Sunday, April 25, 2021

Great Beginnings


HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: How do you choose a book? In the before-times, you’d go to a bookstore, find an intriguing cover or a book you’d reheard about, flop to the back flip to the cover copy, then—read the first line. Right? 

And how many times have you said: nope, nope, not for me. That Blink reflex readers we have is incredible. For better or for worse, we grasp what we predict is about to come—all from that one first line.

 Dick Belsky, an authentically wonderful journalist and oh-so talented writer knows the benefits of a good lede, right? And he’s been thinking about what makes a great first line.


 A GREAT READ STARTS AT THE BEGINNING... 
        By R.G. Belsky 

 There’s a lot of people who believe that the first page of a mystery/thriller novel is one of the most important things for an author to get right. Stephen King has said: “I am a real sucker for good first lines. I collect them in a little notebook the way some people collect stamps or coins.” Jeffrey Deaver agrees: “I firmly believe that it’s our job to grab the reader by the lapels in the opening scene and race them kicking and screaming through the book until the very end.” 

 Me, I feel the same way. The first page, the first paragraph, even the first line is crucial to me when I’m starting to write a novel. It is what draws the reader in for the next 300 pages or so of my story. 

 

My new book is called BEYOND THE HEADLINES. It features my series character, TV journalist Clare Carlson. This story is about a celebrity woman who is famous for being famous (think Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton) that is accused of murdering her billionaire husband. So I spent a lot of time coming up with a beginning that I thought would best set the tone for the reader. But more about me and my book later.

 First, I want to talk about a few examples of great book openings I’ve read over the years that are among my favorites: 

       Michael Connelly, The Poet “Death is my beat.” 

          The book is about a newspaper reporter chasing a serial killer, and it becomes personal when one of the murder victims is the reporter’s twin brother. That opening line is simple, dramatic, perfect for all the twists and thrills that follow. Stephen King - in a foreword written for The Poet - calls it a “blue-ribbon winner” when it comes to first lines.

         Lori Rader-Day, The Day I Died 

         “On the day I died, I took the new oars down to the lake.” That opening line - plus the title - lets the reader know right from the start there’s a great story ahead. How did she die? Did she die? We’re sucked into this woman’s story right from the very beginning of the book, which is - of course - the idea. 

             Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi 
          
 “My name is Kinsey Millhone. I’m a private investigator. I’m thirty-two years old, twice divorced, no kids. The day before yesterday I killed someone and the fact weighs heavily on my mind. I’m a nice person...killing someone feels odd to me, and I haven’t quite sorted it through yet.” 
            Wow! That’s not just a great opening for a book, it’s a great opening for the series. Doesn’t that make you really want to follow Kinsey Millhone through this and all the wonderful Sue Grafton “alphabet” books that followed? 

             Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl 
            
            “When I think of my wife, I always think of her head.” 
             Okay, you have no idea what that means - but you’re intrigued from the first line. And it’s perfect for the dark, twisty psychological thriller of a bizarre, troubled and violent marriage that follows. 

              Hank Phillippi Ryan, The First to Lie 

           “Without any sneaky fine print and knowing everything you know, if you could start your adult life over as someone else, would you do it?” 
              Yes, our own Hank Phillippi Ryan has come up with a killer opening for her most recent book. That first line really wants to make you start turning those pages to find out what this is all about and what happens next, right? 

               Okay then, what did I write for a beginning to my book? Well, BEYOND THE HEADLINES is a thriller about celebrity crime and also about journalist Clare Carlson - who won’t stop digging into the story and investigating until she finds out the truth. 

              As a journalist myself who has spent a lot of time in newsrooms covering both celebrities and crime, I wanted to set that tone for the reader from the very first page of the book. 

