 Horror/Scary: June 13, 2018 Issue [#8941] |
  Horror/Scary
This week: How To Start A Story Edited by: W.D.Wilcox  
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How To Start A Story
Most of you already know how you should begin a story. But there are some who are still missing the boat. So I ask you, how many times have you picked up a book and then put it back down because it didn't hold your interest? I'm big on hooking the reader in the first sentence because if you don't, 'they ain't gonna finish the story.'
I've been working on something new which I will use to demonstrate this technique. Now the idea here is to make the beginning mysterious enough to keep your reader reading. It goes like this . . . .
Way off in the distance, an old, oxidized pickup truck barreled down the mining road kicking-up huge clouds of dust. By all rights, the truck shouldn't have been able to run at all, but that was just a small sample of the dark man's power. In the back of the truck, several crazed and drunk men whooped with laughter as they bounced and bumped into each other firing rifles into the air. The dark man pushed the pedal to the metal, his smile a filet knife, his eyes like pools of threat and hatred. The truck fish-tailed back and forth through the soft sand making the men in the back laugh all the louder, but mostly you could just hear the gunfire.
Death was coming, and he was bringing his friends.
Now remember this is a work in progress, but I feel it is a good opening because it shows the antagonist right off the bat and he is coming.
Then I begin the story.
In the vast, empty stretches of Nevada desert you could still find people. You wouldn't know they were there unless you stumbled upon some of the old mining towns scattered about, but there were folks out there, living, waiting, walled in by barren, snow-clad mountains that appeared gray and forbidding, shadeless, like heaps of ashes dumped from the blazing sky. There were no trees, no vegetation, other than the endless sagebrush and greasewood. Everywhere was dust, and everything was gray with it. Just to walk outside was like plowing through great deeps of powdery alkali dust that rose in thick clouds and floated across the plain like smoke from a burning house. The people, those that were left, were coated with this dust like millers; so were their animals, their cars and houses, they were buried in it, and everything held that same monotonous color.
When John Tucker awoke that morning the sky was a deep turquoise, the sun, a sharp, blood-red stone set within. He was smiling when he left home early to stop by Josie Pokes' place to pick up a one-month-old puppy. The dog was just a mutt, maybe a foot or two long from its head to the tip-of-its-tail, a perfect birthday present for Rusty.
"This one likes to go exploring," Josie said, wiping the sweat from her forehead. "The other pups stay with the mother, but this one wants to sniff everything. You better keep an eye on him."
"Will do, Josie, and thanks again," John said as he climbed into his truck cradling the brown and white pup. As soon as he set it on the seat the dog started walking around and sniffing the new territory. John chuckled. "You're gonna be a handful."
"Good luck to you, John, and mind the signs," Josie yelled after him. "Things could get real ugly, real fast 'round here if'n he comes."
John frowned. "I'm not afraid of him. He took my Jenny, he'll play hell trying to get Rusty."
"Mind what I say," she warned. "It's a shame that boy of yours can't speak, but it'll be a lot worse if'n he lost you too."
John flinched at the thought. "It wasn't always like this, Josie," he said. "It's the damnest thing 'cos he used to read out loud with his mom. When we lost her, he just . . . stopped talking."
So I've set the scene, gave a small amount of description, and then I plow right back into the tale with an introduction to the main character.
Rusty Tucker lay on his belly in the harsh desert sun, his mop of blond hair hanging across his face and hiding the red tint of sunburn on his cheeks and brow. With an intense expression he stared-down a horn-toad thinking how much happier the lizard would be someplace else. As he stared, the reptile became more and more distinct, and then it gained an aura. The backdrop of the desert blurred and became fuzzy. Rusty replaced that background with an image he had memorized from an old dog-eared National Geographic. The picture was of a beautiful rain forest filled with all kinds of green things. Once he had the thought in place, the lizard began to fade. Rusty's eyes darkened until they seemed to refuse light, and then he blinked, and the horn-toad disappeared.
There's the main character: he can't speak, has a unique gift, and is doing something interesting.
The working title of this story is "Invalid Item" and it will be done very soon. It is one of my dream stories, meaning, I dreamt it and then wrote it down. Sometimes those are my best. 
Until Next Time,
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GOOD BEGINNINGS
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DEAD LETTERS
Quick-Quill 
Please!!!! Post the link to this newsletter on the news feed. Every new writer must read this. This isn't a suggestion it is a rule! It's my pet peeve. The more I read the more I see the use of unnecessary words like The, Was, Were and the most over used word THAT!
Joto-Kai 
If you omitted the adverbs and adjectives in the first draft, the second draft should add them (where accurate) so that the third can consolidate them into more powerful nouns and verbs.
E.G. If I am writing about a bird, I could add that it is a stately, swarthy bird and later, it is a raven. (Unless I am E.A. Poe, in which case...)
Jeff 
Thanks for featuring the Sinister Stories Contest in this week's newsletter! 
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