1. "_______" (The first lines wouldn't tell you, but it's about a vampire, in case you want more)

He walked into a bar with his son and his son‘s friends. They had just been back from a rehearsal dinner. His son was getting married the next day and they decided to have a drink. Relax after a day tolerating the women. He hated weddings, but only because of the women. They carried on over the things that didn’t matter. What mattered was that the father of the bride wanted a “traditional Jewish wedding.” He hated Jewish weddings. His boss had a Jewish wedding. He was only there because his boss asked him to go, and you don’t say no in that situation. You say absolutely and you thank him for the honor. He hated every minute of it. He wasn’t going to go to another Jewish wedding again. He said he wanted his son to have a traditional Baptist wedding. They compromised. A minister and a rabbi would both be there.

2. "Anagennisi"

THE FOLLOWING
was written by Queglan Xann to document Earth’s attempt to teraform, and raise a scientient species on its neighboring planet, Mars. This translation was changed for public consumption, and has been changed to a narrative format for entertainment purposes only. The appendices are direct translations, and are the official documents. Full transcripts can be found on the International Martian Database (IMD) website (www.ueec.ue/mars/imd/data). This document was last altered on 9/15/3075.

Jonathan R. Thatcher was a pilot. He wasn’t a stereotypical, cocky, arrogant pilot. He was a patriot who believed that one should defend one’s own land, and if need be, one should die for it.

3. "Junk Mail"

Andy logged on to his computer. It took a second to load and he opened his browser. This was his daily routine and he was getting sick of it. He didn’t like doing the same thing each day: wake up, go look for a job, wait for calls, go to interviews, come home, check the same three sites he always checked, and then he emptied his mail of all the junk.
The sites he went to were beginning to wane in their frequency of updates, and his mail was nothing but junk. There was a newsletter he always got, but never read- he was too lazy to take himself off the mailing list. He clicked the box that selected all of the mail. He got so much more junk than real mail that it was easier to uncheck the things he wanted to keep. His eyes became lost in the monotony of not only the de-junking of his mailbox, but of his life.

4. "Psyche"

The average human uses only ten percent of his or her brain. The other ninety-percent is only the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is perfect in every way. It gathers all information and puts it together perfectly, but is only hindered by emotions. It, however, can‘t fully communicate with the conscious mind. When an advertisement uses subliminal messages, it opens the door between the conscious and unconscious minds, but adds its own emotions, which pervert the subconscious thoughts.
The conscious mind can overcome the emotional perversions, but only if it realizes that it is being perverted. This is what humans do when they “shake off” bad feelings, or put aside prejudices to think objectively. This however closes off some of the subconscious mind.

5. "Remnants" (Language warning)

I left my name a long time ago. I left it with my occupation when my occupation had been put to an end. I left it with my home and with my things when they were looted, trampled and destroyed. I left it with the bodies of my family when they were shot while I ran away. Hell. I don’t even deserve a name. If you asked me my name I’d tell you to **** off.
I am probably not the only one to experience these things. I doubt there are less than a thousand who have. My nation, the nation I swore allegiance to, and swore to protect with my life, decided I was not fit to join humanity. The Earth is dying- well, the sun is. But long before the sun dies it will devour our planet. We knew it would come, too. We knew eons ago. But when we launched our species into the galaxy, we clung to the Earth, refusing to believe it could ever die.

6. "The Collective" (I think I might have posted this one here a while back, so forgive if this is so)

“John Doe? Your name is actually John Doe?”
“Yes, and don’t worry, it’s not like I get that everywhere I go or anything”
“I’m sorry. You have to realize that most people don’t meet a John Doe every day.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just give me my damn ID back, will ya?”
“Ok, ok, here. Now you’ll have to go through those double doors down the hall, and find a seat to wait. We don’t have these kind of exams very often, but when we do, it takes forever. I’ve been wondering, how did you guys get picked for this? I mean I haven’t noticed a trend with all the people here. The other times we just had a bunch of military guys, but now it’s a bunch of mail men, social workers, teachers, cops. I don’t get it.”

Sorry if I go over 13 on any of these, or if indeed the whole concept of this post violates the 13 line rule. I just have too many ideas in my head that I want to share...

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I think that you might do better to ask yourself which stories are interesting to you.

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*sigh*

If they weren't interesting to me, I wouldn't have started them. The question is if other people would find them interesting. I'm not writing these just for me, I'm writing them to entertain other people. If that's not your ultimate goal, then why bother posting here at all?

Yes, the 13 line rule makes the job I'm asking you to do hard, but then again, it's not my rule. If you want more of something, please let me know and I'll send it to you.

