Sunday, April 22, 2012

Opening lines redux

Happy Sunday!

Since today is a day off from the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, I wanted to share a post I made on June 30, 2011. It's about what I feel is the most difficult part of writing: deciding on the opening line. I gave some examples of my favorites and shared some ideas about how writers can find their first lines. Enjoy!



For me, the most difficult part of any piece of writing, whether it be a novel or a short story or even my master's thesis, is usually the first line. As all writers do, I want my first line to be attention-grabbing and provocative, something that draws the reader in and propels her to the next line and the next and the next. I've spent a lot of time studying what are considered to be some of the best opening lines. I particularly like this list from the American Book Review.

I tend to gravitate toward simple, declarative sentences. I love very short, very succinct opening lines, ones that are powerful and dynamic in their simplicity. These are my favorites from the American Book Review's list:

  • "A screaming comes across the sky." —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
  • "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." —George Orwell, 1984 (1949)
  • "I am an invisible man." —Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)
  • "The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new." —Samuel Beckett, Murphy (1938)
  • "Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting." —William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929)
  • "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." —Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
  • "They shoot the white girl first." —Toni Morrison, Paradise (1998)
  • "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board." —Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) [This one is a particular favorite of mine.]
  • "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." —C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
  • "It was the day my grandmother exploded." —Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road (1992)
  • "Elmer Gantry was drunk." —Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry (1927)
  • "It was a pleasure to burn." —Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
  • "In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street." —David Markson, Wittgenstein's Mistress (1988)
  • "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person." —Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups (2001)
  • "When Dick Gibson was a little boy he was not Dick Gibson." —Stanley Elkin, The Dick Gibson Show (1971)
  • "Vaughan died yesterday in his last car-crash." —J. G. Ballard, Crash (1973)
  • "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink." —Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle (1948)
  • "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad." —Raphael Sabatini, Scaramouche (1921)

I haven't read all of these novels, but their opening lines draw me, making me curious about what happens and eager to read more. All of them are intriguing; all, to me, present a mystery--and a promise--to the reader. Each of them does exactly what a first line should do.

Opening lines can be difficult to write; so, of course, can opening paragraphs, opening pages, and opening scenes. What's your remedy if writing that first line proves difficult? Some writers freewrite, sometimes about anything but their novels, in the hope of inadvertently hitting upon the perfect beginning. Some lucky writers I know (I wish I were one of them) can simply skip the beginning entirely and go on to a different scene, returning to the opening when inspiration strikes. Others just have to keep working doggedly on that first line until they get it right. For better or worse, that's the category I fall into: if I don't have the first line, I can't write the story. Whatever the method of finding that first line, one important thing for all writers to remember is that even if the first line ultimately gets thrown out, it still served its purpose: it got the writing started.

Tell me about your opening lines. Do you have any that you're particularly proud of or perhaps ones that came to you easily or out of the blue? And what do you do when you begin a story and your muse refuses to cooperate?

21 comments:

  1. Very thought provoking, Dana. Oooo...I had forgotten about the first line of Fahrenheit 451...gives me chills. I should re-read that. Happy A to Z day off!

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  2. Sometimes we worry too much about opening lines and paragraphs. Good ones stand out because they are good, whereas most books open with average ones but are still good books.

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    1. Maybe, but if people can't get past a boring or poorly written opening, then it's likely they won't read the book at all.

      When I'm choosing the books I want to read, I first take a look at the beginning, and if it doesn't captivate me in some way, I won't continue with the book. To me, those first lines are "make it or break it." The writer needs to draw me in. That's his (or her) job. There are just too many books out there, and the writer has to make me want to read his or hers instead of someone else's.

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  3. How strange. I couldn't recite one first line of any of the poems or stories I had actually had published. I had to go look. I am so into the story that I could have told you all about what went on, but I had forgotten the opening line. How strange. Apparently I don't worry much about opening lines. ??

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    1. Maybe I worry too much. ;)

      Regardless, I still believe in their importance. :)

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  4. Good post, Dana. Those are great opening lines, btw. I guess I don't really think much about my first line (but I know I should!). Usually a line pops up out of nowhere as I'm pondering a new work, and I take it from there.

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    1. Thanks, Linda. I wish first lines came to me so easily. I can agonize forever.

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  5. Opening lines are tough. Here's a good one from Rick Riordan's, The Throne of Fire: "Look, we don't have time for long introductions. I need to tell this story quickly, or we're all going to die."

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    1. Nice line! I like the sense of immediacy.

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  6. I have a few I'm very happy with and others I will probably tweak to death until I get them right. But I LOVE that Toni Morrison one. WOW. Great round-up!

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    1. Isn't it great? So much power in so few words.

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  7. I totally believe in love at first line. . . it's everything. And it seems to be a good judge of the rest of the writing. When I blog, I sit and stare at the blankness until the right begining pops into my head, and I rarely tweak it after that.

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    1. I completely agree that first lines are everything.

      Thanks for sharing your process. I do much the same thing, although I do have a tendency to tweak.

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  8. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  9. Oopsie on the removed comment! I messed up. LOL :)

    First lines and paragraphs are so important. If it doesn't capture my attention on that first page, I'll move on.

    When writing, my first line and paragraph go through makeovers
    until my beta's tell me that's the one! :D

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    1. I completely agree. I've put down many books that didn't grab my interest right away.

      Good beta readers like yours are a real find!

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  10. That's a great round up of first lines. Although they're all very grabbing, the one I'd go for is the last. It rolls off my internal reader so fluently. A lot of the others, while great lines, would make me wince away though.

    Interesting how impactful they are.

    Oh - new follower by the way :)

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    1. Thanks for the comment--and the follow!

      That last one is one of my very favorite ones as well.

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  11. Recently I had what I thought was a great opening to a novel, and 2+ years in, decided to change it, and had something much stronger.

    I like the idea of opening with a bang, but sometimes it's important not to spend TOO much time trying to get there. Just write towards it, and the right opening may reveal itself.

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    1. I admire people who can just start writing. I'm one of the ones who has to have something "good" (or something she deems good at that part of the process) in order to continue. That's not to say I've never come back to my beginning and changed it; I have. But in order to write the story, I need to have something I like at the beginning.

      I appreciate the advice!

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