When the raindrops hit the tarmac, they make a slight flash. Wish I could explain that better. Gloomy and overcast now, but the sky is lightening a bit.

Sorry, not to dismiss your question, but along the same vein; when my kids were young, we had a no tv after dinner rule. We read instead. I had picked up A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket on our much trusted librarian's recommendation. That night at dinner, before starting the book, we talked about first sentences drawing you in. When I opened the book, the first sentence was "If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book."

My daughters are 24 and have never forgotten that first sentence. My personal favourite is “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…"

Interesting beginning.

When I start a book and the opening sentence is a whole paragraph I know it is going to be a wordy book. And when I find myself editing a book, something I know little about, I know it is a wordy book. Most times I don't/can't finish a book like that.

Most of the time I would agree, jkayd!. The paragraph reaches right out and

grabs me...then won't finish and begins to irritate me...then loses me before the

ending because..."ok, yeah, I know rain...". I think there are times that this paragraph would grab me...but usually too wordy for me to settle down and smile and fall into the book. It missed it's chance by not knowing when to wrap it up.

Look out your window when it rains, what do you see?

Nothing similar to the author's view. The author probably knows very little about the nomenclature of a window.

Rain in central Ohio, usually accompanied by wind or strong breeze, fills the voids of the mesh insect screen, obscuring my view. The rain or hail would never make a pinging sound since the mesh screen cushions the impact. :):)

One of my favorite openers:

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.

And my favorite opening paragraph:

"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. 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. 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."

Rain is very light here, and I generally do not see raindrops until they hit the pool. I haven't seen raindrops hit windows in a very long time, except for a skylight.

I agree, Annie, that's a wonderful opening sentence, from Rebecca. I haven't read the book from which I'm guessing you quoted - Where the Crawdads Sing, but that's a great opening paragraph.

Haunting of Hill House I’d guess.

Jim, I found that the rain had those variables (intense, more gentle) when I lived in Vancouver, B.C. for a while. My sister and I would describe the intense rain as lashing against the window, and we would turn up the radio to drown the sound LOL! Then sometimes it would fall gently and almost mist-like. Incidentally, I love Allistair MacLeod's writing and really enjoyed his No Great Mischief (if I'm guessing title correctly).

Socks, you're likely right about Haunting of Hill House. Have you ever read the book, and if so, did you enjoy it?

My favorite opening line: The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

Michael used the word in a clever way, IMO. And there is this:

"The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it..."

From Black Beauty...opening paragraph that my mother read to me before I was able to read it myself. I think I remember more, but not sure.

"......some shady trees leaned over it, and rushes and waterlilies grew at the deep end."

Socks is right...scariest book I ever read, The Haunting of Hill House, and the original movie from 1963 with Julie Harris was the scariest movie, called The Haunting, I ever saw. I caught the tail end of it a couple of weeks ago again and it still scared the daylights out of me, despite knowing what's coming.

If you haven't read any Shirley Jackson, you're in for a treat. She also had a wonderful sense of humor. Her "Life Among the Savages" about rearing her children in VT was very funny along the lines of Please Don't Eat the Daisies.

"I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills."

From Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen.

Beautifully and delicately written. Robert Redford all but ruined the movie.

Second paragraph:

"She poked the fire within the stove, turning the half-burned lengths of wood so that they would burn more evenly. Some of the wood lengths were old fence posts or timbers that had been hauled from the shore before being cut into sizes that would fit the stove. Some of them contained ancient nails which were bent and twisted deep into the wood's core. When the fire was very hot, they glowed to a cherry red, reminiscent of a blacksmith's shop or, perhaps, their earliest casting. They would glow in the intense heat while the wood was consumed around them and, in the morning, they would be shaken down with the ashes, black and twisted but still there in the greyness of the ashpan."

Colleen, I was in the fenestration business for a long, long time. I know what nomenclature means.

A drawing for your consideration. And also for those who "liked" your put-down.

Your apology is accepted.

Respectfully yours,

Happy Easter.

The original question stopped me short - we haven't had rain for ages and I would LOVE to see some!

Our windows in this old Florida house are mostly jalousies, and set back under porches/ overhangs, so no raindrops hit them.

Michael, our house doesn't have screens over the entire window. We have screens that can be pulled down to cover the bottom half of the window, and some large windows have no screens at all. The wind does often blow rain against the windows, but I wouldn't describe it as a pinging sound. Perhaps the writer thought " pinging " sounded more 'literary',

Surely folks who live in cold climates have some kind of storm window covering these days. I remember in the '40s that one sign of winter coming was when the screens were taken down from the windows on our house and the storm windows brought up from the coal room to be installed. The house had been built about 1900. It was sturdy with large windows. I know many decades later windows were designed all in one with either screens that pulled down for summer or another pane of glass that pulled down from the upper window frame to become the lower storm window.

I heard the hail against my windows on Wednesday, on Thursday and again on Friday. I've only got half screens. But, definitely not a pinging sound, it is a tapping or clicking

Shirley Jackson is one of my favorites, but not for the horror books (I just don't like that genre) but for the books Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons. So funny! I saw a bit of Sally in my daughter from time to time.

Cape Breton (look it up) is not where very many people live. The idea of having fancy windows 90 years ago is something difficult to imagine.

This story, where I started this, is old and the folks involved go back even farther.

What got to me was a memory of Walter Cronkite's "You Are There" pieces on CBS TV in the 1950s. Read that first paragraph and then the second one and picture yourself 'there'.

Let us not discuss anymore the trivial, by the entity known as "Michael" and the use of 'nomenclature.'

Jim asked,

Look out your window when it rains, what do you see?

What we see and experience in 2020 will be different than 90 years ago.

I apologize for answering your question.

Michael- "Nomenclature" means "the names of the parts"- from Dictionary.com

"

nomenclature

[ noh-muhn-kley-cher, noh-men-kluh-cher, -choor ]

SEE SYNONYMS FOR nomenclature ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

a set or system of names or terms, as those used in a particular science or art, by an individual or community, etc.

the names or terms comprising a set or system."

So your illustration is showing what you should call all the different parts that could be on a window. It is not instructions for how to construct a window.

I note that your illustration does not include screens, so the rain would indeed hit the glass panes and trickle down as the author in the OP describes.

Your apology is accepted.

Happy Easter.