This is a short mini-lesson on narrative leads adapted from Barry Lane's Reviser's Toolbox.

1. Leads

2. It was a dark and stormy night.
- Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford

3. It was a dark and stormy night.
- Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

4. Cliché
a trite, stereotyped expression; a sentence
or phrase, usually expressing a popular or
common thought or idea, that has lost
originality, ingenuity, and impact by long
overuse, as sadder but wiser, strong as
an ox, or faster than a speeding bullet

5. Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
• It is a parody fiction contest to create the
worst first sentence of an imaginary novel.
The contest is named in honor of the
author of Paul Clifford (1830).
• parody - a humorous or satirical imitation
of a serious piece of literature or writing:
his hilarious parody of Hamlet's
soliloquy

6. Miss Cardinal mused over the singularly
decadent manner in which Master Hammond
consumed the steak and kidney pie and was
reminded of the practices of certain cannibalistic
tribes with whom she had lived during her travels
in Borneo, not New Guinea, although New
Guinea is certainly nice this time of year, despite
the fact steak and kidney pie is rarely served
there, at least not the kind made from sheep or
cows.
• Brad R. Frazer
Boise, ID

7. She walked into my office on legs as long
as one of those long-legged birds that you
see in Florida - the pink ones, not the
white ones - except that she was standing
on both of them, not just one of them, like
those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn't
wearing pink, but I knew right away that
she was trouble, which those birds usually
aren't.
• Eric Rice
Sun Prairie, WI

8. Agent 53986262.9 was strapped precariously to
a giant Chinese firework, the fuse slowly
shortening like a noodle getting slurped into
someone's pursed lips, and although he knew
he was running out of time and still had no plan
for escape, all he could think of was the song
about the Muffin Man and how the word
"polyurethane" made it sound like the material
was made out of multiple urethras.
• Allison Kelly
Great Falls, VA

9. They had but one last remaining night together,
so they embraced each other as tightly as that
two-flavour entwined string cheese that is
orange and yellowish-white, the orange probably
being a bland Cheddar and the white ...
Mozzarella, although it could possibly be
Provolone or just plain American, as it really
doesn't taste distinctly dissimilar from the
orange, yet they would have you believe it does
by colouring it differently.
• Mariann Simms
Alabama

10. Leads
• Leads are not topic sentences. Leads are
not introductions. Leads are seeds that
help a writer begin to figure out where the
plant in the story is growing. They are an
organizational tool, a motivational tool,
and a springboard into a piece of writing.
They also lead us to endings.

11. Action Leads
• Jump right into your story by starting with
something happening - action.
• Every so often that dead dog dreams me
up again.
- Dog Heaven By Stephanie Vaughn

12. Snapshot Leads
• Create a picture in the reader’s mind.
• The doorman of the Kilmarnock was six
foot two. He wore a pale blue uniform, and
white gloves made his hands look
enormous. He opened the door of the
yellow taxi as gently as an old maid
stroking a cat.
- Smart Alec Kill By Raymond Chandler

13. Dialogue Leads
• Maybe you want to start with a line or two
of dialogue.
• “Where is Papa going with that ax?” said
Fern to her mother as they were setting
the table for breakfast.
- Charlotte’s Web By E.B. White

14. Thinking Leads
• Start with a character’s or narrator’s
thought.
• As a boy, I never knew where my mother
was from – where she was born, who her
parents were.
- The Color of Water By James McBride

15. Misleading Leads
• Set up expectations, then surprise the
reader.
• I would like to die peacefully in my sleep
like my grandfather, not terrified and
screaming like the other people in the car.
- Prairie Home Companion
By Garrison Keillor

16. Set-up Leads
• Set-up the action for the whole story in a few
sentences. (exposition without a lead before it)
• In the early days of America when men wore
ruffles on their shirts and buckles on their shoes,
when they rode horseback and swore allegiance
to the King of England, there lived in Boston a
man who cared for none of these things. His
name was Samuel Adams. His clothes were
shabby and plain, he refused to get on a horse,
and he hated the King of England.
- Why Don’t You Get a Horse, Sam Adams?
By Jean Fritz

17. Beware
Beginning a piece by asking the
reader a question is very risky
because that lead has been over-
used and lost its uniqueness. It’s
also difficult to avoid being
cheesy since frequently
the questions are rhetorical.

18. Practice
• Pretend you are the author of one of the
following fairytales: Little Red Riding
Hood, The Three Little Pigs, or Goldilocks
and the Three Bears.
• However, you have not yet written your
soon-to-be famous story.
• Experiment by writing five different leads
for the story, using five different types.

19. Example
• Jack and the Beanstalk

20. Snapshot Lead
The lines in her face had deepened,
and her eyes were slowly becoming
glazed over. None of the old sparkle
flickered in her eyes as they bore into his
across the long, dirt path. Standing
beneath the slanted doorframe, his mother
looked as rundown and ancient as the
farm. Jack sighed and curled his fingers
around the beans in his pocket.

21. Dialogue Lead
“You did what!” Jack hadn’t heard his
mother’s voice reach that volume in ages.
He set about trying to calm her.
“Look, it’s not like the cow had any milk
left in her or anything,” he stated
reassuringly.
“That’s the most ridiculous defense for
your actions I could ever imagine!” his
mother sputtered, her eyes storming.

22. Works Cited
• Cliché Definition - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cliche
• Parody Definition - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/parody
• Snoopy Cartoon - http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s281/lochbriar/snoopy.jpg
• Bulwer-Lytton Contest - http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/
• Lead information – adapted from Reviser’s Toolbox by Barry Lane, Discover Writing
Press, Shoreham, Vermont, 1999.