It Was a Dark and Stormy Night by Chris Longmuir
We are living in an age where entertainment is provided with the flick of a button, the wave of a remote control, or a spoken command, and I’m sure the time is fast approaching – if it isn’t here already – for entertainment to be activated by thought processes.
One of the disadvantages of this rapid progress of
technology is the shortening of many people’s attention spans, so a writer has
to snare the reader from the very first word, or the book may be discarded as
not worth the time it would take to read. Long winded openings and pages and
pages of description no longer attract the reader looking for a quick fix,
although those seeking a more literary experience may stay the course.
Writers have always known that the need for a hook on the
first page – preferably in the first paragraph, and even better if it’s in the
first sentence – is imperative. And that is more true today than it has ever
been.
But how have various writers fared in this search for the
perfect hook? A paragraph or sentence that will entice the reader to read on.
I suppose the most familiar opening phrase, recognized by
almost everyone, and now disparaged as ‘melodramatic’ and ‘purple prose’, is
Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s “It was a dark and stormy night.” No writer would now
deign to open their novel with this phrase, unless they were doing it
deliberately as a form of lampooning the phrase, or perhaps as an entry for ‘the
dark and stormy night’ writing challenge.
I’m not sure why this phrase is so frowned on, certainly
it’s a cliche, but is it really so bad it deserves to be known as the worst
opening there has ever been for a novel? I’m sure there must have been worse
openings, although I’m not prepared to read a myriad of books with bad openings
to find one.
The other thing that has to be remembered is that this
phrase was not a cliche when Bulwer-Lytton wrote it. And I’m not even sure how
melodramatic it is. The phrase, after all, is describing the night – it was
dark and stormy! Besides it wasn't even the opening sentence, it was in the second paragraph of Bulmer-Lytton's novel Paul Clifford.
Thinking about other openings which are as easily
recognizable I wonder why these have not been denigrated in the same way as
Bulwer-Lytton’s. There is Daphne Du Maurier’s opening sentence in Rebecca – “Last night I dreamt I went to
Manderley again”, or Charles Dickens’s Tale
of Two Cities – “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .”.
I won’t quote the whole sentence, it is almost 120 words long, but it seems to
me it is quite a melodramatic sentence to start a novel. I’m not suggesting
Bulwer-Lytton was the same class of writer as either du Maurier or Dickens, but
likewise I’m not entirely sure he deserves to be sneered at.
Coming back to cliches, and remember they only become
cliches because of overuse which suggests they have some attraction for
readers, Bulmer-Lytton also coined the phrases “the pen is mightier than the
sword” – “the great unwashed” – and “the almighty dollar”.
So, I will leave you thinking about “it was a dark and
stormy night”, and whether you think it deserves its reputation.
And now for some of my opening sentences:
“Mist shrouded everything except for the Discovery’s
skeletal masts pointing long bony fingers into the sky.” Night Watcher
“Last night when the dark was at its blackest, something had
nipped at her fingers.” – Dead Wood
“He checked the van for the last time.” – Missing Believed Dead
“She presses herself into the wall when she hears the scrape
of the key in the lock.” – The Death Game
How many opening sentences can you remember from books you’ve
read? No cheating, no looking. I’m ashamed to say the only ones I could
remember without looking were the three I’ve quoted, including “It Was a Dark
and Stormy Night”.
Chris Longmuir
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Comments
Jane Austen's first line in P&P is famous as is George Orwell's for 1984. Both set the scene brilliantly: and the tone/subject, and the alien world we are suddenly in, respectively.
For cracking lines all through the books, I'd recommend Chris Longmuir's newly box-setted Dundee thrillers.
Opening line of 'Mortal Engines' by Philip Reeves.
My favourite opening line is from 1984. If I can write an opening sentence even half that good in my life, I'll die a happy woman.
I've always loved the way Tolstoy opened Anna Karenina:
"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
Tolstoy ignores all the writer-workshop opener bromides He doesn't describe a scene, or set up a situation, or introduce a protagonist. It's just a matter-of-fact statement. He repeats words ... etc. Yet, he draws you right into one of the greatest novels ever written - while putting the oft-neglected semicolon to perfect dynamic use.