Allingham.
Here’s a neat opening you might alter to suit your story: ‘It was an angry-coloured house, puce rather than red, and it skulked at the end of a narrow drive flanked with too many shrubs; an essay in Victorian Gothic at its worst.’
Look how the personification of the house is sustained both through a choice of colour reflecting the ‘angry’ emotion and then through its behaviour, captured by the verb ‘skulked’ which is suggestive of criminality as well as secrecy. The colour ‘puce’ is suggestive of deep anger and when we learn of the overabundance of ‘shrubs’ it seems as if the house is deliberately trying to evade scrutiny for nefarious purposes. The final pronouncement seals the description with its reference to the ‘ Gothic at its worst’ underlining the possibility that the aesthetic, physical ugliness of the building is probably a reflection of its moral excesses.
Practice.
This opening can be adapted to suit any opening of a story: ‘It was a benevolent-looking house whose cream and pastel blue exterior reminded the boy of a holiday by the sea. Not that he’d ever enjoyed a holiday by the sea but he’d read about them which felt almost as real.’
Or you could maintain the sense of unease: ‘it was a drooping, melancholy-looking house patchily painted in a jaundiced yellow and approached by a grey tarmac drive perforated by weeds. A pink briar rose housed in a converted barrel by the front door was the only sign of human care. ‘
‘The double-fronted house was black and white embracing the Mock Tudor fashion of the area. On the drive, the shapely, polished car gleamed under the security light. A quartet of dwarf shrubs stood to attention beneath the mullioned window which spent most of its day protected by blinds. Life was too good to risk untidiness.’