Buffy, I think most of your comments are a direct result of the 13 line rule. With permission, I'd like to send you the rest

On the other hand, the basic problem here is that some of these openings are very poor openings. Frankly, I'd have tossed them without reading the entire fragment.

If I had to go on what you have here, I'd say "Remnants" is the only one that has much potential...but that would be misleading. The simple fact is that the problems with the others arise because they are terrible openings, it has nothing to do with whether the ideas behind the story are any good.

Learning to open a story correctly is critical, it establishes the mood of your readers. If you put your readers in a bad mood, they won't like your story no matter how great the rest of it is.

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Buffy, I think most of your comments are a direct result of the 13 line rule. With permission, I'd like to send you the rest.

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Pick that one and stick with it and finish it.

Do it now. Dont keep hesitating and putting off the writing process with coming up with more ideas and arguing which one to start with.

Chose Remnants and complete it.

3 is the closest to being good, yet has the most basic flaw. It's boring. We all have had problems with junk mail, sometimes more and sometimes less. We've read the same comments about how crappy it is a hundred times, usually with at least a little more humor or wit. I'm guessing that you're character finds something really great in his junk mail, or finds out that junk mail isn't so bad after all (did you ever hear about the one guy who--back in the day when you could physically burn junk mail--heated his house for free with all the junk mail he got?). But that's a shot in the dark, as yet there is no hint that the story is going to be anything other than an extended tirade about how crappy it is to get spam.

So the opening is technically correct (more so than 5, even), but gives us no reason to read the story.

6 has less of a fundamental problem and more of a style conflict problem. You've chosen to open with a dialogue vignette, but halfway through you turn it into expositive monologue. Vignette and exposition are entirely opposite means of developing a story, they don't mesh well. Also, the shift from dialogue to monologue doesn't seem natural, it usually only happens when one party tacitly agrees to become the audience, and that doesn't happen here. In fact, nearly the opposite happens when John says "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just give me my damn ID back, will ya?" By implication, he's definitely saying "I don't want to talk to you anymore", but suddenly the other guy launches into a long story and John doesn't object at all. A bit strange, and it breaks up our belief in the characters.

1 has the most nitpicky little problems that combine in infelicitous ways. First off, you start with a bunch of unreferenced pronouns that rapidly get way out of hand. We start with a "He" of unknown reference, then you throw in a "they" that could refer to "He and his son" or "His son's friends", perhaps both. Another "they" seems to refer to "women" though what women are being referred to isn't really clear. Presumably the mother's of the bride and groom, but possibly any number of others. Then you throw in the father of the bride so that we have two distinctly different "He"s running around the passage, neither with a name. And then you add the boss of one of the various "He"s (which could include the son by now), possibly another "He". By the end it's really difficult to keep track, and then only by making assumptions pretty freely. Unreferenced pronouns are a nitpick, but they can really turn an opening into a nightmare.

Also, none of this has anything to do with the setting. A man walks into a bar...and the bar isn't mentioned again. It's just a long tirade that takes place in no particular place and time. Part of that is because you're flashing back incrementally until there isn't any connection to the immediate scene. After a while things are so jumbled that all I can say is that it is possible that everything described happened before "He" entered the bar. In short, not only do you have no setting, you haven't got a coherent scene.

Sort of topping things off, the character is deeply unsympathetic. Getting to know this guy just isn't worth the effort of slogging through all the unreferenced pronouns and out-of-scene assertions. In a way, it's the worst opening out of all of them. I'm guessing that the story's concept has almost nothing to do with this opening. But if it does, I really don't want to read the story.

1. The title of the story is "____" and I don't particularly want to change that. The fact is, when I started it (it's probably the most recently began) I was fairly burnt out of names. At first it just started out with me seeing if I could get away with not having to think up a name for the father of the groom, and father of the groom is really long to use as a name (especially compared with "he"). This is why there is a jumble of pronouns and I really tried my best to keep the pronouns clear. I seem to have failed. So I either need to think of new names (suggestions?) or figure out a better way to write it (maybe add a few "fathers of the groom"'s).

And you're NOT suppose to like the FotG, you're supposed to dislike him. And he's not the protag either .

3. I was trying to express the mood I was in at the time (Although it's not at all autobiographical), which is a sort of limbo/doldrums feeling. I guess the problem I'm having is making something tedious to experience interesting to read, instead of just plain tedious.

6. Perhaps some further description of how the two characters act, better explaining the meaning and emotion behind the dialogue. This, I feel, is also hurt by the 13 line rule, in that there is more dialogue beyond what I posted (there has to be an exception to the rule with dialogue, right?). The real point of this opening is to let the reader know that something odd is happening with this test.

