting as if they have minds of their own: breath streaming, nipples pointing, fingers aching, legs cold - well that last one maybe not; they're not human legs anyway, only optometric legs. This prosy stinks about as bad as those stale air fresheners in twenty-year-old cars driven on a rainy day by overweight, sweaty men with gastronomic problems.

I hope this author is merely trying to impress an assistant editor with an overwritten opening, because I don't think I could stomach 500+ pages of this crapola.

Verdict: Epic Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney

Janie finished her essay.

The end. Not. We should be so lucky.

After a thorough academic analysis, we may with confidence conclude that this line does not hook. How could it be expected to pull a reader in? It does not introduce conflict, nor does it even foreshadow conflict. All it does is introduce the protagonist and let us know by way of inference that this person is a student. Yawn.

The next paragraph makes an effort to force some useless conflict down our throats:

She never knew what grade she would get in Mr. Brylowe's English class. Whenever she joked, he wanted the essay serious. Whenever she was serious, he had intended the essay to be lighthearted.

There is an easy way to fix this kids: Pay attention in class! Next paragraph:

It was October.

Next paragraph (though why we need to start a new paragraph, as we are still on the same topic of season, is beyond me. Could it be for dramatic effect, even though there is nothing dramatic about it being October in itself?):

Outdoors throbbed with autumn.

I appreciate when writers try to be creative, but there is a fine line between success and failure, genius and stupidity. This fails and/or is stupid, take your pick. The outdoors, i.e. weather/season throbbed? It sounds funny and just a little disturbing. Imagine this conversation:

Mom: Go outside, Janie.
Janie: Ah, Mom, do I have to, it's throbbing outside.

Or:

"Hey, Bob, can you take a look out the window and see if it's throbbing out. Thanks, man."
"It is."
"Okay, so should I wear a striped shirt, or do you think flannel is better when it's throbbing outdoors?"

The paragraph goes on about the pulse of the sky and leaves being wrenched off twigs, before ending with:

She felt like driving for hours: taking any road at all: just going.

I think those are colons. They could be semi-colons; in any case, they are wrong. So the last sentence of that paragraph has nothing to do with the beginning of the paragraph, describing the weather. Since writing is usually determined good or bad at the paragraph level, we can safely call this bad writing.

The next paragraph has a shocking twist: But Janie can't drive yet! That's right, she's only having driving fantasies (so this only fantasizes about the car opening cliche) because of dinner last night. Enter flashback: A scene in which we learn that Janie's father doesn't want her to drive but her mother does. Her father thinks she's too young and says that he hates all this growing up (she's 15). I can just imagine him saying to Janie while she's writing essays: What are you doing? Stop growing up; go out and roll around in the mud like my little five-year-old used to do. I mentioned essays because I now have no idea why this book had to begin with essays and then steer off course with weather, seasons, driving fantasies and serious hair.

Serious hair? Yeah, as weird as this sounds, as the father is talking at the dinner table, he: ...wound some of Janie's hair around his wrist.

It's creepy enough for a father to sit at the dinner table and play with his fifteen-year-old daughter's hair with his finger, but wrapping her hair around his wrist? What the...? However, never fear, this is the author's "clever" way of introducing the world to Janie's hair and how her friends say: Janie, that is serious hair.

Which makes the beginning of chapter 5 make a little more sense:

The kiss was long.

And serious.

Serious like my hair, thought Janie. She stared amazed at Reeves's cheek, which was pressed against hers, and with amazement brought her lips together to kiss him again - to start the second kiss, and to choose when to end it.

I'm not sure I'd compare a kiss's seriousness to hair. Anyway, that line tells me that this Janie is very self-absorbed and a bit of an idiot. Here she is sharing an intimate moment with a boy and all she can think of is: That kiss is serious like my hair. What, is the kiss about her and her hair? Is that all she can think about when kissing: her hair?

The other thing that makes no sense, is how does one stare at someone else's cheek when it is pressed against one's own cheek? What does it mean: she stared amazed? Maybe: she stared amazedly? Or: She stared and was amazed? Could she be staring off into space and is amazed at staring off into nothingness? Is Reeve's cheek amazing her? Personally, I think she's more dazed than amazed.

