October 2004 Best Openings Contest Results

October 2004 Best Openings Contest Results

Here are the results of the October 2004 Best Openings Contest!

The BOC is a fun contest without prizes that runs every month, and is intended to encourage writers to improve their story openings so they GRAB editors by the throat and don't let go!

This month six intrepid contestants said goodbye to television, their families and their hectic social lives to participate.  Thanks for being such good sports! Thanks also to Sid for voting upon his return to the IMPire.

Herewith, the calculated results for this month's contest:

                              1st 2nd 3rd Vot Bon Tot
Candy In the Dark - Bill       2   3       1   4   19
A Lonely Service - Sara        2       1       2    9
When All Else Fails - Dee-Ann      1   4   1        9
Seven Lives - Sophia           1   1       1        8
The Hunter - Josh                  1   1   1   2    8
Sun Screen - Susan             1           1        6
No Entry - Sid                             1        3
First place undoubtedly goes to

Bill Allan

for his piece of candy, which would have won even without the bonus points.  (I wasn't quite sure how to award these points... but then I noticed "creepy" appearing in readers' comments as y'all rated the various entries according to bonus criteria! This gave me usable data, and I awarded 1 bonus point for each reader "creepy" rating.)

Joint second place goes to

Sara Walker Howe and Dee-Ann Latona

...very different entries which nonetheless attracted readers.

Since we don't want anyone pouting and stamping around complaining about not winning anything, let's not announce third place winners this month, but congrats to

Sophia Ahmed and Josh Langston

anyway!


Index
When All Else Fails - Dee-Ann Latona
Sun Screen - Susan Wing
Candy In the Dark - Bill Allan
A Lonely Service - Sara Walker Howe
Seven Lives - Sophia Ahmed
The Hunter - Josh Langston


When All Else Fails - Dee-Ann Latona


      Indra ran up the twelfth flight of stairs, her attention fixed on the blue orb leading the way. As she reached the halfpoint landing where the stairs turned to continue their climb, the orb stopped, pulsing in place. She stopped as well, looking about. Shopper-filled floors above and below greeted her, sprawling off in all directions.
      “You couldn't be a bit more specific?” she groaned.
      The orb pulsed and swirled, flecks of color darkening it to purple before it brightened into red.
      Battle. He was in battle, or at least whatever counted as battle for a human. She relaxed. That would make him easier to spot, at the very least.
      Indra cocked her head, listening for the tell-tale signs of a pitched fight, but she could only hear the din of all too mundane chatter. Why had the orb chosen the crowded central staircase instead one of the quiet side ones? She focused harder, calling upon her lower senses, reaching out for traces of anger, fury, and fear, but to her annoyance she couldn't sense past the couple arguing on the half-flight of stairs above.
      Humans. Why was it her lot to keep them safe?

§

Mine. Doesn't qualify as creepy, but that's what I had. :) ~Dee-Ann

The last sentence didn’t work for me, because she seems to only be interested in one human - but who, and why?  I think the specific mention of ‘lower senses’ could be skipped as there isn’t time to explain what these mean, and by itself that phrase threw me out of the story for a moment.  I think she is a fairy godmother, and the story could be interesting, but so far there is no tension, no reason to care, and the whining MC is unappealing.  Should be, “...instead of one of the quiet ones”.  THIRD.  - SA

I like action-oriented openings, but this one misses on a couple points.  Running up 12 flights of stairs will generally have a deleterious effect on even the most athletic folks.  If Indra is so completely non-human that she isn't bothered by it, then I'd definitely like to know more about her.  The setting is too vague to offer any clues. Needs some intensity, or at least some emotion.  Takes 3rd.  —Josh

Not particularly creepy, but intriguing situation.  Following an orb in a shopping mall?  I was a little confused about the layout of the setting, but not enough to stop reading – And I want to know more about why the MC needs to keep humans safe.  Writing probably could be smoothed out a bit on a future pass, but for now, a good start, IMO. – 2nd place – SEW

We're guided capably through the action here, but the conflict didn't knock my socks off.  I'll give you another page. <g> Third Place.  WA

I thought this was doing OK until the "Battle" paragraph which was a tad confusing, I didn't know if "He was in battle" referred to dress/appearance or radiated emotion.  And that last line was too blatant, it seemed like a last-moment "Quick, include something to make the opening appear really speculative!" addition.  That's not to say I wouldn't have read on.  -dp

