VERSION 2 (I hope this is a step in the right direction. Looking for any input on this)

A tall, thin man holding a briefcase stood at the top of the hill that overlooked Bonecrook's Orphanage. Thunderclouds beat their war drums as they threatened to storm, but this did not bother the stranger. The collar of his black pea coat was turned up and its double-breasted fronts were tightly buttoned to protect himself from the night's glacial wind. Like a hungry vulture, he watched the grim fated orphanage and the single light that shone feebly from one of its many rooms, a muscle twitching in his leg. He ignored its protest. He could not make his move until that light went out and the children had gone to sleep.

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ORIGINAL first 13

A tall thin man holding a briefcase stood at the top of the hill that overlooked Bonecrook's Orphanage. It was a dark night and the clouds threatened to storm, but this did not seem to bother the stranger. The collar of his black pea coat was turned up and its double-breasted fronts were tightly buttoned to protect himself from the glacial wind. Standing motionless, he watched the orphanage and the single light that shone feebly from one of its many rooms, knowing that he could not make his move until that light went out and that all the children had gone to sleep.

[This message has been edited by RSHACK (edited December 20, 2010).]

You're sidling up to a cliché in the second sentence ("It was a dark and stormy night") -- perhaps change "dark" to some other descriptor?

I trip a little over "standing motionless, ..." -- perhaps "He stood motionless and..."? The rest of that sentence is a little "explainy," so maybe you can work it around to combine some of the elements in the second half with the standing information to suggest he's been standing there waiting a long while for that one, last light to go out. You won't even (IMHO) need to explain that he needs to wait till all the children are asleep, if you convey the sense of long waiting that way.

Two tiny niggles: "A tall, thin man" (add comma); there's an extraneous "that" in the last sentence, before "all the children".

Gots to be a better way to convey all that other interesting stuff you have in the story without shlepping through the whole, standing motionless on a hill on a dark and stormy night stuff. My apologies for the bad Yiddish. Heck, for the bad English!

In other words, try for a less cliché introduction, as Grayson Morris pointed out. I'd like to see a better 'view' of your man's POV. Something like this makes my point better.

quote:

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He stood on the bare hilltop overlooking Bonecrook's Orphanage. Clouds threatened to storm tonight but this did not seem to bother the tall man. The collar of his black pea coat was turned up and its double-breasted fronts were tightly buttoned to protect himself from the glacial wind. To any casual observer he'd look like a black pole holding a small briefcase. He watched the aging orphanage like a hungry wolf. The single light that shone feebly from one of its many rooms proved to him that all the children had not gone to sleep. He knew he could not make his move until that last, insufferably persistant light went out.

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Of course, I don't know where your story is heading, and this is just my feeble opinion, but I hope it helps you.

I agree that it is leaning very much towards cliché. I had hoped to play on that to throw a spin and to set familiarity for the reader, but maybe I did too much to soon?
Any good ways going about that or no?

PB&Jenny, your example shed new light. Reading it I felt like I, as the reader, got sucked in quicker to the character. I got stuck writing that first paragraph for months and see that I just got too comfortable with it.

I also felt the dark stormy night sounded cliche-ish, but to a lesser degree I felt the same thing for the tall thin man part. There was at one time a "tall, thin man" in the PI-Gumshoe genre. In fact, maybe because of that, this had a Gumshoe feel about it. Until he thinks about having to wait than its sounds like a Mystery-much the same field- or some type of Urban Fantasy bad guy about to do something that starts the adventure.

Inspires me to come up with my own opening for a UF Gumshoe adventure.
Kinda cliche-ish too but it could work.

Back to yours. Bad guys-inhuman or human are notorious for doing bad guy things: kidnapping, murder etc, on dark cold nights. So in that sense it being a rainy night and/or moonless night wouldn't be that strange. Just need to say it bit differently and maybe try for something unique...if there are any unique descriptives of a dark, rainy night left unused. It was blacker than... is probably over used too.

Don't know if this is a bad guy, sometimes good guys do something under the cover of dark too, but if he is a good guy you could try something like.

<<At least even with the cloud cover and threat of rain he could see better than on his last case. He'd stumbled into the demons belly where no light existed and even the light from his wood matches and cig lighter were absorbed. He had to cut his way out blind before the caustic stomach juices burned through his priest blessed rain slicker. It had been very close but that huge "rock" on that necklace he wanted to return to its rightful owner had done the trick. Once he was out he realized he had gone the long way through the are where the sun don't shine in that demon. After being sick he ran to the nearest river and jumped in. The smell alone had dogged his steps for months, and it had taken ten very hot showers to get him clean.>>

I know way too long, I got carried away but that was just to get the point across.

The man on the hill is a decent guy just doing his job. He is portrayed as a bad guy because his job is basically, with out getting into wordy descriptions, ending lives (kinda Grimm Reaperisque but more of a day job kinda vibe)
Which is why I did use cliches to give it that bad guy vibe to mislead the reader into thinking he is up to no good at first, when later you learn he is just a guy trying to make an honest living when he runs into the main character (one of the orphans)

I'd agree with the others that you're close to a "dark and stormy night" here. If you want that effect, you can't conjure it that way. You've got to be *specific*, to describe the sensory impressions in a way that the reader comes away with a dark and stormy night in his head. Rather than giving him the conclusion and letting him provide his own details. I think that's central to good writing: leading readers to a conclusion instead of telling them what to think.

If you choose to attempt that, you'll have to do it in very few words, or risk losing your readers before the hook.

I like the hook because it poses an understandable question for the reader to ponder: what is this guy planning to do in an orphanage? Too often new fantasy writers open with action that is incomprehensible.

One questionable stylistic tic that I often catch myself committing is the use of superfluous words describing the POV character's awareness of things: "knowing", "realizing", "seeing" etc. I usually find (see I did it there) that this distances the reader from the thing asserted. It *qualifies* the action, almost saying "this is the POV character's perception, not necessarily what happened." (I find) That's helpful when you want to be politely reticent about stating your opinions, but maybe it isn't the best style for narrative.

Plus "this did not bother the stranger" seems ...weak, amateurish- something like that.

I know the grim reaper day job thing has been used, but I only intend on using it to get the main character (the orphan) into the main setting, a world within ours called The OldWorld Underground where they harvest our souls as their energy source, and to show how their world works.

He turned up the collar of his black pea coat and buttoned down its double-breasted fronts against the night's glacial wind.

Would that work for you?

As to the didn't bother him line. I don't think it's bad so it could work as is especially since I can't think of a better way of saying it and it could be just me and my tastes.

The only thing that might work better is to say he felt something or another. Something like "The wind blew but he ignored it" Or " he barely noticed when the wind blew the icy rain at him." But again it could be just me, see if anyone else likes it or not. I think you have one vote each. even though mine is more of a half vote.

But if he had been the MC you could say something like, "The wind blew the icy rain into his face but while on the job he didn't feel it".

Ya the story is pretty ambitious in where it's headed, but I'm really enjoying the challenge of building it.

Good that it worked out even with my typo there.

I've had practice fixing that mistake. It is one of the things I tend to notice in my own work, I don't catch it every time and I usually don't catch other more important mistakes but as I said it's one I usually see.