ZeroSymbolic's low level openings guide.

"Do not learn openings, stick to opening principles. Tactics are more important at your level."

As a beginner level player you have heard this, or you will hear it everytime you ask about openings. With good reason, it is true. However, particularly when playing as black, you can sometimes be following the principles, and go down very quickly. Conversly, your opponent can violate these principles. So you know you have some kind of advantage, but you feel unable to take advantage of it. The idea of this little guide is to deal with those 2 scenarios. 

Before we dive in let's review the opening principles. After all, if we do not know them we cannot follow them, and a lot of times going down early occurs because we missed one, or failed to see how one was to be applied.

1. Develop pieces.

2. Do not move the same piece twice.

3. Do not bring out the queen too early.

4. Get castled.

5. Attack toward the center.

6. Connect Rooks.

7. Protect the King (Chief principle of chess, don't forget it at any stage of the game.)

OK, now the guide.

Part 1: White is able to open however he wants. Black cannot.

As a beginner, if you are offered your choice of color, choose white. The reason is that white actually has an inheritant advantage; he gets to move first. Since white get's to move first he can either make "good" moves and maintain his advantage, or he can make "poor" moves and loose this advantage. However, he cannot do anything so disaterous that he loses outright. This is why white can play garbage like moving a rook pawn as long as he makes a decent second move. Let's take a look;

Now understand that, and think about what would happen if black made a poor opening?... He would be in a lot worse shape because he doesn't have the luxury of wasting a move. Black must play smart just to stay even with white. If black plays bad in the opening, white gains even more of an advantage. Note: That in the cases of bad openings, the injuries are self-inflicted. The opposition need only to continue to play solidly.

Except...

Part 2: Defending the wayward queen.

O yeah, you know all about it.

You may be asking how he justifies his move in conjunction with opening principles. 

Well, he has developed a piece, he has fought for the center by defending his e-pawn, and most importantly he has followed the most important rule in all of chess: PROTECT THE KING! Necessity has dictated that he break the rule about the early queen, but since white has also violated that rule he has given permission for black to do the same.  
Remember: In the opening, white fights for advantage, and black fights for equality. This is why whites early moves are called openings and blacks early moves are called defenses. 

Many variations of the wayward queen exist, the commonality is that they all want to attack f7 and usually in conjunction with the bishop but watch out for sneaky knight attacks too. 

In the case above, black had to take extreme measures to simply survive, but sometimes black can take advantage of an early queen. Let's see an example of that.

Observe here that it took time for black to capitalize on white's early queen mistake, and even when he was finally able to do so, it was a very minor advantage. This is why we, at lower levels are advised to simply play solid, rather than to try to capitalize on our opponents errors right away, and I hope in this brief little guide I have illustrated the point to your satisfaction.