Vasar Huineo's "The Starving Heart" - An Effective Opening In Just Seven Sentences · 5:03pm Jan 14th, 2021
I stumbled upon this fanfic a couple months ago, as it was recommended by a post from Seattle's Angels. It's a fairly decent fic, concise and well-rendered given its premise, but what struck me the most was how it opened itself up to the reader.
Here, in full, is the opening:
My wife and I have a ritual. It goes like this:
I tell the truth.
"I love you."
And then she lies.
"I love you, too."
We do it every single morning.
As writers, I believe we are always looking for examples into effective integration and accessibility to narratives, and this, by far, is one of the best I've seen - in any medium, moreover. I want to spend this post exploring why that's the case.
For how short this is - seven sentences, six short paragraphs lasting barely a breath each - there's something incredibly powerful in what Vasar Huineo has displayed so immediately. This immediacy is brought on, I believe, by the entire first sentence: "My wife and I have a ritual." In such a sentence, we are supplied with a great deal of information already.
First: the narrator is the second in a pair, and by the story's description, we know this is the husband speaking. This establishes already both our narrator and the characters we are going to see. In many workshops, and among many professional writers, a common piece of advice is to show the reader the main character as soon as you can - and while this piece of advice is, like most others, prone to exception, here it's executed faithfully and strongly. We also see the perspective we'll be dealing with: a close, first-person point-of-view. By its nature, this limits the amount of information a reader will receive about narrative events, but it also creates a question of bias. We are not yet sure if we can trust this narrator, if anything they say is necessarily "objective" truth.
We also can infer a distance between the narrator and his wife. The wife, here, doesn't have a name - at least, the narrator doesn't give one just yet. Later on in the story, we learn her name is Iron, but the deliberate subterfuge of not having her name be included suggests, to me, one of the story's main themes: disguises and crumbling identities. Spoiler alert, the husband is a Changeling, so this is remarkably fitting. As also stated in the story's description, we're effectively looking at a unique marriage and a unique marriage dispute:
A stallion cheats on his wife. He does not wish to, but he must.
We don't know the circumstances behind the cheating, but what we do know is that, for the husband, there is a kind of necessary meaning to it. Given, though, that in this case, the husband doesn't state his wife's name, we can infer that he is trying to distance himself from the act and the victim herself; by refusing to identify her at first, the husband reveals to what extent this act of cheating has affected his perception of the marriage. There are some psychological undertones, no doubt, as well as possible, unconscious commentary on marriage as an institution, but that's beside the point.
The rest of the story following this opening more-or-less progresses as an exploration of that dispute, but I wouldn't want to spoil anyone who may be inclined to reading this for themselves. I will end this section with this: through such a deliberate refusal to name the wife at first, Vasar creates curiosity in the reader. We know that there is conflict, we know that there are questions about love and validity, but why, and to what extent, and what brought the husband to this point - these questions impress themselves upon the reader and get them to read more of the story.
Second: the narrator, by using the word "ritual," codifies what act is to follow as something both habitual and sacred. To the first point, the casual manner by which the stallion remarks this statement suggests a kind of numb acceptance of the situation. The description pointed to this fact, but this part cements it as narrative truth. But based on the perspective, we are uncertain if the ritual is a ritual for both husband and wife; we are inclined to believe it is just the husband's, but that creates more questions than answers.
"Ritual" also has clear connotations of religious reverence, but it also has connotations towards more blasphemous avenues - rituals can be used to invoke old deities and monsters, as many fantasy and dark-horror writers are most likely aware. Now, we are not just intrigued; we may be a bit fearful for the husband. If we were to hate him based on the description alone, now we may be forced to question how valid our immediate reaction is.
We should also note the confessional tone of this entire first sentence. It's in present tense, but one gets the sense that the husband is speaking to someone else. It's possible that Vasar means (or does not mean, consciously) the reader, but it may also be that the husband is speaking to his own conscience. We are inclined further to question the husband's reliability, then, because how can a person (or pony, in this case) talk so candidly to their conscience and yet not act in accordance to it? Now, given the first-person perspective, even more scrutiny is cast upon this husband.
Following this admission, we are given an answer to the main question: what is this ritual? As the husband says, it goes like this:
I tell the truth.
"I love you."
And then she lies.
"I love you, too."
By breaking the dialogue into individual paragraphs and deciding NOT to set same-speaker and action on the same line, Vasar Huineo has created an attentive effect. The weird, off-putting way in which these sentences/paragraphs are constructed get the reader to focus on what each one says, as though the husband wants to draw special attention to how he qualifies the statements.
The utterance of "truth" being what the husband says he himself says is particularly important. Again, we are still working within the confines of a limited POV, so we don't know if this is the truth. But, we may have every reason to assume that the husband believes this is the truth.
And that "truth" is, of course, that simple line: "I love you." Yet, by its solitary placement, Vasar seems to want us to hear this in an isolated environment, much like how the truth is best viewed in isolation of other variables. Along with this, the simplicity suggests authenticity and a genuine effort on the part of the husband. He may actually believe, and therefore make it true, that he loves his wife. It's a sweet gesture, but this is, of course, readily removed in the next sentence: "And then she lies." The way that sentence ends on that verb, too, signals to the reader to pay attention. It's almost spat out, and yet it also sounds distinctly sad, as though the husband knows that this statement cannot be refuted by any evidence he may have. And what exactly does she lie about? "I love you, too." A casual remark made all the more bitter by the above connotations. How especially poignant and pitiful! - But, bear in mind, this is a stallion whom we know is cheating on his wife; and yet, aren't we drawn to him, aren't we made all the more sympathetic, and conflicted by that sympathy?
But of course, how do we know that the wife is lying? The husband cheats on his wife but says she is lying? How can that be the case? And, of course, Vasar Huineo doesn't provide an answer. It's up to us to continue reading in order to find a semblance of one.
Let us now look at how the opening ends: "We do it every single morning." Now we know the time of this ritual. It may be the first thing said or the only thing said. What's curious, though, is the fact that this particular ritual compared to other morning habits is the one that the husband wants to point out. Despite its monotonous nature, it is anything but monotonous. It means something incredible to the husband - but to what extent can we access that meaning, that significance, given what we already know and/or can infer?
I'm asking a lot of questions here because that's what this opening does. It raises questions, opens doors, but does not necessarily invite the reader in. It presents, as itself, a whole mysterious, dramatic conflict, which grabs the reader and gets them to keep going. This is, perhaps, the most effective piece of advice for writers who struggle with openings: the goal is to get the reader to keep reading. It's honestly quite the engagement, and that's what makes it so effective.
If you're interested in reading this story, definitely check it out at the embeded link found at the top of this post!
