It was a dark . . . . . .

“It was a dark and stormy night, when . . . . . “

You know the quote and as many writers I have always wanted to start a book with this line. The fact that this start is thought of as the classic bad start to a novel has ruined a perfectly good description of a bad night. It seems that this descriptive line could be the perfect way to tell a story. We are hindered in our creative efforts because we don’t want to be ridiculed for using the perfectly constructed series of words. It seems that the organization that defines bad fiction had taken this sentence and uses it as the child of all bad fiction.
I recently read the line in a James Patterson book. In “Cross My Heart” the line is used to open one of the chapters. Since he can use it why not the rest of us.

Some of the time we make out decisions based on what we think will be best for ourselves but in many cases we have our decisions made for us based on how we think the world will perceive our actions. In this case a perfectly good open to a book has been made trite. It is not just used as the best sample of bad writing but as a perfect bit of humor. This line has been repeatedly used by Charles Shultz as the punch line in several “Peanuts” strips. It is the now classic start to a “book” that is being written by Snoopy. It seems that Mr. Shultz knew the importance of this classic line and used it for not only a humorous purpose but to convey a message that it’s use was not limited by those who want to make it a trite line. It is possible that the stories that would start with this line may be candidates for the worst writing or it may be that the story that follows is that target and the opening lines are only a victim of those who don’t want to spend the time to understand what the author was trying to achieve.
The use of this good start may be limited to stories that are set in bad weather but that does not limit the type of story that it can start. It could be used for fiction of many types. Horror, Murder, Science Fiction, Western, or even Humor stories are good stories that could have this basic description of a meteorological condition.

It leads to a conclusion that when you stigmatize anything you limit the use of that subject. Is it a person or a group of words you can’t ever think that you can limit thoughts without butting a fence around the object of your actions and those you make the use much more difficult and in this case you eliminate a great way to start a story in a place that has limitless possibilities.

Photo by Bidgee, through Creative Commons