               So my book opens with Clare speaking: 

                “Death is a funny business sometimes. Especially in big city newsrooms, where I’ve worked for most of my life. 
               “I remember one of them where we all loved to play a game called Somebody Famous Died. The idea was to fantasize about celebrities dying and try to come up with the ones that would be the biggest stories to put on the air or on the front page.
              “Like say Kim Kardashian. In bed. While making a sex tape. With a man who was not Kanye West.  Or Justin Bieber (who had 64 tattoos at last count) dying from an infected needle while getting a tattoo of Selena Gomez removed for a new one of Hailey Baldwin. Or Oprah Winfrey - this was back when she was the biggest thing on TV, both figuratively and literally - choking to death on a ham sandwich. “Just like Mama Cass!” said the guy who came up with that one. 
                "I think he won the game in our newsroom that day. “It’s impossible to work in a newsroom and not hear a lot of gallows humor about death… 
                  “Death remains the biggest mystery for all of us. 
                   “No really understands it. 
                   “And so we do our best to avoid taking it seriously for much of our lives until one day it comes knocking at our own door. 
                  “And then it’s no laughing matter...” 

               Hopefully, that opening page will intrigue the reader enough to keep reading BEYOND THE HEADLINES. What do you think? 

              HANK: Good question! Is the beginning of a mystery/thriller novel important to you? And what are some of your favorite openings?  (And aww....thank you!)

PS: Dru Ann, Karen in Ohio, and Coralee! You won Remembrance! Message me!


 

BEYOND THE HEADLINES  
           She was a mega-celebrity—he was a billionaire businessman—now he's dead—she's in jail Laurie Bateman was living the American dream. Since her arrival as an infant in the U.S. after the fall of Saigon, the pretty Vietnamese girl had gone on to become a supermodel, a successful actress, and, finally, the wife of one of the country's top corporate dealmakers. That dream has now turned into a nightmare when she is arrested for the murder of her wealthy husband. 
        New York City TV journalist Clare Carlson does an emotional jailhouse interview in which Bateman proclaims her innocence—and becomes a cause celebre for women's rights groups around the country. At first sympathetic, then increasingly suspicious of Laurie Bateman and her story, 
          Clare delves into a baffling mystery which has roots extending back nearly fifty years to the height of the Vietnam War. 
          Soon, there are more murders, more victims, and more questions as Clare struggles against dire evil forces to break the biggest story of her life. 


 R.G. Belsky is an award-winning author of crime fiction and a journalist in New York City. His newest mystery, Beyond the Headlines, is being published in May by Oceanview. It is the fourth in a series featuring Clare Carlson, the news director for a New York City TV station. The first book, Yesterday’s News, was named Best Mystery of 2018 at Deadly Ink. The second, Below the Fold, won the Foreward INDIES award for Best Mystery of 2019. The third Clare Carlson mystery, The Last Scoop, came out in May 2020. Belsky has published 14 novels—all set in the New York city media world where he has had a long career as a top editor at the New York Post, New York Daily News, Star magazine and NBC News. He also writes thrillers under the name Dana Perry. And he is a contributing editor for The Big Thrill magazine.

61 comments:

  1. This is so interesting, Dick . . . I like your opening and the paragraph about the book really caught my attention. I’m definitely looking forward to reading this . . . .

    Favorite openings? Julia gets my vote for “It was one hell of a night to throw away a baby.”

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    1. That, of course is from "In the Bleak Midwinter" . . . .

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    2. Wow, that is a great opening line! Gotta check that out...

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    3. That is a great line by Julia.

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    4. It is, and I followed the series and will continue to follow, just as I followed Kinsey from her first line to the end.
      Intriguing look at first lines . . . I also take a look at page 69 or so, random confirmation of interest. <3

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  2. I agree with Joan! Also "Death is a funny business sometimes." Fabulous line, Dick. It hooks me.

    Barb Ross has a great first line in FOGGED INN. "Jule-YA! There's a dead guy in the walk-in." It's yelled upstairs to protagonist Julia Snowden by her crochety landlord, who runs the restaurant downstairs.

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    1. Definitely intriguing. There's a lot of good opening lines out there I missed!

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  3. No pressure, writers, but first lines are just about everything. They're like the handshake between strangers. A first impression that either makes or doesn't the connection that carries me to the next page and the next, etc.

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    1. Exactly! There's a lot of books that I've never read beyond that first page. They might be good books too, but....glad to see I'm not alone in my reading habits.

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  4. Congratulations for Beyond the Headlines, Dick ! Great opening.
    Beginnings that capture my attention are important but I don’t remember them once the book is finished.

