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There’s definitely an art to beginning a story. Some writers just have the knack for giving us a compelling opening, and sadly others don’t. What’s a real shame is that a lot of the writers who lack the knack are truly great writers – but they won’t get read because the story was picked up and then quickly put back down.

If you are a writer, then there’s a reasonably high chance that you have shared your work with someone else: someone who will read the whole thing, if only because they love you. There’s a bit of a problem here if you are looking to get published. And the problem is this . . . how many opening lines do you remember?

As an avid reader (at about 100 novels a year!) I can’t say I remember more than a small handful. In fact, some of my favorite opening lines are as bad as those quotes that no one ever said. (Darth Vader’s words were “no, I am your father” not “Luke, I am your father” and Dustin Hoffman’s Graduate never says “Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?”)

In my favorite opening, Humbert Humbert writes “She was Lo, plain Lo, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But to me she was always Lolita.” Yes, that’s a mouthful. And if you check it you’ll see that I’ve bungled the ending. You’ll also see that it’s the second paragraph and not the opening line.

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I could go on about grammar and such. I don’t always speak correctly, or write correctly. But I do like to think that I know what ‘correctly’ is. And I do wince when I hear someone say “Whenever I was ten, I used to . . .” as though being ten years old was something that happened occasionally.

I do see the irony in “Ten items or less”. Yes, it should be ‘fewer’. ‘Less’ is for things you can’t count, like sand on a beach or bread flour. You measure it, but you don’t count it. The sheer fact that we are supposed to count how many items we have in our cart means we can’t have ‘less’. But that’s taking it a bit far.

That’s what I get for hanging out with a grammarian. Still, there’s a good word that many people misuse. It’s my favorite word to cringe over – Literally.

My Webster’s Handy College Dictionary doesn’t even have ‘literally’ as a listed word. You have to look up ‘literal’ and figure it out for yourself. But it means ‘exactly what the words mean’.

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Not only is there bad science fiction out in the world of TV, there’s just a lot of . . . well production that could use a fact checker (or three).

Some of the worst offending shows have – thankfully – gone off the air. Need I even say “Tru Calling”? The show had an interesting concept, but got so many basics wrong it was just difficult to watch.

The second episode had a firefighter who died while rushing into a building to save a little girl. He went with no gear whatsoever. Okay, I can maybe buy that. But he did it with a truck full of geared-up firefighters right there on the lawn. He was maybe half a second ahead of the others into the house. Of course Tru couldn’t save him, it was just natural selection at work, my friends!

This show was so riddled with holes it was a veritable swiss cheese. Yet on TV.com the viewers are consistently rating it superb. Who are you people?

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10 Qs from Justin Sachs
I’d like to introduce you to Justin Sachs who is the author of a new book, Your Mailbox Is Full and is the founder of the Creating Possibilities Coaching Program in which Justin helps teenagers to increase their grades, eliminate procrastination, and create balance in all the areas of their life.

1. What do you do?
I work with teenagers to increase their grades, eliminate procrastination, create balance in their lives, and overcome any obstacles standing in their way of success.

2. Tell us about your new book.
Your Mailbox Is Full is a book for teenagers, that teaches them the tools they need to become successful in school and throughout their lives. They learn things like goal setting, time management, living a healthy lifestyle, and modeling and attracting success.

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That’s the problem with the largest bookstore and purveyor of, well, everything. It’s brilliant and stupid all at the same time.

There’s a wonder to buying books online. How did it get so big? As a bibliophile, I really like me a good bookstore. I like to use my legs to browse. I like the heft of a good carbon-based copy of a book in my hands. I don’t need an audio book to read it to me – I read quite well all by myself, thank you. AND I do the character voices in my head way better than any single reader out there. In addition to all this sheer lunacy I clearly exhibit, when I choose a book, I like to start reading it. (Does anyone say ‘Wow, That looks like a great book, I think I’d like to start reading it in three to four days.’?)

And yet, despite all this, Amazon is . . . well, Amazon. And it’s not just books. I’ve found so many things there (bedsheets, chocolates, barns) that I’m waiting for the day you can adopt a kid on Amazon. Think of the possibilities. You could see the kid’s picture, hear them read a book, get ratings from former foster parents . . . Now I’m just waxing poetic. (Seriously, if anyone knows about this already happening (or something similar) please email me: AJ@AJScudiere.com))

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I’m going to state flat out that I think authors should use different pen names when they write in different genres. I understand the desire to show one author can do it all, but let that happen when everyone gets excited at the “Joe Schmoe is really John Doe?” stage of the game. No one should force a different genre on their readers.

Stephen King once did the Nom de Plume thing, and he didn’t even switch genres. Hell, he didn’t even switch writing styles or word usage. I’m sure it wasn’t just me thinking, ‘hey, this Richard Bachman guy has totally ripped off ole Steve King.’ I grew more curious as Steve failed to sue Rick for blatantly stealing a style. But then I found out why. And I’ll be honest, I’m not even sure why Stephen King decided he needed a pen name to do what he’d always been doing.

Yet so many authors go out on a limb and write something totally different under the same name. Grisham quasi-pulled it off with his humorous Christmas story. King wrote fantasy under his own name (why? when he’s clearly not averse to pen names??) And a good handful of female suspense writers have gone back and forth between thrillers and romances (and covered all the ground in between). Unfortunately, I think they’ve shot their own gender in the foot.

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