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Sun Screen - Susan Wing


      When Justin was four, he realized he could see in the dark.  Chances are, he'd always been able to do this, but it was right around four that he finally lumped "dark" and "seeing" and "Justin" into a single idea he could call his own.
      Some weeks later, his parents caught on.
      "George, I think Justin can see in the dark," said his mother.
      "Already?  Amazing. Joe Merton's boy was nearly six," said his father.
      "I told you he was quick."
      "What about color?"
      "Why don't we ask him?"
      "Splendid thought, Rosanna!" said Justin's father.  "Only twenty minutes 'til sundown."
      When he was four, Justin didn't understand everything his parents talked about, but he liked to listen to their voices, even from the other side of his door.
      "Color?"  Justin thought about his mother's question.  She was wearing a dress with tiny white flowers on it, and smelled as if they had company.
      "Skin lines," he said with certainty.  "The soft..."
      "Carpet," prompted his mother.
      "Carpet.  The carpet is the color of skin lines."
      "That's light blue, dear."
      "Light blue," Justin repeated.
      "Veins. They're called veins."
      "The skin lines are veins?"
      His parents smiled in unison. "Splendid!" they said.

§

Interesting. I wouldn't call it creepy but I'd read on to find out what's going on here. I found it confusing when a private conversation between the mother and father outside the door becomes a conversation with the son. I am especially lost here:
"Color?"  Justin thought about his mother's question.  She was wearing a dress with tiny white flowers on it, and smelled as if they had company.
"Skin lines," he said with certainty.  "The soft..."
"Carpet," prompted his mother.
Where in the heck does the skin lines thing come in? What is he referring to? He was just thinking about her dress. And how does it go from "the soft" to "Carpet"? I'm completely lost.  ~Dee-Ann

I thought this worked well until “Splendid thought, Rosanna!”, which felt a bit OTT.  I thought Justin was in another room, so the conversation with his parents after that was confusing.  And the line, ‘“The soft...”’ followed by, ‘“Carpet,” prompted his mother’, was really confusing.  Why does carpet follow from soft?  The last “Splendid!” put me off completely - just a matter of whether these characters appealed to me or not, and they didn’t.  Wouldn’t read on.  - SA

I have no clue where this one's headed, which isn't automatically a bad thing.  What is a bad thing is that I'm not terribly interested in where it's headed.  Sorry.  —Josh

Mine.  I told you I couldn’t write “creepy.” [sigh] - SEW

Sorry, but this one didn't make much sense to me, and the POV didn't ring true.  WA

I suspect this is too literary for me.  I may be wrong but it seems to harken back to a plodding storytelling style of yore (not Poe, but possibly Lovecraft?) in a vain attempt to capture creepiness.  Whoops, missed! ;) Style aside, alas content didn't call to me.  -dp

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Candy In the Dark - Bill Allan


      They’d let Sammy out of his damp cellar cage early this morning but hadn’t fed him.
      His hunger had deepened steadily all day until it felt like an animal’s bite in his belly.  Now he lay under the porch, one ankle tethered by a twelve-foot chain to an iron rod buried in the ground, and watched through the wooden latticework behind the steps as the street darkened with twilight’s fall.
      They, Sammy’s masters, had staked him out for a reason.  He knew this because it had happened often before, though always in a different place.  Yet somehow each time was the same—the air cool and fresh, the trees mad with color, the scent of food on every tantalizing breeze.
      He adjusted his position and shattered a section of latticework as a painful sore burst under one arm and his powerful grip tightened in response.  Pus ran warm down Sammy’s flank.
      Soon the children would come, little jabbering, giggling, screaming knots of children, bustling from house to house.
      "Trick or treat," they would call at each opened door.
      They sought candy in the dark, but some would find Sammy instead, Sammy and the terrible hunger his masters had given him.

§

Definitely creepy and seasonal. :) Right out of a kid's nightmare.
<They, Sammy’s masters, had staked him out for a reason.  He knew this because it had happened often before, though always in a different place.  Yet somehow each time was the same—the air cool and fresh, the trees mad with color, the scent of food on every tantalizing breeze.>
Yet later he says he knows the kids are coming. Aren't the kids a stronger detail on why he knows it's the same each time? Or does he think these kids are a daily occurrence? It seems to slip out of his POV at the end, unless he understands that they want candy.
Second.  ~Dee-Ann

Gets a FIRST because it’s the entry I most want to read more of, even if that reading would be skimming to see what gruesome thing is going to happen.  I don’t know enough about horror to say whether this opening works well or not; to me it feels like it needs more of a plot for me to want to read it for the ‘right’ reason.  - SA

This one certainly passes the Creepy Test.  Needs a bit more about what Sammy is, preferably something to generate a little sympathy for him.  I'd read on, at least briefly, to see if the story attempts to rise above the level of cautionary Halloween tale. Finishes 2nd. —Josh

Good and creepy – fine sense of setting, with POV kept close-in to the MC.  Nice work developing sympathy for a character who’s obviously going to do some Bad Things [g].  Smooth writing. 1st place – SEW

