For those of you who don't know, I might be starting a novel! (eek!) Here are a few starting paragraphs to ponder. Message me or comment if you like them or have more ideas. I'll probably be posting a few more like them as I am struck by creativity.
Appetizer #1
The words will come. The words always came. He stood there for the longest time, waiting for the words to come. They hadn't yet. The blank page laughing at him from underneath his poised pencil was too much to bear. But, he had to do this. He had to apologize, set things right once and for all. The way he'd left things two years ago had haunted him ever since he'd left. These "hauntings" were growing more frequent now, and that's why he knew this had to be done today. He had to make the words come, because if he didn't, he'd be facing another sleepless night of tossing and turning and playing out in his head all the "what if's" and "had I only's". He was determined. So, he pressed his pencil onto the snowy white, pristine page and wrote the first words that came to his mind...
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Appetizer #2
"Run!" A voice from behind her shouted. She turned her head just in time to see her friend finish forming the word. Branches and leaves grabbed her as she tore through the darkening forest. How much longer until the trees emptied onto the road? Were they lost? It didn't seem to take this long to get into the woods. "I knew we shouldn't have come here," she thought, pressing onward. They had come on a dare, though. And she was never one to turn down a good dare. Suddenly, she stopped short. There was a light in the distance...two lights...headlights. "Look!" She shouted behind her. "We made it to..." She didn't need to finish the sentence--her friend was gone.
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Canary word: Present
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You've got a tense shift here, and it's really distracting (not to mention confusing), especially since it's not the only one in the paragraph. "The words would come" is a bit more consistent with the majority of the tenses in the paragraph, though there are a couple other spots you slip into present.
Appetizer #1 struck me as a bit overly wordy. You spend a lot of word count repeating things, particularly words like "words" and "page", and this repetition makes the beginning feel more than a little redundant because there is so much of it.
Cut down on the repetition, and see if you can condense the sentences a bit more so that they aren't so similar to one another.
Appetizer #2 was much stronger, mainly because of how it started in the middle of the action and kept on running. There was one little trip, however:
"Suddenly" is perhaps the worst word ever to start a sentence in an action scene with. It feels contrived, as if the writer couldn't think of a better way to show sudden actions.
What would work better in this case, I think, would be to trail off the sentence before and start a new paragraph with just "She stopped short."
It gets across the suddenness and importance of the action without having to use "suddenly".
Thank you! I'm in the experimental stage for now (fancy way of saying I can't commit to any ideas yet), but I will definitely keep posting appetizers. Probably will be on my blog from now on though
Thanks again for the review!
I love theses 'appetizers!' They are just great--giving you just a bite of a story. Leaving you there hoping for more. Are you doing any more? This is just so great!!! I'll be waiting for your novel! Your are a fantastic writer!
Great Writing!
Audrey
Wow I used a lot of exclamation points. LOL.