Write an opening that would stop you buying a book

[BAYLOR]

It was a dark and stormy night .

Oh wait, somebody already used that one.

 

[Elckerlyc]

It was a stormy night. And dark too. The air was full with a howling and creaking and banging that made you wish it was not dark, so you could see what was howling or creaking, or howling and creaking, or banging. The wind did its best, but that night it could not chase the dark away. Or the howling, creaking and banging.

 

[Astro Pen]

It was a stormy night. And dark too. The air was full with a howling and creaking and banging that made you wish it was not dark, so you could see what was howling or creaking, or howling and creaking, or banging. The wind did its best, but that night it could not chase the dark away. Or the howling, creaking and banging.

That sounds like the kind of long dark night where you wish for the first glimmer of dawn to release you from the grip of the writer's demons that torture your very soul and make you ask...
"Is 7:45 too early to phone the printers to explain that you have changed your mind about the beginning of your book?"
Or have they already done a print run on the night shift AAAGH!

 

[Elckerlyc]

That sounds like the kind of long dark night where you wish for the first glimmer of dawn to release you from the grip of the writer's demons that torture your very soul and make you ask...
"Is 7:45 too early to phone the printers to explain that you have changed your mind about the beginning of your book?"
Or have they already done a print run on the night shift AAAGH!

And of course that night they did a nightly print run, for no particular reason, and which they had never done before. It was the howling, creaking and banging you heard...

 

[AnRoinnUltra]

somebody already used that one

No reason not to keep using it if it is reliable and works ...just like the Mir space station, or AC/DC's song format

 

[RavenLuvr5689]

In this action packed novel, Ex navy seal officer Valkeera Glyatszki discovers his best friend from Service has gone missing. When he tries to visit him by surprise, he ends up with the surprise. The walls were covered in red engraved claw marks against white walls, furniture thrown as if a person held onto every item possible before being taken, vases blown up across the floor, and worst of all bullet holes in the door frame. Valkeera knew something had happened to his best friend, especially after the things they learned overseas, this most likely was life or death battle with a big bullseye on both their backs.
That was a risk Glyatszki was willing to take, read this action packed novel of explosions, fight scenes, love, revenge. An all together blood pumping- adrenaline packed beauty. Do you dare to see what the end may be for these two soldiers?

I hate action whether its movie or book I just can not with how much fluff there is. I also feel like because it's action you're either waiting for the action or in constant action, there's no real suspense, for me at least. So this for me would be an automatic ick, I prefer fantasy, horror, or romance, if none of the above are in it, I don't want it.

 

[ScrappyScribbler]

What I Did Last Summer

It was a really fun summer and I had a good time. I want to tell you about the good time I had. I thought I was going to spend the summer with my aunt and uncle in the Poconos, but then that fell through and, well, I ended up staying at home all summer. That probably sounds terribly boring, but it was actually a lot better than you'd think. I was working on this basketball shot where you just kind of wind up without looking at the basket, and I practiced it over and over when it wasn't raining. There were some rainy days, and one time I stepped outside right into a puddle the size of a tub of water that's so full the water is spilling over the sides and covering the floor, and I got my new basketball sneakers wet. I spent all my allowance on those sneakers, and they were really white like frosting on those cakes at the store, but then I tried to wash them but there was iron in the water so they turned kind of a rusty brown, like they'd been sitting in a toilet after dropping a big load. But most of the time it was sunny and hot. One time I had this amazing dream...

And so on, ad nauseam. Without a single merciful paragraph break.

 

[ANV]

The body was still warm when I found her.
My wife. My everything.
Her blond long hair stained with blood, her beautiful curves lifeless.
She was my world, my everything. But I could not waste time mourning. Grief could not stay in my way. I had to find the murderer.
Find him and kill him.

----

And I am sure that the hero succeeded, cause those always do. And I am sure, that his wife did not have a name during the whole story, or a character ... or any other impact besides being dead. And I just cannot read those.

 

[msstice]

I put this book together from the discarded bits of my last book and my publisher is confident you will buy it because I wrote it.

 

[THX1138]

This book was written, edited and published completely by our AI; if it our AI likes it, it is guaranteed that you will too.