My monstrous opening.  WA

Cute.  An interesting read, tho' I thought you missed out on Sammy gnawing on the iron rod but not liking the taste (and leaving dents!) and licking his own pus, just to underline his inhumanity and his desperation.  Also, picky little thought, since this is evidently from Sammy's POV, he appears awfully well-educated.  -dp

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A Lonely Service - Sara Walker Howe


      The horse couldn't have found a worse place to stop.  Pine boughs lashed, black against the increasing shadows. The wind howled, and a cold draught blew right through the driver's woolen shawl.
      "Oh, go on." She slapped the reins, urging him forward. Reluctantly, he stepped into the puddle of muddy water spanning the road. The cart bounced several times, and then came to a complete halt.
      Nothing she did convinced the horse to move. He whinnied, flaring his nostrils.
      Faced with no other choice, she climbed off the wagon.  Her boots sank into thick mud. She grabbed the reins and pulled. He refused to budge. And worse, the cart was stuck. She just wanted to go home.
      "What's the problem, Shiner? We journeyed down this road earlier."
      Lightning crashed. Shiner threw his head. She didn't see the blow coming. Stars danced before her eyes.
      "Fine. You win." She unhitched him, and would have to ride him bareback.
      "What's this?"
      She caught sight of a gatepost to her right, the sort of gatepost that stands sentry to a meandering lane leading to a grand estate; a gatepost she had not seen when she'd travelled the road in the daylight.

§

<We journeyed down this road earlier.>
Journeyed seems a bit over-formal
<She didn't see the blow coming.> If she didn't see it coming and we're in her POV, tell us how it felt for her to be hit. That would be more immediate.
It's a dark and stormy night, potential ghost house, good and creepy.
First.  ~Dee-Ann

No vote.  Characters talking to animals, or talking aloud when alone, always turn me off a story.  This has both.  I wasn’t sure what the blow was that she didn’t see coming - the lightning, or Shiner knocking his head into her.  Too much concentrating on being stuck, which I’m afraid I had to make myself read, as it was boring.  Wouldn’t read on.  - SA

My first reaction is that there are way too many short, choppy sentences.  My second reaction is that the driver of the wagon should have used a whip on the recalcitrant horse.  Beats walking through thick mud in a storm.  Sorry, no vote.  —Josh

Good interaction between horse and MC.  Good presentation of foreboding setting and buildup of tension, e.g. “We journeyed down this road earlier” wouldn’t be creepy without “What’s the problem, Shiner?” right before it.   Only nit – What’s the blow from?  Shiner throwing his head back?  FWIW, the confusion tossed me out of the story for a bit.  Regardless, I’d read on. 3rd – SEW

I don't mind short sentences, but there are a few too many stacked up in this entry, and I don't think a semicolon is the correct punctuation in that last sentence.  Otherwise this isn't bad and seems to be headed in a spooky direction.  First Place.  WA

I liked this, tho' I expected payoff from your opening sentence which suggested that the unnamed driver (she doesn't know her own name? are you going to wait until someone else actually speaks her name before we learn it?) had cause to be frightened for spooky reasons.   Took me a while to figure you just meant she was exposed and cold.  -dp

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Seven Lives - Sophia Ahmed


      For the past few weeks, rumour had been creeping towards the city.   First, among the lapis merchants riding down the mountain trade routes from the cities of Babylonia in the north-east, then debated over bottles of Greek wine by the sailors along the coast of the great sea, spreading from port to port, reaching a market here, a festival there, until suddenly in the past ten days it had become the news on everyone’s lips, flying over the evening meals of the nobles and the campfires and cookpots of the commoners alike, as if the soldiers of the king had positioned themselves along the Avena Granda and proclaimed it to every citizen as they passed from the residential district into the markets and administrative heart of Kairo.  It was carried along the small industrial side-streets that stuck out from the centre like spokes on a wheel, until it had swept the city from the garden palace of the king to the last, dusty street, where blank-faced houses gave way to the red desert.  There, in the most rarely thought of place in Kairo, it infiltrated the world of Azaria, the priest, and caused a crisis.

§

I don't know if this was supposed to be just one paragraph or not. If it is, please break it up. A massive paragraph like that is unnecessary for this piece and slows it down.
It's a nice picture of a spread of a rumor but it goes on a bit too long with the picturesque details. I started skimming toward the end to get to where this all became relevant.  ~Dee-Ann

Mine, a test-your-lung-capacity exercise.  - SA

That's one helluva rumor! And sentence two is nothing short of amazing.  I applaud the author for managing to generate such a long, convoluted admixture of clauses that never once gave me cause to back up, slow down, or question where it was going.  Bravo! Earns First Prize easily.  Besides, I love the period. <G> —Josh