    I began a new author to me this morning : Erin Bowlen’s All That Compels The Heart. Her first line was : “ it is an indisputable fact that when one part of your life is going incredibly well, some other part of your life will fall spectacularly apart. “
    I immediately wanted to know more.

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  5. Congratulations on your new release! On my TBR list.

    Julia Spencer-Flemings baby line is my favorite (noted by Joan). I found this one:

    "The morning burned so August hot, the marsh's moist breath hung from the oaks and pines with fog." Delia Owens, WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING.

    Love the book title, too.

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  6. Welcome, Dick! Lori Rader-Day will be so honored that you chose one of her opening lines, I know.

    Here's a great opening line:

    "They were in one of the “I” states when Zeke told Isaac he had to ride in the trunk for a little while."

    Laura Lippman, By a Spider’s Thread

    And:

    "My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."

    Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

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    1. Two more great ones, Karen! I remember the Laura Lippman one - but forget about The Lovely Bones. Perfect opening.

      On a side note, I've just read Laura's new one DREAM GIRL - and will be interviewing her in the June issue of The Big Thrill magazine.

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    2. It's always a good day when there's a new Lippman!

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    3. Oh, eager to read your article, Dick! Lucky you!

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    1. And some great ones others have suggested here...

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  8. The first line does set the stage for what lies ahead.

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    1. Right, Dru. And for me (and I think a lot of other readers), that's important..

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    2. Oh, I just thought--what a good first line!

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  9. I agree that first sentences are very important! I definitely want to be grabbed right away. I hate it when I am reading page after page with no idea of what I am looking for. Unfortunately, right now I can't think of any opening lines except for the ones in Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre.

    Looking forward to reading your book to see what happens next!

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    1. Lots of people have come up with more good openings here that I didn't know about. Makes all those books sound interesting, huh?

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  10. I have two favorite opening lines. First, from DEVIL'S CORNER by Lisa Scottoline: Vicki Allegretti always wondered what it would feel like to look into the barrel of a loaded gun, and now she knew.

    And second, from THE WINTER OF HER DISCONTENT by Kathryn Miller Haines: Some guys brought you flowers; Al brought meat.

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    1. Both really good ones, Annette!
      By the way, I see you're doing a virtual event at Mystery Lovers in Oakmont, Pa a few days before me. Best of luck with the new one. I'll check your launch out, and hopefully you can be there for mine on May 13

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  11. Welcome to Jungle Red Writers, Dick! That's a terrific opening, and YES it does what an opening needs to: makes me want to keep reading.

    Dick Francis was a master of opening lines:
    "They both wore thin rubber masks." (BONE CRACK)
    or
    "I don't think my stepfather much minded dying. That he almost took me with him really wasn't his fault." (TO THE HILT)
    or
    "I told the boys to stay quiet while I went to fetch my gun." (TWICE SHY)

    Open any one of his gazillion titles and be astounded.

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    1. I remember you used the opening to one of his books in the suspense class you taught at Grub Street! I now wish I had my mother's collection of his books. She read them over and over.

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    2. Dick Francis had absolutely the best opening lines ever.

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    3. Wow! I never really read much Dick Francis, Hallie. Need to start!

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  12. Long ago, might have been hundreds of years ago, in a cottage, half way between an English village and the shoulder of the downs, a shepherd lived. -- from Kenneth Graham's The Reluctant Dragon. I first had it when I was a child as an audiobook (on vinyl) read by Boris Karloff, whose voice, I can still hear in my head to this day.

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    1. Until this moment I'd forgotten about The Reluctant Dragon and how much I loved it, too. Oooh, and remembering those LP records, the early 'books on tape'

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  13. I think first lines are important. You want something to grab the reader right there at the start. But I wouldn't want to say it is the be all, end all either.

    After all, what if you have a great first line...and the rest of the story is a total letdown?

    Grab the reader...but make sure the rest of the book KEEPS the reader!

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    1. Well, yes. I've read some intriguing openings - that don't hold up for the rest of the book. But it's a good start!

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    2. Exactly! But you gotta start somewhere...xoxoo

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  14. This is so much fun--I love this discussion. The book closest t me right now--sitting on my desk beside my keyboard and next to be read is Clare Mackintosh's HOSTAGE. (Love her!) Okay, opening it now. It has a prologue, skipping that. And the first line of Chapter one is: "Stop that. You'll fall." Good one! What's the book closest to you right now? Open it--and tell us the first line!

