Is this a good opening? Please?

FudgeBrace

Hii, this is the opening to my novel I'm working on. I was just wondering if you thought it was a good opening to the story? Any comments are welcome. Thannks!!
[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]
Somewhere in Southern California, Billy Madison was sitting in his rockingchair on the patio. He gazed up at the stars, the twinkling diamonds pinned on the sheet of black that is the night sky. It was a full moon, bright and glowing, like a milky eye watching over the world. Back and forth he swayed. The chair made a soft 'creak' noise, and every time he rocked, his straw hat slipped down his wrinkled forehead a bit. Cloudy night, he thought, as wads of shadowy cotton hugged the moon and then floated off peacefully.[/FONT]

[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]But then he saw something strange. Very strange. He saw one particular cloud float in the opposite direction to the other clouds. Like it had amind of its own, not commanded by the wind. It seemed to almost floatup and down, then up again. I'm just tired, he thought, I should get some sleep. He slowly lifted himself from out of the chair and tiptoed over to the door. The floorboards always creaked, even louder at night it seemed. Like each step he took shook the house. He didn'twant to wake up Miriam, she'd be fast asleep by now. He reached for the doorknob, but then he felt it.[/FONT]

[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]Something.[/FONT]

[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]There was something there. [/FONT][FONT=Sylfaen, serif]Someone[/FONT][FONT=Sylfaen, serif]there He felt a sort of, presence. Like something was there but just out of sight, just at the corner of his eye. A shadow in the back of his mind. He turned to face the darkness of the night. [/FONT]

[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]Nothing.The shrubs and trees shivered but that was normal, there was always a gentle breeze in these parts. He stared for a few seconds at the darkness. It stared right back. He grunted, must be nothing, he thought. He turned back to the door. That's when he heard it. A low grumble or shuffle, something. Like a whisper.[/FONT]

[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]Something.[/FONT]

“[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]Who's there?”, he demanded. His voice wasn't as convincing as he would have liked. “Who's there?”, he said again, his voice stronger this time, but it still shook a little. There was no reply for a while, then[/FONT]

“[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]Come.”[/FONT]

[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]Billyfroze. His eyes darted from left to right. He couldn't see a darn thing. Nothing.[/FONT]

“[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]Come.”[/FONT]

[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]The voice- if you could call it a voice, was harsh. It was like someone screaming in a whisper. It sounded like death talking.[/FONT]

“[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]Come into the night.”[/FONT]

[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]He tried to say something, but his mouth was dry, and he had a lump in his throat. A sweat broke out on his forehead. He hadn't realised,but he was shaking. And then, to his amazement, he started walkingout into the night. He felt drawn to it. It was calling to him. But it was like he wasn't really there. Like he was watching himself walkto his doom from some distant place. He walked out into the night,and the lights from his house faded as the darkness wrapped itself around him.[/FONT]

“[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]Yes,yes. Closer, into the dark.” The voice called again. It sounded like it was in pain, each word it spoke hung in the air for a second then drifted off. The kind of ghostly whisper that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up.[/FONT]

[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]The voice was clearer now. Billy was getting closer. He walked on and on until he came to an open field. A light wind blew and the grass swayed with it, making a 'shush' sound. He stopped and stood there for a while, confused, not knowing what to do. Then, he saw it. [/FONT]

[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]It looked like a black cloud, only this one was on the ground. It was crawling towards Billy. It rose up and up until it looked like agiant black finger made of smoke, or was it fog? It towered over Billy, looking down at him. [/FONT]

[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]It happened fast. Too fast. So fast, Billy barely had time to register the burning agony that ate at his body. The finger of black rushed at Billy and completely devoured him, enveloped him in blackness. He was trapped in a blanket of breathtaking and strangely thick cloud, and after a few seconds, he was gone.[/FONT]

[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]Gone.[/FONT]

[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]All that remained was a small pile of what looked like soot, and a straw hat. [/FONT]

[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]The mound of smoke gathered itself into a huge clump. It seemed biggerthan before. Stronger. It collapsed on the ground, and crawled over towards the lights of Billy's home.[/FONT]

[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]It whispered over to the patio, stopped for a moment, and then it poured itself onto the door, on the roof, and soon enough the whole house was covered in the black cloud. It poked through keyholes and slithered under doors. A shattering scream erupted from upstairs, butit quickly died out. After a few minutes, the house was gone, Miriam was gone. Nothing left but swirling smoke and piles of soot. It would later be found that it wasn't soot, but ashes. The black cloud rose from the ground and floated up higher and higher, until it was with the other clouds. It floated with them, whispering and grumbling towards the night.[/FONT]

bp1989

Straight away I see a problem: you're not getting to the action quick enough. Don't paint me a picture in the opening paragraph; that's where you should be doing all you can to draw me in. A good measure of whether you're doing that correctly is if you make your reader immediately go huh?!