Look, when I mentioned the difference between personal and literary motives, I answered your other question. The fact that you were feeling bored, or rebellious, or tired of coming up with names for your characters...that sort of thing doesn't quality as a literary motive for doing something a certain way in your story.

And previously, you haven't asked for advice on how to improve the openings. You've only asked for advice on which one to pursue. You did ask for a detailed explanation of what was wrong with three of the openings, and I gave you that. If you fix the problems, that will probably improve the openings a lot.

2: feels selfconsciously like a paint-by-numbers setting up of a scene. Give me the scene - don't tell me what the scene is.

3: too mundane. Again, there's no scene. Besides, most everyone finds the process of jobhunting depressing. Who wants to read about it in a story? I want to be entertained when I pick a story up; I want to escape. I don't mean it has to be a 'nice' story, but it's got to start with a bang and keep punching.

4: exposition overload. Reads like a synopsis of the story rather than the beginning of the story itself.

5: this starts promisingly. I, for one, actually like stories that start off with protagonists who aren't very likeable...
but then the exposition thing again. It screams !!!INFO DUMP!!!, like a pop-up window when you're surfing the net. Show me the story - don't tell me it.

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Buffy, you don't have to like a character to want to read more

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Actually, I do. Other readers may not, but I get bored very quickly by characters who have no redeeming features. Villains don't have to be likeable, but I do have to like them.

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and if you think that every opening character should be the protag you have some bad preconcieved notions about literature.

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Hmm, personal attacks really aren't conducive to a useful discussion, you know.

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I really don't get your point. What's wrong with opening on a villan?

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You asked which story to work on and I said Remnants. A few others hinted at that one showing a bit of promise too.

How many people do you need to tell you which one they prefer, before you will get on with finishing one of them?

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Look, when I mentioned the difference between personal and literary motives, I answered your other question. The fact that you were feeling bored, or rebellious, or tired of coming up with names for your characters...that sort of thing doesn't quality as a literary motive for doing something a certain way in your story.

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I didn't give you my personal motives. I told you what I was trying to express. My personal motives were boredom and desire to create. That goes for everything I write.

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And previously, you haven't asked for advice on how to improve the openings.

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Ok, the following is not me arguing against the critique. This is me explaining what I was trying to do, and asking how I can accomplish that.

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So I either need to think of new names (suggestions?) or figure out a better way to write it (maybe add a few "fathers of the groom"'s).

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I guess the problem I'm having is making something tedious to experience interesting to read, instead of just plain tedious.

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Perhaps some further description of how the two characters act, better explaining the meaning and emotion behind the dialogue.

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Hmm, personal attacks really aren't conducive to a useful discussion, you know.

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It wasn't a personal attack. I was saying that IF that's what you meant, you have some bad preconcieved notions. The character you open on can die on page 2. As long as the reader wants to hear more about the story.

Please, don't take all this as an argument. I'm not arguing. I'm just trying to clear up some misunderstandings. I came here to improve my writing, and if asking questions or questioning a cirtique helps me learn more about what the reader wants, then it helps.

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It wasn't a personal attack. I was saying that IF that's what you meant, you have some bad preconcieved notions.

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The problem is with that word "you". If the phrasing had been "I think that's a misconception", or similar, then it would not have been a personal attack. It'd still have been wrong, but la.

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The character you open on can die on page 2. As long as the reader wants to hear more about the story.

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Sure. But there's a strong likelihood that they won't. And there is an even stronger likelihood that the reader will hold off on identifying with any further characters that are introduced, in case those are killed off in short order as well.

When you put together an electrical circuit, there are rules that govern what you do. Those rules arise out of the natural result of the various kinds of things you could do.

Most of the rules of writing are the same way, they are result oriented rules. Some of the rules are semi-arbitrary, in the same way that the requirement of powering a circuit by use of an electrical outlet means that you have to design it to take 110 AC (or powering it with two AAAs means that you have to work with 3v DC at a restricted amperage). Sometimes you can break soem of the "rules" and get an interesting result, like the electron beam for a cathode ray tube.

You wanted to express your boredom, well, that's not a literary motive either. If, on the other hand, you were trying to bore the reader...well, that's not going to help you keep an audience. It would be a literary motive, just not a very good one.

If you want to show that the character is bored, then make him restless. Show us, not the boredom, but the character's reaction to it.

And my recommendation for the last item is that you not attempt to use dialogue vignettes for things they can't do well, and don't try to combine them with expositive monologue, particularly right at the beginning of your text. The particular slice of dialogue you chose wouldn't make a good vignette anyway, and it would be terribly implausible as expositive monologue for reasons I've already mentioned.

