Sweating the opening

Work is progressing (ever so slowly) on my first book.

I wrote the first chapter or at least the beginning of the first chapter and then I tweaked it mercilessly. As a new writer I understand this serves two purposes.

First, it will (hopefully) provide an attention grabbing first sentence and page. Second, the beginning will set the tone of the book for the following chapters. Editors are looking for a strong beginning and so are readers. A 97 pound weakling beginning is the kiss of death for any fiction manuscript (unless you are already almost famous). I don't even want to think about the fact that the rest of the book has to be good too.

I have no clue how successful this effort is so far. Witness my first sentence:

"Holy Crap."

The first sentence used to be an action sentence about a tiny boat getting thrown around by big waves. I thought "Pow!". (Or at least "Pop.")

When my first 1K of opening words were critiqued online:

• "Way too much telling."
• "Not feeling it."
• "Too many dialog tags."
• "Not enough dialog tags."
• "Are these the first paragraphs you have ever written?"
• "Your dialog does not sound natural. No one speaks like that."
• "OMG, you throw hases and wases around so recklessly."
• "Start with 'Holy Crap' which is buried in the middle of your first page."

Holy crap.

That last item was the only thing most could agree on. So I moved that dialog line to the beginning of the opening chapter and slept for three days.

Amid the constructive criticism several online reviewers said something like:

• "I can see you are a writer, you really know how to torture your characters."
• "Great story, can't wait to see your rewrite."

Were they playing with me? Were they serious? Gulp. Could I ever recover from this disaster I put into words enough to write something anybody ever would want to read? How could I add meaningful dialog to an underwater scene?

Only one thing saved me. I love writing. Now that I have decided to do it, I breath it. Even if I utterly and completely suck I have to keep going.

I kept on. After four online revisions my new friends decided they had enough of my torture and asked me to stop posting. One of them said, "You can clean this up on the rewrite."

Rewrite? When is the writing good enough to be finished? So far I have not heard a good answer to this burning question. Maybe with my talent, never. I hope not.

I recently submitted my first submission ever. A short story that at least two people liked. As to my bio all I could say was that I loved writing. My angle here is that I am so pathetic, I could be considered for a sympathy publish.

One last thing. I just had to have even more experienced writers critique the opening to my "book".

They both agreed:

• "Never start a story with dialog."

What now?