Monday, March 15, 2010

Characters and Openings

“I was eighteen and pregnant the night my daddy died. Somebody put a shotgun to his head and blasted his brains all over his favorite reclining chair. Hell of a mess that was. I heard they had to toss that old chair out in the trash cause there just wasn’t no cleaning the blood and brains out of the fabric. Pity, it was a nice chair.”

That's the opening of a short story I was working on this weekend. The story is an old one, that had a male protagonist but didn't seem to go anywhere until I heard this voice talking me. And it wasn't a guy. I expect the story, when it's done, won't be anything like what I imagined the original to be.

As I was reading that opening dialogue again this morning, I started thinking about this post over at Charles Gramlich's blog. http://charlesgramlich.blogspot.com/2010/03/all-talk-no-action-and-chimes-of-course.html Charles and many of the commenters don't like stories that start with dialogue, but I find that many of my short stories start either with dialogue or an action scene. I rarely walk slowly into a story. One thing that struck me with all the answers was that nobody considered how we meet real people. Yes, you see them, but you make your basic judgement of that person by what they say. Should we treat fictional characters any differently?

So my question to you today is how do you like your stories to open? Would you read a story that opened with that paragraph I wrote or would you need to know more about the character and where she is before she opened her mouth?

12 comments:

Paul D Brazill said...

Great opening, Sandra!

I've just written a story that starts with dialogue.

Michael Bracken said...

Whether a story begins with dialog or description is immaterial. Does the story engage you from the start? Good dialog will do that; bad dialog won't. Good description will do that; bad description won't.

Naomi Johnson said...

I don't care how a short story opens as long as the words aren't wasted, as long as they have meaning for the story as a whole. I'm fine with opening dialogue, it usually is designed to knock the reader right into the teeth of the story.

Yours certainly seems to do that!

sandra seamans said...

You write a great deal of flash, Paul, and I think flash more than anything lends itself to a dialogue beginning.

That's true, Michael, engaging your reader is everything. Do you suppose that different genres give readers a different expectation as to a beginning? Sci-fi/fantasy readers might want to be grounded in the setting more than a mystery/crime reader. And most lit readers just want beautiful prose ;-) Does genre affect the way you open a story at all?

I think the dialogue can give you a better picture of a character you'll be reading than just describing them, Naomi. And sometimes that dialogue can put you in a place. But you're right, either way you have to knock the reader's socks off or they'll move on to something else.

David Cranmer said...

You know I hardly notice whether I prefer openings with dialogue or not. If it hooks me, it hooks me.

And yours hooked me.

Steve Weddle said...

I dig dialog(ue) openings. Or monologue. The trick, which you handle nicely, is to move the story along while you show character through the voice.

(Side note: "Dialog" is appropriate, but "monolog" isn't? Hmmm)

Charles Gramlich said...

This isn't really what I think of as dialogue. It's first person storytelling, and even though you have quote marks around it, it brings you immediately into the story. I've started plenty of stories in this kind of first person narrative, although usually without quote marks. the kind of dialogue I'm thinking of are things like:

"I see," said Jim. "So what do you want me to do about it?"

"Get ride of him," Evan replied. "He's a danger to the company."

sandra seamans said...

That's the most important part, to hook your reader, David.

We used to spell a lot of words with the ue on the end when I was a kid but somewhere along the line spelling changed, Steve. I never trust my spellchecker, there's always a dictionary next to the keyboard.

This isn't a first person narrative, Charles, it's the beginning of a conversation that the woman is having with her companion with the story told in third person close. I don't think dialogue has to be pedestian. People blurt things out, or tell their secrets to each other all the time. Starting stories with this type of dialouge that moves the story should work, even for those who dislike dialogue beginnings. But I agree that I might not care for a story that started with the sentences you wrote. If you started with the second sentence though, you might pique the reader's interest :)

Conda Douglas said...

I adore this opening, I'd keep reading. Excellent hook, for me.

G. B. Miller said...

Love the opening for the story. I was able to imagine the person saying it like it was no big thing, about as nonchalant as squishing a bug.

As for your question, whether it starts with dialogue or not is immaterial to me as it pertains to reading, but as for writing, it is a bit more problematic for me.

My latest thingy starts with a telephone conversation and even though I keep it to the equivalent of about twenty seconds of time, its still gonna bother me whether or not it will make someone read beyond that opening conversation.

Cormac Brown said...

Either way, as long as it draws me in and that definitely drew me in. Unfortunately with an audience that has even less leisure time than ever, and more ways to be distracted than before, you have to draw your audience in.

You would have grabbed a script reader for a movie studio or production company with that piece of dialogue. Much like the audience I was just talking about, they have to read anywhere from four to forty scripts a week, and they can't waste their time on something that doesn't pull them in immediately.

sandra seamans said...

I love dialogue, Cormac. I think it show so much more about a character than simple description and actions.

Telephone conversations are tricky, G, unles they're slamming down the phone or throwing it across the room during or after. ;)