First Drafts - The Prospect magazine blog

Giving advice on how to write well is a tricky business. In matters of non-fiction it remains difficult to add much to Orwell’s advice in Politics and the English Language :

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.

In matters of fiction, the only two tips I usually offer beyond these are to read widely and to write frequently. There is, however, an ancient and pernicious piece of lore that I (and, I would guess, countless others) would like to see vanished from the world: that of the “big opening.” Virtually every guide to writing short fiction I’ve ever seen contains an injunction along the lines of:

Come out swinging. The first page—some would say the first sentence—of any writing should grab the reader’s attention and leave him wanting more. [courtesy of wikiHow's "How to write a short story"]

Allow me to differ. Please, don’t try to convince me of your superlative talent within the space of two or three clauses. Yes, there have been great novels with great opening lines, and great short stories too. But few things do more damage to my faith in fiction—especially when I’m reading through thirty or more submissions to the magazine—than a string of opening gambits along the lines of “It wasn’t the fact that he was dead that bothered him…,” “He never left the house without a knife and a length of rope…,” “After the accident I began to have visions…,” or “Tarmac. Hard. Against his face.”

The above examples are fabricated by me (I’m reluctant to quote from work sent in good faith to the magazine), but they’re representative of a disheartening trend. If a story happens to have a fantastic opening line, fine. But there is no formula for good writing, and it’s precisely because of this that anything which smacks of a formula is anathema to good fiction.

Which I suppose is tip number three from me.