Plus, closing your lips to kiss is what one does when one is about to kiss grandma, not a boyfriend/girlfriend. I'm confused: is this girl fifteen or five?

The next paragraph begins thus:

Very slowly her hands crept [Like Wile E. Coyote?] around his face, finding the back of his neck where his hair lay thick over the pulse.

So this dude has a throbbing pulse on the back of his neck? He might want to get that looked at - it might be a tumor.

First thing said:

"She's just a baby."

Verdict: Epic Fail

So this book and writer has earned a place on my private blog: Horrible Writers Club.

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor

Nerve thrum and screaming blood, wild and churning and chasing and devouring and terrible and terrible and terrible-

A sentence like this is what is called purple prose. It sounds sensational, filled with tension and conflict, but readers have no way of connecting these verbs and adjectives to a character and so ultimately wonder, who this is about and why should they care? The only question this raises is how does blood actually scream? Put this way, such a question reveals the ridiculousness of this sentence and its style.

After this opening sentence we have the first thing said;

"Eliza. Eliza!"

The opening dialogue introduces a character, or in point of fact, a name, which isn't really that awesome. It does not reveal characterization or move plot forward, so is in essence superfluous. On the plus side, it is nice that there is dialogue so early on.

Then:

A voice. Bright light, and Eliza fell awake.

So this opens with the dream cliche. No wonder blood is screaming. However, these lines read more like poetry or a rap than prose, which is a style that is popular today, but is nothing more than melodramatic mobile textspeak, as if the author is depending on syntax to create tension and emotion and not on concepts like conflict and character. It's almost like intentionally dumbing it down.

The rest of the first page introduces another character as they discuss Eliza's screaming style.

I love the title, but that isn't enough to hook me.

Verdict: Epic Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

The River Burns by Trevor Ferguson

Quite early on a splendid summer's morning, as sunlight shimmied across the treetops or sashayed within a mischief of breezes to brighten patches of farmers' fields and meadows below, while streams navigating the hills remained wholly shaded and residents of Wakefield stayed asleep or tottered through dawn's familiar routines Dennis Jasper O'Farrell caught himself having a moment.

This sentence bugs me. It was hell to write out. The whole time I was thinking what is the point of it all? Sunlight doing this or that, and residents doing this or that. Simply put, this line is overwritten. It reminds me of either the opening to an animated Disney film like Bambi or the opening scene of season 1, episode 1 of Brickleberry.

If we minus the bloated description of setting and just say it was a beautiful morning, the main thing is that Dennis is having a moment. This is were the hook lies. Many people will read on to find out what it means in this novel, to be having a moment.

A closer look at this opening line and I begin to suspect the writer went to extra effort to let the fireworks of language explode here. That is to say, he probably understands the importance of the opening line. Unfortunately, this is an example of reworking a sentence to death. The rest of the first page does not have the same feel as that opening sentence; the lines are shorter with more simple wording focusing on character and conflict and not on a glossy setting.

Next, we learn that Dennis is having a moment while driving. Paragraph 2 begins by telling us how he'd been in bed, awoken by a crotchety alarm, which is to say there is a little bit too much personification in this opening for my taste, what with all the shimmed and sashayed sunlight, the navigating river and now the crotchety alarm. Then we discover he'd been dreaming but that upon waking he'd forgotten what he'd been dreaming about. The only thing this tidbit reveals is that the pace of this story is going to be sloooooooow. Why say someone was dreaming before they woke up? That's what most people do. Unless the dream is important to the plot, but it's obviously not as the character forgets what he'd been dreaming about.

First thing said:

"Holy sh--!"

Verdict: Epic Fail

This opens with three cliches on page 1: Weather, car and waking up.

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Be Careful What You Wish For by Jeffrey Archer

Prologue

Sebastian tightened his grip on the steering wheel of the little MG.

Car opening cliche. Cliche betrays a lack of creativity. On the plus side, this sentence introduces a character and the fact that he (or she depending on how wild your imagination is) is gripping the steering wheel has an element of foreshadowing. But this is what any opening line should have.

