The final turn, “whatever walked there, walked alone,” is such a chilling, strange, and unsettling shift in the tone. It says, clearly and concisely: this story is scary as fuck. It makes no bones about the kind of story it is and its interests. Not necessarily genre in the big, book store category sense, but genre in the sense of “is this book for me?” And I think this opening does that incredibly well. One thing your opening must do is communicate to the reader what kind of book they’re in. There are lessons to be learned here, I think, so let’s unpack a little why I think this works. I want to talk a moment about why I love it so much.
Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.” Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within it had stood for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. "No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House has what I think is my favorite opening paragraph of any book I’ve read in recent memory.
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