"I've seen something like this done by published authors" doesn't count as a literary motive for doing it. For one thing, what good writers do with a dialogue vignette or expositive monologue is nothing like what you've done. For another, you should only do it in response to the needs of your story and audience, not because you think someone else did it.

I know that I probably should have explained from the beginning what I meant by "literary" vs "personal" motives.

A literary motive is aimed at what you want your audience to experience when reading. "I'm doing this because I want the reader to...". A personal motive is anything else that might have made you write something the way you did. I concentrate on literary motives for two reasons. One is because your personal motives are none of my business. The other is because anything that doesn't serve a good literary motive should be eliminated from your text.

I'm sure that you realize by now that I excluded "expression" from consideration as a literary motive. That's because it isn't. The "expressive" theory of art, in contrast with the "imitative" and "affective" theories, grants no consideration to anything other than whether the production of a work was carthartic for the artist. More particularly, it has no place for such activities as critiquing or publishing a work.

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So I either need to think of new names (suggestions?) or figure out a better way to write it (maybe add a few "fathers of the groom"'s).

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FWIW, I had no trouble negotiating the pronouns.

Your instinct that "father of the groom" is too clunky for more than one use is correct imo. Give the character a name. There are lots of ways to find names. Try the census or the phone book, or google "boys' names". Or give him a placeholder name that can be replaced later.

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I guess the problem I'm having is making something tedious to experience interesting to read, instead of just plain tedious.

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If it's tedious to experience, it's tedious to read about. We all start our computers, log onto our mail, dump the junk and get on with our lives. There's a lot here for the reader to relate to, but nothing to grab their attention. Another dull day in a dull life just like theirs--who cares?

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Hey great, the love of my life is waiting for me, and I can enlarge my penis in time for our first date.

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I like this line. It's funny. I'd be tempted to start here or hereabouts. As the experiences Andy is having are so ordinary, there's no need to describe them in so much detail. The reader will grasp relatively quickly that he's reading his junk mail. His reactions, however, are unique, and can be made into points of interest.

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The real point of this opening is to let the reader know that something odd is happening with this test.

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Exposition-as-dialogue seems to get reinvented by every generation of writers, despite the fact that it doesn't work. Never did and never will.

If you want to show the reader that usually the test is taken by military types and today it's being taken by non-military types, there are better ways to achieve that. There's nothing in the early part of this conversation even to indicate that a test is involved--the two might be arguing over a speeding ticket or a bank transaction or almost anything. Give their interaction a context. Show a bunch of ordinary people feeling uncomfortable and out of place in a room set up for the military, or something like that.

Make it clear which of the characters is the POV character--John Doe or the clerk. This is important information that the reader will want to know.

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This, I feel, is also hurt by the 13 line rule

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The 13 line rule may be frustrating, but it has its place. None of us will be there to argue with or explain things to the editors who read our stories, and there's no appeal against rejection.

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No, because those aren't literary motives.

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Yes. Yes they are. I've already been through this. I explained what I was trying to accomplish, not why I wanted to accomplish it. In the first one, I want the reader to understand this, and in the second I want them to relate to that emotion the character is experiencing. It has nothing to do with the fact that I was bored and wanted to tell a story.

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You wanted to express your boredom

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No. No I didn't. I wanted to express something BECAUSE I was bored. I tried to explain what that something was, and at least one person got it.

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"I've seen something like this done by published authors" doesn't count as a literary motive for doing it.

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Good thing I'm not saying that, then, huh?

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A literary motive is aimed at what you want your audience to experience when reading.

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Kind of like what I told you.

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I'm sure that you realize by now that I excluded "expression" from consideration as a literary motive. That's because it isn't.

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Language is the expression of ideas in a from that can be shared. Literature is a written form of language. So why does it suddenly lose its expressive value? It doesn't. The point of literature is to express something.

When I say, "this is what I was trying to express," I can just as easily say, "this is what I was trying to say." I have no idea why you're fighting the act of expression in literature, since that is its sole purpose. I'm not talking about some literary discussion where there's an "expressive theory." I'm talking about the word expression. Please don't assume I'm in an argument in which you haven't seen me argue.

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FWIW, I had no trouble negotiating the pronouns.

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And I'm glad you didn't too. But I think that might be rare. Unless whoever pointed this problem out was just being grammatical...

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Give the character a name. There are lots of ways to find names. Try the census or the phone book, or google "boys' names". Or give him a placeholder name that can be replaced later.

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