If I open a book and the first thing I read is a description of the night sky, I immediately imagine the rest is going to be as equally uninteresting. I then close the book.

All that said, I love the idea of the cloud going in the opposite direction. That intrigued me and made me read on. But I'd consider moving that way up, as close to the first sentence as you possibly can.

You also have some slight grammer issues, but they're minor problems when compared to your structural ones.

Basically, how about instead of this...

Somewhere in Southern California, Billy Madison was sitting in his rockingchair on the patio. He gazed up at the stars, the twinkling diamonds pinned on the sheet of black that is the night sky. It was a full moon, bright and glowing, like a milky eye watching over the world. Back and forth he swayed. The chair made a soft 'creak' noise, and every time he rocked, his straw hat slipped down his wrinkled forehead a bit. Cloudy night, he thought, as wads of shadowy cotton hugged the moon and then floated off peacefully.

But then he saw something strange. Very strange. He saw one particular cloud float in the opposite direction to the other clouds.

You go with something like...

Somewhere in the Southern Californian sky, a cloud was moving in the wrong direction.

mistermatthew

bp1989 wrote: »

Somewhere in the Southern Californian sky, a cloud was moving in the wrong direction.

This is like. Also, the comment on looking at the stars, diamonds in the sky and all that and then commenting on the cloudiness is jarring. It paints an image of a clear night sky and then the clouds make you think as a reader how can it be cloudy and clear?

Just my .02c

FudgeBrace

Thanks both of you for your feedback. Sorry for not replying but I couldn't log in to my account for ages!!!

Antilles

bp1989 wrote:

Somewhere in the Southern Californian sky, a cloud was moving in the wrong direction.

That would make a fantastic opener, bp1989.

redser7

"Sorry for not replying but I couldn't log in to my account for ages!!! "

A good opening right there

Paramite Pie

I'd like to add to these suggestions if I may.:)

*Your first line, 'Somewhere in Southern California'? Where?! That vague 'somewhere' might work on tv/film when it appears onscreen but in a book we tend to know where we are if the characters know. We should know what Billy Madison knows. So give some us some hick-town name, pick it off a map or make it up if ya like. It makes it more real. Using 'somewhere' sounds like your just trying to be suspenseful 'just because'.:p

*As the others said, a sky is either cloudy or starry. Never both.

FudgeBrace wrote: »

[FONT=Sylfaen, serif]There was something there. [/FONT][FONT=Sylfaen, serif]Someone[/FONT][FONT=Sylfaen, serif]there He felt a sort of, presence. Like something was there but just out of sight, just at the corner of his eye. A shadow in the back of his mind. He turned to face the darkness of the night. [/FONT]

* You spend to long going on about 'something' in this paragraph. Try this:

There was something there. Someone there. He felt a sort of presence. A shadow in the back of his mind. He turned to face the darkness of the night.

I removed a sentence because your just repeating yourself. It was implied. Sometimes less is more.;)

FudgeBrace wrote: »

A shadow in the back of his mind.

I loved this line. A great way of describing it.:D

FudgeBrace wrote: »

The shrubs and trees shivered but that was normal, there was always a gentle breeze in these parts

Yes that does sound normal, so mentioning it is redundant. "The shrubs and trees shivered" is fine on it's own, maybe add a little more to it but I recommend you loose the part in bold;)

And finally;

FudgeBrace wrote: »

"It seemed bigger than before"

That's a speculative sentence so who is speculating.... Billy is already dead so who thinks it was bigger than before? The writer must be neutral and not share his or her opinions. There may be other ways of suggesting it's growth without saying it directly. That's the harder but fun part!!