7 Opening Style Samples (may be combined with each other)

Identify :
1. Descriptively set the scene/ time/ context
2. Introduce theme (message) through symbolism
3. Introduce character/s in detail by description
4. Flashback from present 5. Mysterious event
6. Narrator personally ‘frames’ the story by ‘telling a tale’
7. Rising action: dramatic action, then flashback

From the southwest, the wind moaned like a wounded beast. Gathering speed, it ripped over the heaving ocean,
smashing the dark waves to boiling foam. Evening skies darkened as the bruised, heavy clouds tumbled into a
stampede of black and grey. Lightning scarred the skies, while thunder boomed out, like the sound of mountains
cracking. On Green Isle, a tiny stone cottage had a fire crackling in its shadowy kitchen. Before it, two large feet in
old boots warmed themselves, as their owner cursed the raging storm.

I want to tell you how it happened. But it’s not easy. It’s all a long time ago now and even though I think
about it often, there are still things I don’t understand. Maybe I never did.
Why did I even go into the machine? What I’m talking about is one of those instant photograph booths. It
was on Platform One at York station – four shots for £2.50. It’s probably still there now if you want to go
and look at it. I’ve never been back so I can’t be sure.

IT WAS hard, harder than I could have imagined, to take that first step offshore. The spell that bound me
to the island struck like a blow the instant my feet left stone, driving the air from my lungs, doubling me
over with pain. A yawning void opened in the waters before me, ocean-deep, dark and whirling, twisting
my guts with fear. And at the bottom of it, something moved, something bright and awful.

It was dusk. The dark, desolate silence made it seem as if he had stumbled onto a forest path. Suddenly,
the silence was rudely broken by a loud “Crack!!!” Jumping at the noise, he sighed heavily, a lump in his
throat - perhaps the sound of an innocent twig snapping roughly under a sneaker... He must find the right
path to shelter if he didn’t want to get caught and tortured. But he was hopelessly lost, stranded far from
the Safe Zone.

Leo shook off a flood of rippling goose flesh as his left foot touched the doorway of the ancient manor
on the shores of Dead Man's Lake. The threshold didn't even sigh, much less creak, as he had expected.
Some venue for a birthday party, he groaned inwardly-but that’s what best friends do. It had been a
soggy two-hour drive in from the highway and the old pine and cedar forest was swirling with mist
from tired clouds too heavy with the heavy rain to rise above the tree tops.

Slipping and skidding as they heaved a small beech log between them along the path, three young
creatures struggled toward Redwall Abbey. The intrepid trio kept halting to frantically shovel aside the
snowdrift building up in front of the log as they hauled it through the snow. Singing lustily, they pelted
each other with snowballs, their breath rising in white plumes as they ran around the beech log.
"Yow! You're a rascal, Baggo, leggo!"
"Ha-hah! I'll get you, Grubb. Take that!"
"Missed me! You couldn't hit the Abbey gate if you was stood in front of it, Runn!"

The long, draughty, underground passage wound endlessly, its murky atmosphere sending shivers down
my painfully arched spine. The rough, aged walls closed on me as I grazed past them, attempting to keep
my advance surreptitious, but something told me that I was not the first one to enter this corridor. The
coarsely cut stairs with jutting pieces of rock (on which I often stubbed my frigid bare toes) had gradually
disappeared into the looming blackness that engulfed me.
It was clear that the room had been abandoned in a hurry. Straggling piles of clothes trailed towards the
door; closet doors swung erratically at the whim of bitter gusts from the gaping window, and the shabby
carpet lay dappled with clusters of boot-prints. The intruders had been in their element. Rampaging the
countryside, villainously rounding up families like mine, forcing us into hiding, only to emerge in the
shadows. Subhuman. Yes, subhuman, that’s what those Nazis called us.