I have been
dreaming about becoming a writer since
I was a child, and I used to write stories very often.
Yet I had a very
sadistic view about writing: that writing should flow
naturally out of you. That you shouldn’t fret about it, or else you were not a
‘true’ writer. If you put any effort whatsoever, you didn’t have much talent as
a writer. These were my views back then.
Anything that
would make my writing life easier, I regarded as ‘cheating’.
Now I embrace
anything that can help me write more and better.
One book that
has helped me a lot is What If?
Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter.
The following writing sketches are inspired from this excellent book and its
instructions.
The book advises
to practise writing opening lines for imaginary novels just to get the knack of
it.
The following
pairs are based on opposite ideas to make it easier. And it is easier because
now I am writing with a solid, concrete purpose:
PAIRS
OF SENTENCES TO BEGIN A NOVEL
BIRTH
A new baby
exactly at the beginning of the day, cracking alive together with the crack of
dawn, can bring nothing but optimism to our black, shabby world.
DEATH
A low moaning,
together with the cry of a bird, and the shadow of a blackbird, marked his last
moments of mortal sorrow.
MOTHER
She cast her
eyes down the small body, and found herself.
DAUGHTER
A twig made a
chirping sound –or was it a bird?– as Karen moved towards her mother’s table at
St Tropez.
RICH
Donna’s idea of
breakfast consisted beaches, sea, and at least five of her friends.
POOR
He looked down
at his navel, and back in the mirror, he touched briefly his eyebrows, his
mouth, his chest, and only then did he realise he was completely, absolutely,
terribly hungry.
Do you think
that these opening lines would make interesting novels?
What could be
happening in terms of plot?
What about the
characters these openings evoke?
Would you like
to write your own opening lines? It is so easy!
