S.G. Browne

“To begin… To begin… How to start? I’m hungry. I should get coffee. Coffee would help me think. Maybe I should write something first, then reward myself with coffee. Coffee and a muffin. Okay, so I need to establish the themes. Maybe a banana-nut. That’s a good muffin.”
–Nicolas Cage as Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation

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Many a writer has had this conversation with himself (or herself), though personally I would be thinking about a blueberry muffin or a cranberry scone instead. Who am I kidding? I’m an apple fritter guy. So yeah, that would be my pastry of choice.

The point is, as difficult as it can be to finish a book or a story or a screenplay, there’s always that moment at the beginning where you’re trying to figure out how to start. Sometimes it’s easy. You hear some song lyrics or read something in the news or a line just comes to you out of nowhere and you’re off and running. Or rather, off and writing.

Other times, you sit and stare at a blank screen or a blank page and run through an internal dialogue similar to what Nicolas Cage does above. When that happens, you can spend hours searching for a beginning. Looking for the door that opens into your story.

I’ve had my fair share of both. And as I’ve mentioned before, since I don’t plot out my stories but discover them as I go, my opening line is always the impetus that propels me forward to the next discovery. I usually don’t have any idea where the story is going or where it’s going to end or what it’s going to be about until my characters start talking and doing things and letting me know what’s happening. So the opening line helps to get me going.

However, that’s not to say that I wait to come up with the perfect opening line every time. Something close is helpful. And even though I might think my opening is perfect, there’s always the chance that I’ll go back and change it to make it better. Or completely different.

My original opening to Breathers began with:

My name is Andrew and I’m a survivor.

The first chapter took place in his Undead Anonymous support group. It wasn’t until halfway through the 82 rejections I received that I moved the Undead Anonymous chapter to Chapter Two and wrote a new opening chapter with Andy waking up drunk on the kitchen floor and finding his parents stuffed into the Amana bottom freezer.

I don’t think that necessarily helped to land an agent, but I think it started the story off on a more active note. It’s not everyday you wake up and realize you’ve killed your parents and stuffed them into the refrigerator between the mayonnaise and the leftover Thanksgiving turkey.

While the opening chapter to my second novel, Fated, remained more or less the same and took place in a shopping mall in Paramus, NJ, the original opening line was:

I look at people and see what they’re going to be like in twenty years.

Eventually, after making some edits and adding a list of rules to the manuscript, I rewrote the opening to read:

Rule #1: Don’t get involved.

This worked on several levels and helped to tie some things together. It also set up the rule to be broken because that’s what rules are there for.

So even though the opening is important, just because you don’t come up with the perfect opening to start with, if you walk through the right door, the opening you’re looking for will eventually find you.

Below are several opening lines I’ve come up with that never wavered and led to two short stories and a novel that were inspired by: 1) a song from Beck; 2) my first novel; and 3) a writing exercise.

Grandpa only had one finger left and it was pointing at the door.
(From my short story “Softland,” which will appear in my upcoming e-book short story collection Shooting Monkeys in a Barrel, available March 27.)

Is it necrophilia if you’re both dead?
(From my short story “Zombie Gigolo,” inspired by my novel Breathers; “Zombie Gigolo” can be found in Shooting Monkeys in a Barrel, as well as in The Living Dead 2.)

It’s my understanding that naked women don’t generally tend to carry knives.
(From my third novel Lucky Bastard, scheduled for release on April 17.)

Sometimes, the first time is the charm.

I’m not one of those cool, edgy writers you see all over the place. I don’t listen to Nine Inch Nails or Metallica and I didn’t go through a Goth phase in high school or take up smoking. And I don’t dress all in black and wear Doc Martens to show my rebellious side. Hell, I own the soundtracks to Saturday Night Fever and Grease and I don’t think any party mix is complete without “Get Down Tonight” by KC & the Sunshine Band.

So instead of Metallica, you’re more likely to find me listening to The Beatles or Weezer. In high school I went through a preppy phase and wore button-fly 501s and Izod shirts and had three pair of Sperry Topsiders. My favorite band was Night Ranger and I had a haircut like Rick Springfield. And the closest I get now to being rebellious is listening to old Green Day or not coming to a full stop at a STOP sign.

Rather than black jeans and leather, I’m most comfortable in board shorts and T-shirts. I wear classic Ray Ban Wayfarers. And I own half a dozen Hawaiian shirts. If I could I would go barefoot all of the time. When I do wear shoes, I like my Chuck Taylors. And whereas most writers drink scotch or whiskey, I can’t stand the stuff. Chalk it up to a couple of bad experiences in high school with Chivas Regal and Jack Daniels. Give me a Guinness or a mojito, or any rum drink, and I’m good to go.

Oh, and that thing about writers and coffee? I never developed the habit. Sure, I’ll have an occasional cappuccino or mocha but never just a cup of straight coffee. I was 44 years old before I lost my virginity to Starbucks and Peet’s. And that was only because I was doing research for my next novel, Lucky Bastard.