Sorry, but Charles Dickens is one of the few people who can write a sentence longer than 100 words and get away with it [g].  Some evocative writing here – and I suspect you wanted to use long sentences to suggest the inexorable tide of rumor (or something) – but marathon sentences require well-paced sentence structure, impeccable parallel verb construction, e.g “First, among…then debated…” First phrase opens with a preposition, second opens with a verb, then we go into serious of progressive “-ing” verbs.  Too easy to get tangled up, IMO.  The beginning of “A Tale of Two Cities” benefits from almost singsong repetition.  That said, the imagery is often lovely, and the first sentence is intriguing.  (Although the last sentence of this opening is a bit of letdown.  Actually, if you remove “and caused a crisis,” you end up with the same feeling, IMO, without hitting me over the head with it. ) – SEW

This is lyrical and well written, but I think it needs broken up.  I would suggest three paragraphs here, that one long sentence occupying one graph to itself.  Setting is in place, but as to character or conflict, we haven't seen much yet.  Second Place.  WA

This played out like a "spot the experiment" exercise.  Big chunky paragraphs don't bother me—Michael Moorcock opens his epic "Gloriana" (to name but one novel) with rich, meandering descriptions of the empire's capital and history, and takes a whole page just to list the occupations of its numerous and varied inhabitants, which I recall I didn't mind at all.  Here, I felt inclined to stop and reread and insert the occasional semicolon and/or em-dash just to help faltering cadence.  Unfortunately style distracts completely from content—I've read this opening twice and for the life of me, I can't remember what it's about... I was too busy trying to wade through the biggie.  -dp

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The Hunter - Josh Langston


      Owen Faircloth pressed a contact at the rear of a drawer within his expansive desk sending a slab of teak paneling silently into a recess in the wall revealing the entry to his trophy room.  His taxidermist, Chelsea Turnipseed, was the only other person who knew of its existence.
      The room met Owen's needs perfectly.  He could view his prizes whenever he liked and relive the various hunts; he had no need to look at them every day.  That, he had long ago decided, wouldn't be healthy.  Still, it was nice to share them with Chelsea, a woman of modest stature but vast talent.  She had succeeded in mounting his kills in remarkably lifelike poses, several of which captured the instant when they realized their impending demise.  God, he loved that.
      Chelsea was a genius unbridled by the eccentricities common to her kind.  She remained simplistic in matters unrelated to her art—matters of the heart especially.  Chelsea lusted for Owen as he lusted for the hunt.  He found it amusing that while giving in to his desires improved his skill, the opposite improved hers.  Chelsea was more than a mere genius, she was a frustrated genius.

§

The opening of the secret panel is overdescribed and confusing.
This feels so remote to me. Especially the last paragraph. Right after this:
<Chelsea was a genius unbridled by the eccentricities common to her kind.  She remained simplistic in matters unrelated to her art — matters of the heart especially. >
Giving us a picture of what he enjoys so much about her lusting after him, something she does or whatever, would have more immediacy and bring us back in rather than holding us out at arm's length.
Fits a bit into the creepy category. Third.  ~Dee-Ann

I liked the writing, but there wasn’t a hint of what the story was.  I’d read on, but the problem should start in the next line! SECOND.  - SA

The Hunter—Mine.  And no, the protagonist isn't hunting humans.  <G> —Josh

Hmm.  Hunts, lust, trophy room, funny names.  This should work – but doesn’t, quite, ‘cause of some clunky writing and exposition.  First of all, we’re two hundred words in, and the only real-time action we’ve seen is Owen pressing a button.  All the rest of it is infodump.  Sort of interesting, but the third graph, particularly, slows down the story.  It would make more sense to save this until we actually meet Chelsea; it’s wasted here, IMO.  The description of the trophy room is sort of creepy; I would have preferred a return to Owen at the end of the second graph, e.g. does he go into the room?  Is there a new trophy.  At this point, we’ll learn more about Owen and Chelsea if we see the fruits of their labors, I think.  Also, although most of the writing is acceptable for an early draft, the first sentence is a labyrinth of preposition phrases and weak progressive verbs.  Wouldn’t be so noticeable, probably, if it weren’t the first.  Read it aloud to see what I mean.—SEW

I'd recommend recasting that first sentence to eliminate at least a couple of those "ing" verbs, even if it turns into two sentences.  Otherwise, when the focus switched from the trophy room to the relationship, the opening lost its forward momentum.  It would have been more of a hook to describe one of those trophies as having a bald head and red mustache. <g> WA

Threatens to be clever but comes across as infodump, plain and simple.  Possibly an experiment?  I was ver' disappointed not to have received a live tour of the trophy room, and to learn from your own comment that it doesn't contain dead people.  However (and this is just a random thought) if you're so keen to tell me all about Chelsea Turnipseed (urk! that name!) then why not rewrite from her viewpoint and have her think about Owen and his weird trophy room instead?  This could be something, but in its present form, isn't. -dp

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