Pro tip: stop opening every prompt with 'The door creaked open'

I was judging a local writing contest last month and 14 out of 30 entries started with someone opening a door. It kills the tension before anything even happens because readers already know that move. How do you start a scene without falling back on basic movement like walking or entering a room?

3 comments

3 Comments

phoenixk644d ago

Friend of mine judges a crime fiction contest and she said half the entries start with someone waking up. I get it, you want to show a character isn't dead. But just skip to the part where they're already in the room and something matters. Start with the weird detail or the feeling instead of the motion.

olivia_lopez984d ago

Oh man, that's rough. Half the entries? That's wild. I get why people do it, waking up feels like a natural starting point, but it's so overdone. Your friend probably has a stack of "alarm clock goes off" pages she wants to burn.

jessica9214d ago

Wake-up openings work because everyone knows that feeling of disorientation. That confusion between sleep and reality hooks a reader fast, makes them feel what the character feels. Sorry @olivia_lopez98, but an alarm clock start beats a boring info dump any day.