: Re: Does my story beginning hook the reader? (dialogue + narration)? The following is the opening of a short story I'm writing: Erin stared at Ruth, eyes narrowed. "There was an earthquake

Start straight away with the dialogue. "There was an earthquake last night?" grabs me right off my seat - I'm thinking "holy shit, an earthquake?" The way you have it know, your story starts with an extremely passive act. Staring is quite boring. Not much happens when someone "stares." I stare at people all the time. Earthquakes, however? That is unique, interesting, pulls me the devil off my seat into the story.

There are some grammar mistakes, as other people pointed out, but I think you could make the most impact simply by truncating that first sentence.

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: Re: Does my story beginning hook the reader? (dialogue + narration)? The following is the opening of a short story I'm writing: Erin stared at Ruth, eyes narrowed. "There was an earthquake

More posts by @Angela458

: Does this snippet meander too much? This is a sequel to Is this excerpt's style too matter-of-fact?. Rather than rewrite the same snippet, I decided to write a second, adjacent snippet. I

: Less universe-specific synonyms for "squib"? I write primarily fantasy; recently, it's been brought to my attention that I use the terms "muggle" and "squib" informally fairly often in roleplay.

: Avoiding unintended rudeness or accusatory tones in reminder emails I am in one of the newsletter teams of my company. Last week, I had mailed the Vice-President of our company to write an

: Differences in personal statements between American and UK universities? A friend has asked me to review a personal statement she's written for acceptance into a UK university. I have experience

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