I could use a little creativity help here. I literally start my novel with a BANG! My main character is chilling on the couch when a large explosion comes from somewhere outside, something like an M-80 firework going off, which intrudes on his lazy Saturday. I'm looking for a more creative way to express the suddenness, the loudness, and the lack of echo, reverberation, etc. The noise is not multisyllabic, like ka-boom or carump. If you've ever heard an M-80, you know that it is just one loud, startling burst, like whopping a phonebook on a granite countertop, or a balloon popping, but a whole lot louder. Does anyone have a suggestion, or will the first line just have to be... BANG!
I think you've already got the creativity, since 'It sounded like someone had whopped a phonebook on to a granite countertop' sounds like a pretty vivid description to me.
What's wrong with "BANG!"? You can always be more descriptive of the sound in the sentences or paragraph that follows.
One doesn't always have to start with a bang to get a good start. There are action openings and active openings, and it seems a lot of beginning writers feel they need to start with a "bang" of some sort. While there's a place for everything, an Agent will look dubiously at a pure action opening unless it's good enough to grab his/her attention in the first couple of paragraphs. The reason for this attitude is as I said above: many new writers feel that they need to start like that. I challenge people to go look at books published by new writers, in the big six mind you, and see how they start. I'll bet you that 80% or more are active openings. If one's into science fiction, then I recommend "On Baslik Station" by David Weber and "Crossover" by Joel Shepherd as an example of how to do this. Shepherd's book short listed for a prestigious award in his home country of Australia and is well written. While I'm not saying don't do the 'bang' opening, I'd recommend working on making a more nuanced opening then that. There are other ways to hook your reader.
I mean, maybe it's just me, but having an M-80 going off and calling it a 'large explosion' is by no means serious. It is definitely not a 'large explosion' and would do nothing more than startle someone for a second, but if you really wanted to scare someone, you could, let's say, have a quarter stick of dynamite go off somewhere nearby.. it won't cause a serious amount of damage, but it will probably be enough to shake the house, where the M-80 will do nothing of the sort.
I think it is kind of a cliche opening. The very first sentence of a story is one of the most important sentences. It doesn't have to be fantastic or flashy, but I think it should be relevent to the story as a whole, not just one scene. It does depend on your audience though. A big flashy "BANG!" at the start of a story may be good for the younger reader.
