Great Opening Lines – and Why! (Oct 2021’s Great Opening Lines)

I wrote in Great Opening Lines – and Why! (Part 3 – Some Great Opening Lines) that I’d share more great opening lines as I found them.

It’s been eight months since I posted some great opening lines. It’s been a while and it was worth it to find this gem; Mark Hayes’ Passing Place.

“The Greyhound pulled away into the thunderous summer storm, leaving in its wake a dishevelled, world-weary figure in the dark, deserted bus station.” – Mark Hayes’ Passing Place

Scene, tone, atmosphere, mood, setting, and character in twenty-four words.

Whoa!
Continue reading “Great Opening Lines – and Why! (Oct 2021’s Great Opening Lines)”

Sydney, Maeve, Blanche, and End-of-Day Cappuccinos

Everybody has an end of day ceremony.

Or should.

Ours is cappuccinos with a little something sweet (besides kisses and cuddles).

We also play a two-handed solitaire called “Russian Bank.”

No idea why it’s called “Russian Bank,” only that such is the name we were told and we’ve used ever since.

We play a unique form.

We work to help the other person win.

That way, regardless of the final outcome, we’re both winners, nobody loses.

At the same time, we improve each other’s game, each other’s skill level, by helping them see moves they missed.

Funny how cooperation achieves goals competition can’t even recognize.

Cooperation creates community. It must because cooperation requires more than a single player and requires all players benefit from the result.

It even allows disagreement. But not stasis. Whoever’s turn it is makes the final decision.

If the decision is faulty? Excellent. Something to learn from.

And if it’s not? Excellent! What we learned worked.

 

Linda Seger’s “Making a Good Script Great”

Linda Seger’s Making a Good Script Great is one of two books I recently picked up on scriptwriting/screenwriting because…well, basically because I like to learn, and learn I did. There are more pages dogeared, highlighted, and marked up than there are pages untouched.

 
Begin with the concept that storytelling is storytelling is storytelling and it doesn’t matter the medium because regardless of medium you want a strong, visceral reaction from your audience/reader.

Now recognize that any medium will touch on all aspects of getting that strong, visceral reaction to some degree; a character is a character is a character, a scene is a scene is a scene, dialogue is dialogue is dialogue.

Go one more to specific mediums emphasize specific aspects more than others due to that medium’s limitations. Literature can handle 1st Person POV handily, script/screenwriting not so much.

Recognize that and the next item is to learn ways to fake 1st Person POV in a medium designed for 3rd Person Limited/Omniscient POV.

And if you stop there and say to yourself, “But I don’t have to do that when I write a book” you’re missing out on an incredible learning opportunity. Sure, you may never have to do that in a book but learning how to do it and – more importantly – how to work with such a constraint gives you the flexibility to use that technique, parts of that techniques, concepts from that technique, modify it, et cetera, to make your own non-script/screenwriting work sing.


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Meteor Man (part 1)

We’ll round out the month with a relatively new piece, Meteor Man. First written in July ’94, I was never satisfied with it until my last rewrite this past September.

It’s a longish piece at 11,300 words, so I’ve broken it into five sections. I hope it’s worth it.

Enjoy.

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Meteor Man (part 1)

Singer sat arms folded at the asherpilot’s station. Looking through the forward, he watched their progress towards asteroid 480-SMN-10’s gut as he murmured the digdial’s readout. “Thirty point naught.” A minute later, “Thirty naught one.” A minute more, “Thirty naught two.”

La Velle, sleeping at the co-pilot’s station and with his back to Singer, snored gently.

Singer started raising his voice on the last digit, making a sing-song to alleviate the boredom. “Thirty naught three. Thirty naught four.” A green light flashed on his console. Beside it a screen switched from operations to analytical. The asher, a mechanical scorpion on caterpillar treads, slowed automatically and the hoppers on its back closed to preserve the ores already gathered. The digdial read 30.041 as the asher broke through into a cavern.

Singer lowered the asher’s main mormons and swung the high resolution sensors over the bow, making the scorpion lower its claws and bring its stinger forward. In the vacuum of 480’s interior the mormons touched the cavern floor silently. The high resolution sensors danced at the ends of their metal whips. The only sounds were the mormon’s counterweights sliding forward to keep the asher’s center of gravity stable and the subsequent wind down of its caterpillars. The repeller matrix, which made sure the excavation’s walls didn’t collapse on the asher, lit its stern, bow, starboard, and port with waves of red as it sought structural weaknesses in the cavern.

As the matrix’s oscillators quieted, its light stabilized into a cool, nightsky blue. The subterranean expanse filled with repeller-hued dark and the silence was complete.

The asher’s computer began displaying the sensors’ reports. Singer nudged La Velle. “Wake up.”

La Velle yawned and opened an eye to the forward. He shook and sat up quickly, his hands moving to his armrests to right himself. “What is it?”

“You tell me.”

“Shit.” La Velle linked Mainward. “This is Dig 480-SMN-10. We got a problem.”

Main came back staticky. La Velle and Singer’s asher rested deep in 480, a big asteroid with a weird elliptic which took it far out and far in, far out and far in. “What you got, 480-SMN-10?”

La Velle opened the link. “We’re not sure.” Singer nudged him and La Velle shook him off. “We think we got construction.”

The link responded with dead static. The asher’s digtime clicked off seconds.

Another voice came through the link. “You sure?”

Singer and La Velle looked at each other. Singer sighed. “Meninquez?”

La Velle nodded and groaned. “Meninquez.”

Singer took the link. “We’re some thirty deep. All the way down there was only planetary. Straight geologic. At 30.041 we come to a wall which the asher thinks is neither planetary nor geologic but which it does read as being 2500 orbits younger than 480 itself.”

“Okay. Surface and shutdown. I’ll have someone there tomorrow. Meninquez out.”


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Scotch, Cigars, Andre Bocelli, and Rabbits

Susan’s rabbits are at it again.

Merrily munching away in our yard.

The rabbits are at the point where they stay out when Susan goes outside. She says hello to them.

Her perky little voice goes, “Hello, Bunnies.”

And they look up, turn an ear in her direction, go back to tender leaves and shoots.

I decided to relax with a Scotch and cigar.

Susan asked me to wait until the rabbits had finished their repast.

It’s always good to know one’s place in their household, don’t you think?