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.

Reds prepare to take Bouchercon... again!

HALLIE EPHRON: Last year, there is no disputing that Reds took Bouchercon. We did a hilarious panel game show, a la Family Feud with Hank in the role of Richard Dawson.  The ballroom was crammed to overflowing. The audience laughed and called out answers and got prizes.

I was working the WRONG and RIGHT answer buzzers and the projector and trying not to pee in my pants. Julia's husband Ross kept calling out... let's just call them "inspired" answers--resulting in Rhys wrestling the buzzer away from him. While Rosemary, Debs, and Lucy racked up the score for their sides.

This year we're doing something a little different. "Somewhere Along the Line" invites you to guess the correct first line. And we'll be playing against each other AND the audience. So plan on grabbing an early lunch -- we will be!

Because the panel is FRIDAY, September 21 at 12:30 in Room 6!

So are we in training for this or what?
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I'm rereading the classics. Moby Dick. Jane Eyre. Rebecca. A is for Alibi. I know Rhys is going to try to stump  us. But WE'RE going to try to stump YOU! (And there'll be prizes, too!)  But Rhys, how is this going to work again?

RHYS BOWEN: Since I have been given the task of keeping this unruly mob in order, I've already started work at finding fabulous/interesting/unbelievable first lines hoping to stump a very knowledgeable audience. I also plan a few surprises to keep my panel on their toes-. After all, we have to let Julia's husband Ross come up with his own brand of wacky wit. 

There are so many panels that duplicate other panels from past conventions that our aim is to be fresh and different and amusing--and of course the best panel at the convention!

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh geez, way to set the bar high Rhys! I'm studying the basics of English grammar and syntax. I have no idea how this might the team, but I figure Hank's got the classics covered. If that doesn't work, I plan to twerk...

ROSEMARY HARRIS: I'll be keeping tabs on you gals from afar. I'll be at the Brooklyn Book Festival that weekend, at the other end of the Hudson River. My training for that event will be vastly different. I'll be channeling my inner "fuggedaboudit" and communing with my peeps. But Hank and I did a version of this at Deadly Ink and it was a great success. Except for the ridiculously obscure lines some people threw out.

No fair using any of the authors in Sarah Weinman's anthology!


JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I'm preparing by doing sprints, push-ups and leg lunges - all so I can hurtle across the stage, tackle Ross, and muzzle him if he gets totally out of control.

Since Rhys is the mistress of ceremonies, I have ordered and will read the entire ouevre of British childrens' author Edith Nesbitt so I shall be ready when we get the opening of The Wouldbegoods. I'm also going to swot up on sexually explicit romance novels, because I think Rhys might play against type. And if she doesn't, I've spent the month reading sexually explicit romance novels. Really, there's no downside.

Finally, I plan on  carrying this mug to the event.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I am, and will be, totally unprepared. I will depend entirely on telepathic communication from the audience, so they had better be on their toes!

As for our mini-quiz, I think I got five out of seven. (Am trying really hard not to cheat...) I do, however, recognize my own first line!

HALLIE: As for me, I'm looking for the Zone so I can get in it and practice my laser focus. Also wondering: will Google Watch be out in time? It's got to be the next best thing to writing first lines up and down the inside of my arms.

To work up our excitement, I've prepared a little pre-panel quiz. This should be a piece of cake compared to the challenges in store for you at Bouchercon.

Your challenge: Match the first line with the book by a Jungle Red Writer.
1. RAIN OR SHINE, that's what Ivy Rose had put in the yard sale ad.
2. "Listen, Jane. I don't think she's my real mother."
3. It was a hell of a night to throw away a baby.
4. Lots of people think they'd love to eat for a living.
5. As deliveries went, this one was somewhere between a balloon telegram and a bulletproof vest wrapped around a dead fish.
6. Erika Rosenthal woke, her body jerking to the whump of the bomb, the flash of light from the incendiary flickering against her closed eyelids.
7. There are two disadvantages to being a minor royal.

a. The Wrong Girl - Hank Phillippi Ryan
b. Her Royal Spyness - Rhys Bowen
c. Where Memories Lie - Deborah Crombie
d. An Appetite for Murder - Lucy Burdette
e. Never Tell a Lie - Hallie Ephron
f. In the Bleak Midwinter - Julia Spencer Fleming
g. The Bitches of Brooklyn - Rosemary Harris

A copy of one of these books to the lucky person chosen who guesses them all right! Did I say no fair using Google??

