Of beginnings

[John Dean]

One of the key things that I tell my students on my online crime fiction course is that the opening lines of their stories are crucial. Why? Because harassed publishers, overworked agents and readers with a mass of choice need grabbing within moments of picking up the book/short story/manuscript.

This all comes to mind because I have just begun work on the new DCI John Blizzard crime novel for The Book Folks so the opening pages are very much on my mind.

A good start is like the writer reaching out of the page, clutching the reader by the lapel and saying ‘don’t you dare go away, this is going to be good!’, which creates momentum right from the off.

The first rule of opening lines is that they should possess most of the individual elements that make up the story; an opening paragraph should have a distinctive voice, a point of view, a rudimentary plot and some hint of characterisation plus something to pique the interest.

The best method is begin the story at the first moment of something interesting happening, which is likely to grab the reader‘s interest. It’s worth remembering that all stories begin in the middle when things have already happened in the past and will happen in the future.

A key way of doing this for crime fiction, indeed all storytelling, is using The Question, presenting something of intrigue which the reader needs answering. Why are the police in a graveyard at midnight, who is the man who has emerged onto a deserted nighttime street, why are the burglars targeting this remote house in particular?

However writers do it, they must give themselves a chance of getting the reader to the bottom of the page then onto the next page then onto the next chapter.

You can enjoy previous Blizzard stories by searching for individual books or anthologies on Amazon. Contact details for my crime fiction course are below.