busyI see this a lot at Authonomy, too. I saw it in slushpiles. Writers, heed the warning: if you open with scenery, you put yourself at a disadvantage, and few people are skilled enough to overcome it.
When should you open with scenery? 1) Something freaky and important is happening in the landscape: say, green rain falls from the sky and dissolves everything living. 2) The landscape is crucial to the story, like a character in its own right, so it needs its own introduction: usually this means you're writing milieu fiction. If neither of those applies, and they usually don't, open with something more important and engrossing.
July 15 2010, 15:38:33 UTC 10 years ago