Chapter 1:

Harry Clifton was woken by the sound of the phone ringing.

Bed setting cliche and phone call cliche in one sentence.

First thing said:

"They're trying to kill us."

This is more like it. The dialogue works at revealing a rather important plot point, so top marks for the opening dialogue not being something redundant like,"Hey!"

Verdict: Epic Fail

Sorry, Jeff, but this gets the epic fail award because it hits a three-cliche-opening home run in the prologue and in chapter 1. Cliches are overdone and fail to hook anyone who reads more than 30 books a year. But I suspect the writer knows this and knows that the hook is in the byline.

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Death in Breslau by Marek Krajewski

The July heat was unbearable.

All I knew about this when I picked it up at a library sale for 1$ was that it was a historical mystery novel that takes place in Nazi Germany, therefore reminding me of a Philip Kerr novel, which I enjoy. When I flipped it open to the first page, I was magnificently disappointed. The first sentence is about the weather which makes me wonder at the writer's skills. Beginning with weather is usually a sure sign of more cliched writing to come - and, let's be honest, is a very unimaginative way to begin a novel.

The rest of the first paragraph expands on the weather motif. It's hot, a character is sweating, flies digging convulsively, the light is merciless. The second paragraph begins with the heat again.

First thing said:

"We both know, doctor, that you cannot refuse the institution I represent."

The character looks out the window and sees the icebound panorama of Siberia, frozen rivers, heaps of snow etc. At first I'm confused, isn't it July and hot? Then I realize this is an awkward attempt of slipping in back story, or a flashback or a hallucination.

Verdict: Epic Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Hell House by Richard Matheson

December 18, 1970
3:17 P.M.

It had been raining hard since five o'clock that morning.

Scared yet?

Starting a book, a story, a news report, a personal anecdote or even a lie with rain is pointless. Even if the point of your musings was the rain, who would care? Weather like this is small talk, things people say when they have nothing better to say to one another or are trying to get rid of someone by boring them to death. Not the way to begin a story - with mindless drivel or constipated small talk. Yet, there seems to be a built-in automaton in the human psyche that insists most authors start novels with the weather.

I hesitate to make comparisons, but compare Hell House's opening line to the opening of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson:

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill house, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for 80 years and might for 80 more.  

The rest of the first paragraph of The Haunting of Hill House only adds to the eerie mood and sense of foreboding and is quite creepy. Hell House on the other hand offers nothing. I mention The Haunting of Hill House only because these two books are somewhat archetypes of the genre, companion pieces in the annals of 'haunted house' literature. Their openings, however, are very different, strikingly so. Side by side, Hell House is without doubt an epic fail.

Next line:

Brontean weather, Dr. Barrett thought.

At least this line has something: a setting and a character.

First thing said:

"Doctor."

Verdict: Epic Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

The Demon of Dakar by Kjell Eriksson

The clouds slid lazily down behind the mountain on the other side of the valley.

Setting and weather. Unless this is the sequel to The Clouds by Aristophanes which pokes fun of intellectual fashions in classical Athens, and even if it is, this does not hook, and there is no reason to assume there's anyone in the world this sentence would hook, not even meteorologists would be interested, as after a hard day at work making wrong forecasts about the weather, the last thing a meteorologist would want to do is come home, sit down to relax with a book that begins with more clouds.

But there's more. You won't believe this but the whole first page about 400 words or so is about clouds. Explaining clouds that gather nourishment and moisture, shifting indolently. The only good thing about this cloudy opening is that throughout this exposition on clouds, there is a character musing about clouds. The only hope this opening has is that clouds play an important role in the mystery of this novel. In the worst case scenario the clouds are a metaphor for something. If so, beginning with a clouded metaphor is a red flag.

First thing said:

"Make sure you don't lead her astray."

Verdict: Epic fail

Call me old fashioned, but mystery novels need to begin with a mystery or crime or puzzle to hook me.

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Widow's Tears by Susan Wittig Albert

Rachel Blackwood got up early that morning.