ON FIRST IMPRESSIONS

"A good first sentence knows about everything that will follow it and leans forward with great force, taking you with it."

**Stanley Fish in the New York Times

*********************

HANK:
Stanley Fish was in Maureen Dowd's spot in the Times...and had a wonderfully thought-provoking column.

It was about how he can pick a good mystery in the airport bookstore--really fast--as they're calling his flight.

He says: the only "sure fire" method? Not the cover, not the jacket copy, not the blurbs. He says it's to read the first line.

He has a clunker or two--but offered this as the one from the book he bought:
"Joel Campbell, eleven years old at the time, began his descent into murder with a bus ride."

He says "it's efficient, dense, and free of self-preening."

So--you all--what think?
**Does your first line pass the Stanley test?
(I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours...and I must say, after two years of working on my first novel, the first line in the soon-to-be published book never changed.)

**Does your favorite first line pass the Stanley test?

**What book is he quoting, anyway? Anyone know?

RO:
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." Wait a minute, that's not mine. I must have dreamt I wrote that. That, of course, is the compelling first line of Rebecca. I saw the movie many years before I ever read the book, or even knew who Daphne du Maurier was. How could you not be drawn in by that opening? I have changed the first line to my first book (BSP, Pushing Up Daisies, St. Martins Feb 2008) so many times that I don't exactly remember it - not a good sign, I suppose!! Omigod, just reread it for the first time in months, and it's too late to change so don't say anything mean..

"My first guess was heirloom silver, or maybe the family jewels, buried and forgotten years ago by some light-fingered servant or paranoid ancestor."

Needless to say, the wisecracking amateur sleuth's first guess is wrong.

JAN:
I think all the rewriting was a good thing, Ro. I really, really like that opening. I'm hoping that everyone adopts Stanley Fish's method for choosing a book. I don't think I've ever had an especially catchy opening line in my previous books, but I'm fond of my opening sentence in Yesterday's Fatal. (May 2007) Short but sweet.

It's not that fatals are beneath me.

That's my protaganist, Hallie, talking. The next graph is more dense, explaining that she's newspaper reporter and that she's talking about fatal car accidents. It sets up some of the changes, attitude and politics in the newsroom, and of course the fatal she's about to stumble upon.

Anyway, I did some rewriting as well. Originally, it was simply, Fatals are beneath me. But this was tongue-in-cheek, and I realized that most readers wouldn't be able to interpret it as such -- especially the ones who had never read Hallie before.

So it evolved, like your opening Ro.

So it's your turn, Hank, let's hear it!

HANK:
Between the hot flashes, the hangover and all the SPAM on my computer, there’s no way I’ll get anything done before 8 o’clock this morning. I came in early to get ahead, and already I’m behind.

(No, that's not my explanation of why I'm late with this blog entry. That's the first line--two, really--of PRIME TIME.)

And it is pretty fascinating, you have to admit, that you can tell instantly from our three lines exactly what kinds of stories you're about to hear.

In Ro's, someone digs up something sinister, buried long ago. And you're compelled to read on--because what's her second guess? And then, what was reality? And since your main character is a master gardener, that makes "digging" even more meaningful.

Jan's has a more world-weary tone, instantly. And obviously someone is dead.
And "fatals" instantly means reporter. And it instantly sounds like "Reporter who has to do something she doesn't want to do." All in 7 words.

And mine: she's busy. She's crazed. She's of a certain age. She has a job where there's some pressure and tension. Something is at stake. In the next line--you hear about "downstairs in the newsroom...."

Well, I'd love to hear more first lines...and talk about makes them work. Or not...

HALLIE:

Funny this should come up - I've just been trolling for great first lines as part of my research for a nonfiction project. My fellow Jungle Reds have great opening lines, sadly mine are fairly pedestrian novel openings (sorry, it's the truth...a problem when you're a writer and a critic). The best I've done is from DELUSION: "I woke up craving watermelon."

Here are some that are choice. Read them and see if you can guess the book...answers at the end of my blogette:

1. When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from his unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.

2. There once was a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.

3. If you want to find Cherry Tree Lane, all you have to do is ask the Policeman at the crossroads.

4. Nobody could sleep.

5. My sharpest memory is of a single instant surrounded by dark.


ANSWERS BELOW:

1: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka - 2: Silent Spring by Rachel Carsons - 3: Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers - 4: The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer - 5: Liar's Club: Mary Karr