Opening lines

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 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?

Guest

Aheila's Drabble Day prompt this week is Guest, and the trick is to avoid the "unwanted guest" twist. Check Aheila's blog for the rules.


Guest 

"Do you think they'll be here today?"

"I think so. The weather's certainly nice enough. It's a beautiful day for a picnic."

"Yes, it is quite lovely. Is someone watching for them?"

"Ed and his crew are keeping an eye on the riverbank, and I have Cindy Lou and Earl posted at the top of the hill. Don't worry. We'll see them."

"Good. I hope they come soon. I'm starving."

 ***

"They're here! They're spreading out their blanket near the river."

"It's about time."

"I agree. Okay, fall in, everyone. It's rude to keep our guests waiting. Ants, march!"

Nearly the end

This morning's 100 words:

 

You came over for dinner that night--reluctantly, although I didn't realize it then. I'd made something special, probably chicken with rice, the only meal I had ever really attempted to cook in my small apartment kitchen; like you, I subsisted mainly on fast food, chips, and visits to the college cafeteria. I remember that you walked in, late, and sat on the floor next to the coffee table. The food was already cold; I'd called you early, but you'd taken a long time to arrive. The food wasn't all that had grown cold--but I didn't know that yet.

That blotch

This morning's 100 words:

There's peach-colored paint smudged on the white ceiling of the room I'm writing in, splotches left of a long-ago paint job my husband did very late one night, just before we were leaving to go on summer vacation. He was so tired, the paint splotch tells me, but a mean-spirited voice in my head taunts, "He was lazy, too, for making a mess, for not cleaning it up." I stare at that splotch, that blotch, that blemish above me nearly every day as I write, as I search for ideas and inspiration from the ceiling and beyond.

Novel update

Tonight I only have time for a quick update on my WIP. My husband worked all weekend, leaving me with the kids, and as anyone who's a stay-at-home or single parent can attest, being with the kids all week long and then having no help on the weekend makes for two long, very tiring days. I think I'll actually have to do something unprecedented tonight: go to bed early.

Anyway, I'm still in the planning stages of my novel, but the work is going well. Right now I'm doing research and outlining the story's major events, after which I'll go back and fill in some of the individual scenes. I wasn't sure in the beginning if I was going to outline this story or not, but I'm glad I decided to take the time to do so. I feel more confident knowing where the story needs to go. However, I also know that I need to leave room for my talkative protagonist to tell me as I'm writing if he intends to take another path.

He's crafty that way!

Simply irresistible! ;)

Earlier this week, Kimberly Krey at The Write View graciously awarded me with this Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award. Thanks so much, Kimberly!

Kimberly has an awesome blog, and I encourage all of you to check it out for yourselves!

As with most awards, this one comes with some rules:

1. Copy and paste the award to your blog.
2. Thank and link to the person(s) who nominated you.
3. Share seven random facts about yourself.
4. Pass the award along!

Now, without further ado, here are seven completely random facts about me:

1. I bite my fingernails. I know I shouldn't, but I do. When I was a little kid, my older brother tried to get me to stop by putting Tabasco sauce on my nails. To his dismay, he found that the Tabasco didn't deter me in the slightest--I liked it!

2. That brings me to my second fact: I like my food spicy--super spicy. Unfortunately (at least in regard to cooking), I'm married to a man who likes his food bland--super bland. I cook for him, then use a ton of spices and hot sauce on my own food.

3. When I was a kid, I used to read beneath my bed. I must have liked the idea of being in my own reading cave. The problem was that my "cave" had exposed springs, and I had long hair. You can see where this is going, right? I remember getting my hair caught more than once and screaming bloody murder until my dad came to rescue me. The whole experience was all the more traumatic because I'm also claustrophobic, so the fact that I couldn't move and get myself out of that once blissful but suddenly frightening space had me near tears. Ah, the memories!

4. I'm claustrophobic. ;)

5. I've only had a few really good friends in my life. I have a lot of acquaintances and a lot of people I call friends, but throughout my thirty-eight years, there are only a handful I would bestow with the title of "best friend"--friends I trust with all my secrets, good and bad.

6. I've never ridden a roller coaster--and I don't intend to.

7. I love butterflies.

Finally, I'd like to pass this award along to...all of you! I'm grateful to each of you who reads my random thoughts each day. Please, if you're so inclined, feel free to snag this award. You deserve it!

Mining the past

Now that I'm working on a young adult novel, I've found myself thinking about high school and trying to remember what it was like to be a teenager all those years ago. Grades were important to me then, as was band (I was definitely a bank geek!), but boys made my "Things That Matter to Me" list as well. I dated one guy, Greg, during my last two years of high school and while I was studying for my undergraduate degree, and it was a relationship that we both thought would last forever. We talked marriage and kids... I shake my head when I think of that now. We were so young and knew so little about life and love and what "forever" really meant. Still, the memories I have of the relationship are mainly good ones, and unearthing those experiences has been both fun and useful for my writing.

Greg inspired this 100-words exercise I wrote last February:

I've thought about my high school boyfriend occasionally throughout the years, and sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if we had stayed together. We dated for six years--two years of high school and four of college--and I was the one to end the relationship. I was restless, fearful of becoming so comfortable with life that I would miss out on whatever it was that could be ahead for me. I've always felt bad about the way I ended things. He's a good person, and I hear he's doing well. I'm happy for him.

Do you ever think about your high school relationships? What about that girl you thought was out of your league or that guy you'd had a crush on for years but were afraid to ask out?  There's such a rich mine of writing material to be found in our pasts! How do you use your memories to add realism to your writing?