Ken Arromdee <arromdee@rahul.net> wrote:
Snip stock dojo opening scene. Again, does this have anything to do with
your story? It's such standard stuff that it's more likely to bore off
readers than anything else.
It certainly bores you. But is there any real reason to believe that it
bores readers in general, rather than just poking one of your sore spots?
Well, let's see... There've been discussions on this on IRC, on the FFML, and at
cons.... I've heard many people other than myself complain about fics with stock
openings, even quite a few people who've said that they delete any fic on sight
if it opens with Ranma and Akane arguing about cooking. Not once have I heard
anyone say "Wow, I like this kind of opening! When I read one of these standard
fanfic scenes, it makes me intensely curious to know what will happen in the
story, oh yes!" Moreover, any decent how-to book on the subject will tell you
that a good opening is one that gets to the story's conflict as soon as
possible.
So yes, I have reason to believe that this sort of opening is generally disliked
-- or at least widely enough disliked that it's more than just a pet peeve on my
part.
Now what did YOU think of this story, Ken? Did you even read it?
Gary