So that’s me in a nutshell. Or in a beach chair with a cold Corona and some colorful board shorts. Now if you’ll excuse me, “I’m Your Boogie Man” by KC & the Sunshine Band is rocking on my iTunes.

I attended a writers and agents conference in New York a couple of years back and sat in on a panel where writers would read their query letters out loud to agents. The agents, in turn, would tell the writer to stop reading at the point in which one of the agents would stop reading the query letter and move on to the next one.

It was a harsh but illuminating experience for all of the unpublished writers in attendance, as not a single query letter made it longer than 10-15 seconds before getting the hook.

And they got the hook because they lacked a hook. That’s what you need to catch an agent’s attention. A good hook in the first few sentences that makes him (or her) want to keep reading. This is followed up with a couple of paragraphs that provide an engaging description of the key elements of your book, then capped off with a brief one paragraph description about you. The cook.

The hook, the book, and the cook.

While this isn’t the only way to write a query letter, it’s a fairly standard and successful method that has been espoused by a number of literary agents as well as on www.AgentQuery.com, which is a good place to not only find potential agents but to also find advice on querying and on agents in general. It also provides examples and suggestions for hooks and a description of what to include in your book and cook sections for your query letter.

AgentQuery.com is where I found my agent, Michelle Brower, back in November 2007 . This was after 15 months and 82 agents who passed on my novel. So the lesson there is: Don’t give up

The query letter I sent to Michelle for Breathers was included in the Writer’s Digest series “Successful Queries” back in July 2009. If you’re interested, you can read my query letter and my agent’s commentary on my query by CLICKING HERE.

Ribald and raucous and soirée and eschewed,
Sibilant, dulcet, omniscient and (yes) dude.
Blimp, murmur, plethora, zeppelin, and nerds,
These are a few of my favorite words.

I was recently asked on my Goodreads author group about words that I loved and/or hated. While I provided a brief answer on the original post, it got me to thinking about some of my other favorite words, which eventually led me to corrupt the Rodgers and Hammerstein song “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music.

To be honest, I don’t make use of all the words included in the rhyming lyrics above on a regular basis, though I am fond of spitting out eschewed and omniscient and plethora whenever I can fit them into the conversation. Dude is my favorite word, because it can mean so many things with just a simple change of inflection. And I don’t think there’s a more amusing word in the English language than blimp.

Go on, try it. Say blimp. Then say it again. Repeat it over and over. I’ll wait. See? I told you so.

Some of my other favorite words include:

Susurrus, salubrious, lugubrious, onomatopoeia, omnipotent, gargantuan, quintessential, ubiquitous, denouement, verisimilitude, denuded, culinary, milieu, bogart, apocryphal, gasp, haunt, and loathe.

Speaking of loathing, while there aren’t any words that affect me like the proverbial fingernails dragging along the chalkboard, I’m not particularly fond of the word gherkin. I don’t know why. It just rubs me the wrong way. Other than that, I’m pretty easy to get along with.

How about you? Any words that you love or hate? That just roll off your tongue or make you squirm?

2011 speeds along toward its inevitable end, leaving Halloween and Guy Fawkes Day in its wake, the holiday season no longer on the distant horizon but rising up out of the depths like some mythological beast, ready to smash us to pieces.

As you might have figured out, I’m not prepared for the holiday season. It seems like just a few weeks ago I was dressed up like Uncle Sam, selling illegal fireworks to middle school kids.

How did this happen? Where did the rest of the year go? When did Thanksgiving follow summer?

I guess it doesn’t matter. Thanksgiving is upon us, or at least upon me, and that means it’s time to reflect upon the things in my life I’m thankful for. Which is easier than having to deal with New Year’s resolutions. That’s way too much pressure. At least with Thanksgiving, I don’t have to worry about breaking any promises.

So I’ve decided to list the things I’m thankful for in the universe of writing. No reason. I just wanted a theme. I chose 24 because that’s the date on which Thanksgiving falls this year.

So here they are, in no particular order. 24 Writing Related Things for Which I’m Thankful:

1) My agent
2) My editor
3) My readers (Thank you for the support)
4) Stephen King
5) Chuck Palahniuk
6) Ray Bradbury
7) The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
8) The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
9) Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
10) The screenplays of Charlie Kaufman
11) Haiku
12) Spell check
13) Copy editors
14) Brick and mortar bookstores
15) The comedic writing of Matt Stone and Trey Parker
16) Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
17) Oscar Wilde
18) Mark Twain
19) Book reviewers (positive reviews are a bonus)
20) My writer’s group
21) My writing community (both in the real and cyber world)
22) The song writing skills of Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day
23) Lyrics by Lennon/McCartney
24) Books that aren’t electronic

That about wraps it up. Now it’s time to go make garlic mashed potatoes for the annual family gorge fest. I’m always in charge of the mashed potatoes. I think it’s because I use two sticks of butter and a cup of sour cream.

Happy Thanksgiving!