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  15. What's the book closest to you right now? Open it--and tell us the first line!

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    1. Well, I had to use my Kindle. And the first book I saw there - because the author's name starts with A" - was from the great Ace Atkins. "Lillie Virgil had been bird dogging Wes Taggert's sorry ass for most of the summer, from Panama City to New Orleans and now back to Biloxi" - from The Shameless, a Quinn Colson novel

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    2. I'm afraid the nearest is one of my own - the top on the stack of ARCs of NO GRATER CRIME I'm readying to mail out.

      "Watch out, Robbie." Aunt Adele grabbed my elbow. "Here comes trouble."

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    3. "When the shoe dropped into her lap the foot was still in it."
      T.J. Newman in "Falling"

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    4. Joan, I just read that book! What did you think?

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    5. "They say the lucky ones experience an incredible, life-defining moment . . . "
      HER SECRET SON by Hannah Mary McKinnon (thanks, First Chapter Fun) <3

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  16. From Rhys Bowen's Above the Bay of Angels
    "If Helen Barton hadn't stepped out in front of an omnibus I might still be sweeping floors and lighting fires at an ostentations house in St. John's Wood. But for once I had followed my father's advice."

    I was ready to read Rhys' book after it was introduced here on JWR so I didn't have to read the back cover blurb. But there are times, in the time before lockdown, that I would pick up a new book/new author, intrigued by title or picture on the cover, read the back cover and then try the first page/paragraph and put it back on shelf. So, yes that first line/paragraph/page is the game changer for me. What caught my eye, in your opening for this new book, is the use of "death" instead of "murder." Don't ask me why but it has caught my attention.

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    1. I was writing my comment while Hank was entering her "challenge" to open the book closest to us and tell the first line.... I have a Kindle next to me.... :-}

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    2. Well, that's good on mine! Yes, I think a lot of people feel the same way on starting a book, Deana. Of course, it's a bit different maybe if it's an author you know very well. Like say Stephen King...he's get a bit more leeway from me! But then he's good at openings too..

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  17. First sentences can grab me for sure, but the rest of the story has to hold on to me. I was just looking at my TBR pile to see how some books begin.

    The scream froze me in my tracks, but the shout that followed propelled me out of my indecision and around the hedge line of the maze. The Anatomist's Wife by Anna Lee Huber

    If you want to put me in Hell, plunk me down in the middle of a party where I don't know anyone.
    Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center

    I wanted to die. No, actually I didn't want to die. Or live. I just didn't care. Dying would have been better than puking my guts out again in a bucket. Which wouldn't have been so bad if the bucket hadn't been inside a freezing Flying Fortress halfway between Iceland and England, trying to ride out a North Atlantic storm. And if there hadn't been a war going on, and I hadn't been headed right for it.
    Billy Boyle by James R. Benn

    Your opening is a great one, Dick! A newsroom full of wiseasses about to be touched by death.

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    1. Ha! Yes, a "newsroom full of wiseasses" is exactly what I was hoping to get across on the first page. Mixing comedy with tragedy from the beginning. And those are more great openings you just put out there...

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  18. “No really understands it." No one?

    Interesting discussion and some great opening lines/pages.
    Wasn't the "Mama Cass died choking on a ham sandwich" idea disproven? Perhaps your newsroom buddy didn't win after all.

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    1. Actually, I believe you're right about that. But "choking on a ham sandwich" was always the legend so....

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    2. Exactly. That makes it even more perfectly newsroom-annoying. xxx

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  19. This post is giving me anxiety and I am now filled with self doubt for every book opening I've ever written. Ha! That being said, I always open with dialogue because I'm a busybody and an eavesdropper and I feel like an intriguing conversation is a good draw. Excellent post, and I love your opener, R.G. Looking forward to reading Beyond the Headlines!

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    1. Thanks, Jenn. And dialogue is good too. Anything that grabs the readers' attention works for me

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    2. Yes, I agree with that! Good thought..and it just means you have to quickly give a setting in the next line.

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  20. So many good opening lines! One of my favorites is from Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale: "If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are."

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