Character Opening

          You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.
       --- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Setting Opening

          The tropical rain fell in drenching sheets, hammering the corrugated roof of the clinic building, roaring down the metal gutters, splashing on the ground in a torrent. Roberta Carter sighed, and stared out the window. From the clinic, she could hardly see the beach or the ocean beyond, cloaked in low fog.
       --- Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Action Opening

          The trawler plunged into the angry swells of the dark, furious sea like an awkward animal trying desperately to break out of an impenetrable swamp. The waves rose to goliathan heights, crashing into the hull with the power of raw tonnage; the white sprays caught in the night sky cascaded downward over the deck under the force of the night wind. Everywhere there were the sounds of inanimate pain, wood straining against wood, ropes twisting, stretched to the breaking point. The animal was dying.
       --- The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum

Dialogue Opening

          You know how it is there early in the morning in Havana with the bums still asleep against the walls of the buildings, before even the ice wagons come by with ice for the bars? Well, we came across the square from the dock to the Pearl of San Francisco Cafe to get coffee and there was only one beggar awake in the square and he was getting a drink out of the fountain. But when we got inside the cafe and sat down, there were three of them waiting for us.

          We sat down and one of them came over.

          "Well," he said.

          "I can’t do it," I told him. "I’d like to do it as a favor. But I told you last night. I couldn’t"

          "You can name your price."

          "It isn’t that. I can’t do it. That’s all."

       --- To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway