ABC Writers Network

Your First Paragraphs Is Your Most Important Paragraph.

If you don’t get the readers attention with your first paragraph chances are you’ve lost them!

We’re living in a fast moving world people want answers NOW. Make the first sentence of your short story count. Begin with tension and immediacy.

Remember also it’s a short story you are writing not a novel so you haven’t that many words to play around with.

Here’s a great opening paragraph from Poe’s ‘A Tell-tale Heart’

“True! – nervous – very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses – not destroyed – not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily – how calmly I can tell you the whole story.”

In the very first sentence Poe has set the tone of the story and has told us a lot about the narrator. The first sentence leads you into the second. The first paragraph hooks you. You must keep reading!

That paragraph is worth cutting out and sticking on your computer. Poe was a master of opening lines read him often and he’ll teach you.

Here’s my top five tips for the opening paragraph.

1. Grab your readers attention and keep it. People who read short stories want a quick fix. Here’s something to keep in mind. Imagine your reader is travelling to work on a train and reading a magazine will your story grab their attention or will it be one of the other featured articles.
2. Make your reader curious. So you’ve got their attention now you need to keep it and one of the best ways of doing that is by making the reader curious. What is wrong with the narrator – is he mad!
3. Above all else to your own self be true. If your story is one that is subdued don’t treat your reader to a flash opening. You may draw them in with a great opener but if it’s not in keeping with the story then you’ve told your reader a lie. And it is difficult to trust liars second time around!
4. Dialogue in the opening paragraph above Poe began with dialogue. It’s worth considering opening with a short piece of dialogue. People like to hear others speaking.
5. Rewrite this is number five on my list but it is by no means the least important. Rewrite, rewrite, and rewrite. Can you tighten the opening paragraph up any; can you tidy the opening page up any? What would happen if you took out those ten words and substituted these six. No story, no paragraph is perfect first time around. Keep rewriting.

Travel or holiday writing is a bit like poetry - everyone thinks they can do, but few can. So if the holiday bug has got to you and you think you can cover your expenses by writing on the marvelous holiday well then here’s five reasons why you should not write that holiday report

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Thought I’d tell you a little bit about my morning and procrastination and at least try and get some benefit from it!

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The purpose of this post is to offer encouragement especially to those wishing to become professional writers.

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Earlier this month, June, 2008, a call for submissions in a SFWA-sponsored contest was posted on Craiglist and FLiXER, promising large cash prizes and publication. PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A FAKE COMPETITION - IT IS A SCAM

The ad ran: T

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. is currently accepting science fiction story submissions of no more than 3000 words. All genres of science fiction accepted. Winners will get published in a Random House book titled “Asimovs of the Future.” The cash prizes for winners are as follows:

1st Place: $10,000
2nd Place: $5,000
3rd Place: $2,000
10 Honorary Mentions: $1000

All winners and honorary mentions will get published. A percentage of the royalties for the book will also be included as part of the prize. The exact percentage has yet to be determined.

The entry cost was pitched at $10 and it was to be made out to “Science Fiction Writers of America.” The mailing address is a “submissions center” in San Diego.

With such a prize on offer it is easy to imagine how many people would have been enticed by the cash on offer and from an organization like SFWA, and a commercial publishing credit.

Let me state again THIS CONTEST IS A FAKE I’ve confirmed this with SFWA.

SFWA does not conduct writing contests (and if it did, why would it advertise them on Craigslist, rather than on its own website?). It has no San Diego address. Its publisher is Penguin, not Random House.

At first glance it appears that this is an entry fee scam - send your $10 and that’s it. But I’m left scratching my head, how on earth is anyone going to change a whole pile of checks made out to SFWA.

SFWA is investigating. In the meantime, if you’ve entered this contest, please contact Writer Beware immediately. If you have any additional information on this scam then please contact me so I can pass it on.

Calling all budding documentary makers! Whether you’re the next Nick Broomfield, Louis Theroux or Spike Lee we want to hear from you!

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Here is one you can enter no matter where you live. The prize might not be great but it’s free to enter and you don’t have to write any more than 1,000 words

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It is difficult for me to think of a world without electric, but not so for my late uncle.

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As a writer I am constantly engaged in research, one of the first places I turn to is Google.

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The BLR announces the 2009 Bellevue Literary Review Prizes in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry.

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