 

[JunkMonkey]

The approaching creature was repulsive, hideous beyond description: it was purple - but not a nice purple, the kind of purple that makes you think of bruises and rotten fruit; it squelched as it came closer like a sturdy plastic bag full of wet stuff being dropped repeatedly in an irregular 3:5 rhythm in accordance with its eight unaxisymmetrically arranged legs. It was about the size of two or three bison tied together with string and, to Delores's wide-eyed horror, it appeared to be sexually excited.

 

[Swank]

"Combines Asimov's depth of character with Crichton's embrace of science."

 

[Pyan]

"Combines Asimov's depth of character with Crichton's embrace of science."

"...and L. Ron Hubbard's command of descriptive language."

 

[Rufus Coppertop]

Handsome, square-jawed and totes-hunky Edmund, a competent and well-endowed werewolf, was also a broad-shouldered, deep-chested intellectual who was filthy, stinking rich and the babes were hot for him, that was a given.

 

[Rufus Coppertop]

It is a truth universally electrified that the handsome, debonair and aristocratic young electrician known as Malachi Sparks was not only sparktacularly competent when it came to electrics but was, my most dear and gentle reader, possessed of such an innate disposition towards gentleness and humility that he would always decline the indulgence in rampant displays of narcissistic frippery so energetically beloved by his peers.

And this, dear reader, did not sit well with certain members of his exalted social milieu.

Indeed they had taken to dark mutterings and a morally uncharitable plot to induce our goodly young Malachi to make a sparktacle of himself at his mother, the vivacious and humble, yet tastefully sparkling Duchess of Dynamo's coming ball.

 

[Toby Frost]

From the blurb of Buck Turner Overdrive, a near-future military SF novel:


He came to challenge a parking ticket. He walked away a hero.

When employees of The Government try to force Buck Turner to pay a parking ticket, Buck realises that his worst fears and the author's wildest dreams have come true: America has become a Communist dictatorship, and only Buck can save freedom. Forced to rely on his tactical black spec wet deniable ghost recon ops training, Buck takes to the hills and wages a one-man war against the Socialist tyranny of the Parking Penalty Enforcement Department.

Buck Turner Overdrive is the first volume of the terrifyingly plausible near-future military SF series The Chronicles of Buck Turner, Parking Ticket Warrior. Join Buck in the nightmare future as he fights Communist parking attendants and lives out the author's bizarre fantasy life. And remember - if you think it can't happen, you are the enemy. (All sales go to funding the author's own battle against tyranny and his parking fines.)

 

[Provincial]

From the blurb of Buck Turner Overdrive, a near-future military SF novel:


He came to challenge a parking ticket. He walked away a hero.

When employees of The Government try to force Buck Turner to pay a parking ticket, Buck realises that his worst fears and the author's wildest dreams have come true: America has become a Communist dictatorship, and only Buck can save freedom. Forced to rely on his tactical black spec wet deniable ghost recon ops training, Buck takes to the hills and wages a one-man war against the Socialist tyranny of the Parking Penalty Enforcement Department.

Buck Turner Overdrive is the first volume of the terrifyingly plausible near-future military SF series The Chronicles of Buck Turner, Parking Ticket Warrior. Join Buck in the nightmare future as he fights Communist parking attendants and lives out the author's bizarre fantasy life. And remember - if you think it can't happen, you are the enemy. (All sales go to funding the author's own battle against tyranny and his parking fines.)

This one would have a huge readership. Almost all drivers hate parking attendants. It's the only minority which doesn't have legal protection, mainly because government ministers hate them too. I don't have a car any more, however, so I think they're great, and that's why I wouldn't read this book.

 

[Provincial]

"Mr Tiddles was sleek, graceful, and ferally ferocious. He was also a cat. One day Mr Tiddles decided to change up his life, and began taking lessons in Kung Fu. His mythic journey from white belt to Grand Master while he struggles with blocked anal glands and yet still manages to save the planet is a 'tail' for our times, and a much-needed wake-up call for the Me-Me-Me generation."


Yuck. I mean, just yuck.

 

[AE35Unit]

That one's a winner. Meow!

 

[Toby Frost]

This one would have a huge readership.

Amazon recommended something pretty similar to me a few days ago and I thought it would be amusing to poke fun at the Red Dawn fantasy some people clearly have.