Time to write again! Oh joyous day! I shall concoct another
    precious jewel of a story, another crashing wave in the
    mighty flowing torrent of my life's work.

    To start with we must have a zinger opening paragraph that
    draws the reader in, strings him along innocently for a
    sentence or two, then delivers a sucker punch and knocks
    him for a loop. How shall I bait the hook? Let us try this:

        The lecture hall was packed. I had arrived early
        and positioned myself about two thirds of the way
        back, near a big floor-to-ceiling window. The
        speaker had the rapt attention of the audience,
        except for me. A little bird was perched on a
        branch just outside the window. It was staring
        fixedly at me, and I was staring back.

    There, that will do nicely. The reader, curiosity aroused
    by this narrator who is oddly out of sync with the crowd,
    will not fail to go on and read the next paragraph.

    But the next paragraph must wait for another time. Having
    done my duty to my art, I shall spend the rest of the day
    watching Columbo reruns.

1 responses total.

    Ah, another day, another time to write!

    I'm quite pleased with that first paragraph. It sets a scene,
    then introduces an anomolous element, a mystery. Why in the
    world is that bird staring at the narrator?

    What now? Shall I paint in more of the scene? Introduce
    another mystery? Thicken the plot? Yes to all three:

        With effort, I turned my attention back to the
        speaker at the podium. She was the star attraction
        this year at my college's Public Affairs Symposium,
        a noted newspaper columnist whose commentaries on
        politics and the national scene had won her numerous
        awards. She was displaying remarkable poise in front
        of the audience of hifalutin academics, a fact all
        the more remarkable considering her sordid gutter
        origins of which only I was aware. I smiled as I
        thought of that little piece of paper in my wallet
        that could send her packing right back to the
        gutter if I chose to use it.

    Heh, that should do it. A famous person with a point of
    vulnerability, an Achilles heel, and our narrator holds the
    cards. If that doesn't suck the reader in, I don't know what
    will.

    But I'm hungry. Hm, no food in the house, guess I'll have to
    go out. Maybe Macdonalds or Arby's. I'll bring home a bag
    of potato chips and munch on them while I watch more Columbo
    reruns.

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