First things first...

Saw Dame Edna Everage on the One
Show the other night.  Oh my goodness – stirred a strange sensation in my stomach!
 Once upon a time I interviewed  “her” while working as a BBC TV presenter. What an experience. Technically I was
the one doing the interview but dear Edna had done her research and seemed to  know as much about me as I did about  “her”.
 By the time she was asking after my  family and home life in alarming detail,  there was real sweat on my brow. Where  would this go next? How MUCH did she know about me. Beam me  up!

 If anyone reading this knows the  glamorous  Dame Edna, please be  reassured that – cross my
gladioli -  I am a big fan – but there is no question   in any TV studio, who has the upper hand.  Respect!

 All of which points neatly to the  subject I was planning to write about this week.  Opening lines.

 Throughout all my years as a  journalist, whether interviewing a TV icon or someone “ordinary” with an
extraordinary story to share, I always wait for what I can only describe as “the  moment”. It is that special awareness that you have hit upon the opening to your  written feature or the sound clip for telly.

 News coverage is very different, of  course, because you are looking more simply for the strongest and most current  line but with features and lifestyle writing or filming, it is that special   hook you are after.  The
unusual. The offbeat.

 And you will guess now where I am  going with this because it is precisely the same in fiction.  We  all know that openings – for both short stories and novels -  need  to engage immediately. To pull the reader right in.   We are told this over and over but I wonder if we always listen quite in  the way that we should.

 It doesn’t mean, please note,  that we should panic. Drive ourselves to writer’s  block.  Chances are there are a
  million options for a first line so try one for size -  aware  that you can always change it ( and will probably want to).  The crucial point is to recognise its  importance but not to let that paralyse  you.

 For myself – when writing features,  I admit to relaxing inwardly when I hit  upon the“moment”. The ping in my brain as I clock my opening line – but I don’t  allow that to distract me from the interview as a whole. I just have faith that  the“moment” will come at some point. It may be at the beginning of the  interview….or it may be the very reason the guest has to end the interview early  – “sorry, just got to tend my competition marrow. Judging is Saturday…”  Ping!

 And if I were writing a feature  right now on that interview with Dame  Edna?

 “I began to sweat when Dame Edna  asked after my dog…..by name." 

You get the  drift…


 

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