A bed setting. Yawn. No pun intended. The rest of the paragraph continues by informing us that this Rachel person did not sleep well - and we can blame that on a three-year-old kid with a sore throat. Intrigued yet?

The second paragraph clarifies: actually, it is not only or not really the kid that kept Mom awake but the crashing of waves. Does this clarification have you riveted to the edge of your seat? The second paragraph transitions, succumbing to a weather report: It's hot, damn hot, so hot people are dying, even animals are keeling over. Then more weather reports, back story, and another weather report. Thus begins a prologue that I'm now itching to skip.

Chapter 1:

"I'm outta here," Ruby said, coming through the connecting door between her shop and Thyme and Seasons.

Then another weather report: It's warm for early May, naturally followed by a fashion report of what the person is wearing so we better understand just what the weather is like. This is also the first thing said in the book. Nothing was said in the prologue, there was no space - what, with all the weather reports.

Verdict: Epic Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

A Final Reckoning by Susan Moody

Until the screams began, the house was quiet, wrapped in an expectant pre-Christmas hush.

So begins a prologue, though it's not identified as being anything. It's all in italics, which is annoying. The scene that unfolds is disjointed with chaotically inserted bits and pieces of dialogue like:

Don't! Stop! Mum! Please, Mummeee, oh don't! Ouch!...etc

Dialogue continues from various disembodied voices, interspersed with various forms of footsteps. It's effective because it feels like the reader is in a dark room when all this is occurring, creating a sense of confusion, always a necessary ingredient for fear.

Chapter 1:

Where do you begin a story like this one?

Not like that. This is preamble and is actually a really stupid question. Why is the author asking the reader about a story the reader has no idea about? Of course, I suspect it's a rhetorical question, but what's the purpose of being rhetorical? To introduce a narrator that has no idea how to tell a story, making an excuse up to ramble? If that's the case, I'm ready for closure - next book.

Next line and paragraph:

Do you start with your characters, build up a portrait of them, small accretions added for the reader: who they are, what they do, where they're're going, what they want?

Ending with:

That way, you make them known,...which holds the attention even before you launch into your story.

Um, wrong. Just because a writer shows there is a character in the story does not guarantee the reader's attention is held. I meet lots of real people, who actually bore me - people I insist on avoiding. So it's more likely than not that as soon as I get to know a character and all their cliches, I will be turned off. And whether you like to admit it or not, we all have these misanthropic tendencies towards strangers.

The next paragraph begins:

Or do you begin in medias res, plunging slap, bang into the defining events from which your narrative springs?

More preamble. All of this is to say basically there is a story that will start soon, but remember it is only a story. So thanks for wasting my time with musings on creative writing which reveal nothing.

Only after the first three paragraphs do we get the inkling of a story (things happening to people):

I was nearly thirteen when my sister died.

So the writer decides to begin with neither character portrayal or in medias res, but instead with a huge back story dump. Ah, I hope it felt good writing that out. From this point one realizes that one must shore oneself up for a long bout of back story dumping before a forward narrative presents itself - if at all.

Fortunately, I will never find out.

Verdict: Epic Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Unintended Consequences by Stuart Woods

Stone Barrington dreamed terrible dreams, then he jerked awake and immediately forgot them, as he always did.

Stone Barrington? Let me guess - an American. So, Stone begins this one with a bed setting. We're not privy to the nightmares and what they are, and from the looks of that first line we never will be. How do I know this without reading the whole book? Because it says that Stone always forgets them.

By the end of the paragraph Stone Barrington does what every other character does whose story begins in bed, he looks at the clock. It's 9:46. To be honest I was expecting it to be around 3 A.M. as that's usually the time characters are awoken at the beginning of a book. So kudos for surprising me there. But then Stone does the second and third most common thing after beginning this story in bed, he gets up and goes to the washroom - you see his bladder is bursting. Perhaps that's what the nightmares are about, slime people crawling out of his bursting bladder.

Random horrible clause:

He relieved himself noisily...

After that, the rest of the second paragraph develops the bathroom scene in greater detail and the only question this raises is why the hell am I reading this? Who cares about a character's daily morning routine in the can?

