In The Beginning

Where does the story start? Does it start with a scene? Certainly many TV dramas and crime story’s begin with the crime, or at least one of the crimes that will have to be solved. Perhaps the screen writer wants to lull us into a false sense of security, and so has the opening be a calm scene of small children and puppy dogs playing the back yard. If we are watching a crime drama, we sit there waiting with bated breath, expecting someone to run into the yard and snatch one of the children, or at least a puppy.

Of course if it’s a comedy, we expect that the swing set, the children are playing on, will collapse and the father will come running out to the yard holding a screw in his hand. He will be saying “I knew that this wasn’t just an extra screw.” His wife will follow, yelling that he should have gotten the guy from the store to assemble it. The father will defend his assembly abilities by responding that he could have done it, if the instructions hadn’t been in Chinese. [Side Note #1: If you are reading this in China, change the father’s comments to “I could have done it, if the instructions hadn’t been in American.] [Side note #2; Yes, there really is an American language, that is different from English. Otherwise why do you go to the “bathroom,” while they go to the “loo.”]

A romance drama might have the following scene be the next day, where the swing set is being repaired by the guy from the store. He’s working out in the back yard under a sweltering sun, and has taken off his shirt. The sweat runs down his sculpted chest, as the wife watches from the kitchen window. She’s stirring a pitcher of lemonade, and is planning on how long she will stand there watching him, before she goes out with a glass for him to drink. She brushes the ice cold glass over her perspiring forehead in an attempt to delay, what she hope will be the inevitable meeting of their hands in a meaningful back yard liaison.

Of course if we go back to the comedy version, just as she has cooled her brow, the kids suddenly come home from school and cool her ardor.  Each of the little tikes demands a glass of the lemonade that she was hoping to use in her seduction of the repairman. A quick sigh and she greets the returning horde with “Lemonade, coming up.”

Flip back to the crime drama and the scene changes to the kitchen, empty of all except the near panting mother. Suddenly a hand reaches around from in back of her and a gloved hand covers her mouth. She is being dragged backwards out of the scene. What follows is the police detective interviewing the repairman. The detective is saying, “So you expect me to believe that even though you and the victim were alone, someone snuck in and killed the victim without you hearing a sound. The windows are open and the front door is locked. Did the killer just walk past you working out here, and go into the house without you, or Mrs. Smith noticing?”

Back in comedy land, the repairman is yelling that he can’t finish the job because there’s a screw missing.

The crime drama has the crime scene investigator finding a screw clasped in the hand of the victim.

In the romance drama, the word “screw” has taken on a whole different meaning.

Of course away from the action filled world of TV, or the movies, we might pick up a book. Instead of rushing into the action, the author might give us a detailed description of the woman watching the yard. Her blond hair hanging loosely over her shoulders is blown backward by the slight breeze coming through the trees that shield the backyard. Her upper lip is covered with the dew of anticipation. Of course the repairman is still shirtless, and his chest is still sculpted, as we can tell from the picture on the cover of the book.