Paragraph 3 promises no relief as the bathroom scene switches from the bathroom sink to the shower. Then we learn he's wounded:...found two tiny wounds in the vein. Finally a story worthy question with a dash of conflict.

Then from the bathroom scene it moves to breakfast.

First thing said:

"That won't be necessary."

Verdict: Epic Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

Dexter's Final Cut by Jeff Lindsay

It's not that bad being dead.

This is the first sentence of an introduction that is all in italics, which makes it hard on the eyes.

Confession time: I must be one of the few people who has neither read any of these books or seen the TV show. So this line is a little confusing. Is this a paranormal series? I assume it is; either that, or someone's on a drug pretending to be dead, in which case, they aren't really dead, making this sentence redundant. Either way, the line raises questions and is striking. Being a short sentence doesn't hurt either.

Reading the rest of this introduction (call it what you want, it's still a prologue) reveals that this is part of a filming scene. So whoever said he was dead is not, just acting - ha-ha. A deception on the part of the author to hook falsely. The classless ha-ha, I made you look technique that is used more often than one might normally imagine. It is an unimaginative way to hook a reader and is cheating, like advertising a product that isn't actually for sale. Shameful.

Chapter 1:

It all started so peacefully, just a few short weeks ago, on a lovely day in early autumn.

How quaint. What a preamble. How boring. The next paragraph wastes more time, ink and page space by describing what it's like to drive in Miami rush hour.

I would have given this a mere fail but the execution of the ha-ha made you look trick riles me.

First thing said:

Who cares.

With an opening like this, I'm tempted to create a new category for zero stars. I might call it the Black Hole Dexter Fail.

Verdict: Epic Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Spilled Blood by Brian Freeman

Prologue

Hobbled by a flat tire, Ashlynn's fire-orange Mustang convertible limped to a stop on the main street of the abandoned farm town.

What a weird sentence. Hobbled is the past participle form of the verb which in this case indicates passive voice, not wrong, mind you, just not really right either. Can a person be hobbled by something? Hey, Dad, Tommy hobbled me again!

You need to think it out for a second. (I took less than that though). Hobble and limp are synonyms so I suppose we should be lucky he didn't write: Limped by a flat tire, because then the problem becomes obvious.

The personification is funny, too. A car limping onto the main street of a farm town. I have an image of a cartoon, something like Susie the Car, though she's blue.

I've never heard a rural town called a farm town. It makes me think of a town with a series of farms on the main street. Having been once rural myself, I have heard the term farming town. I assume farm town is some local expression, though when I google "farm town", I only get a plethora of computer games.

The next paragraph describes said farm town. You don't need to read it if you have imagination enough to imagine what a ruined ghost town would look like. In fact, it's better if you don't read the description, since you'll understand the scene better by not reading it. It's almost midnight, and the protagonist (it's that person's POV) is able to see little details like dirty shards of glass in the gravel. No matter how bright the moon is, moonlight doesn't shine as brightly as the sun at high noon. Even at high noon, who would notice dirty glass in gravel? This isn't the only example of descriptive incongruities in this so far (and I hate to contradict Lisa Gardner's plug at the back of the book, but...) very non-gripping and non-moving thriller. Though, so far it is shocking - for a grammatician, which me ain't.

Chapter one:

Christopher Hawk drove west on Highway 7 into the emptiness of rural Minnesota, leaving civilization behind him with each mile away from the city.

Christopher Hawk? What a name. It's only slightly better than Steve Stifler or Tugg Speedman and slightly worse than Buck Rogers.

Then there is the second part of this sentence: ...leaving civilization behind him with each mile away from the city. The author is abusing the usage of "away", an adverb which means: from this or that place, or in or to another place or direction, or toward another direction, and it modifies a verb. The problem is there is no verb "away" can modify in the above clause. So it sounds like each mile is away from the city? You can be a mile away from the city but each mile can not really be away from the city. Well, technically they can be away: This mile is away from the city. I hope that doesn't make sense to you. It should be: ...with each mile Hawk drives away from the city.

I'd just delete the delinquent, offending word "away".  In any case, the phrase is awkward, and the sentences don't get better with practice, as shown in the next one:

Staring at the horizon between his windshield wipers, he could have sworn the world was flat, and he hoped there was a sign ahead to warn him before he sped off the edge of the earth.

...horizon between his windshield wipers...is speaking figuratively or literally? Take your pick. It sounds like the horizon is literally between the wipers, but that's not possible. It must be speaking figuratively; though, in a sense if you wrote the sentence with clarity, the horizon is between the wipers, though off in the distance from them. The sentence is written in two-dimensional terms when it needs to be in three-dimensional terms, so to speak. So this sentence is not quite literal and not quite figurative. What is it then? Figurlitlively?

And unless he's hallucinating, why would Hawk hope there is a sign up ahead warning him about the edge of the earth? Or is this supposed to be a joke?

By paragraph two the writer succumbs to his skill level as a writer and describes the weather with expressions like bumpy clouds and swollen ditches. How does a ditch get swollen, that is, bigger than it was, when in fact, the water is overflowing or swelling out of it? When a pot overflows, we don't say the pot is swollen.

Of course throughout these openings we have no conflict (except for a limping car) and little characterization (except for a cross-eyed dweeb with no depth perception). Tone? Uh-uh, unless you want to count the horrible attempts at figurative gymnastic attempts at bad poetic poetry, which I literally mean figuratively.

First thing said:

"Hello?"

Verdict: Epic Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

The Magician King by Lev Grossman

Quentin rode a gray horse with white socks named Dauntless.

Um, does anyone know what a misplaced modifier is? How can anyone not think the gray horse is wearing white socks. Though horses do wear socks from time to time. Or maybe the white socks are named Dauntless? If so, the next question is: does he name the pair of socks Dauntless or does each sock get a title? For example, Dauntless Senior and Dauntless Junior, or should it be Dauntless 1 and Dauntless 2 and which is the first, the right or the left sock? This is how wars get started! But what type of weirdo gives their socks names?

Little kids love this kind of confusion. I like it too, because this is the stuff that makes writing reviews fun.

The rest of the paragraph describes what he's wearing (we assume Quentin, but it could be the horse. If that's the case, then why is what the horse is wearing more important than what Quentin isn't wearing?) before ending the first paragraph with:

He was hunting a magic rabbit.

This line tugs at my by now wandering attention. As someone mildly interested in fantasy, I must admit I'm a little curious about what a magic rabbit is. Maybe something to do with the magic rabbit in the hat trick? However, as the hunting scene drags with character development, I begin to lose interest until we learn that the magic rabbit can tell the future.

With my curiosity satisfied, I do as commanded with the first thing said in this novel:

"Stop!"

Yes, that's right - I stopped reading the book with white socks named The Magician King.

Verdict: Epic Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

Betrayal by Danielle Steel

The two men who lay parched in the blistering sun of the desert were so still they barely seemed alive.

Another image, however this one works better than some of the ones reviewed earlier. With image there is usually an element of setting. We have a desert and the blistering sun. But we have two men who seem barely alive. This raises a question? Why are they in the desert?

Next line answers this. I like the 'one sentence raises a question and the next answers it' formula.

There had been shattering explosions in the distance earlier, and one of them was covered in blood. Although they had been enemies, one of them now held the other's hand, as the lifeblood trickled from him.

The first three lines of this book work hard at hooking the reader. We have a difficult setting, an explosion, and enemies holding hands. One dies.

Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with the novel. The next paragraph and first thing said:

"Cut!...and print."

That's right, it is a movie scene being filmed. The dead man, just an actor, gets up and throws back a cool one. Feel robbed? You should. The writer just did the Ha-ha, made you look! trick. This is as bad as opening a story with a dream, a hallucination, or with an exciting story that has nothing to do with the present boring story you paid money for.

This was going to get a pass but gets an epic fail for its cheating hook. Creating a hook that has nothing to do with the story - unless the book is about the movie being filmed in the first paragraph is pathetically childish. Already a page in and still having not been introduced to the story of this novel, I put it down. I will not allow this writer to waste any more of my time, as she obviously does not respect it.

Verdict: Epic Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht