by Jackie
King
Are first
sentences really that important? This topic is often discussed in a group
called Smart Women Writers. One very successful author suggested that writers
shouldn’t spend too much time worrying about the first line, since all lines were
important. Good point. But I still sweat over those first few words.
One
writer posed this question to members: “What’s
the all-time favorite first line that you’ve written?”
That writer’s name is Susan Shay, author of
BLIND SIGHT, MAKE ME HOWL and TO SCHOOL A COWBOY. The line she picked came from
a current work-in-progress:
 |
| Blind Sight by Susan Shay |
“Lucy
Lu’s dad was driving her crazy; since his death he just wouldn’t shut up.”
Is that great or what?
Most of us have a favorite opening line.
Mine was written by Deborah Camp in her book, BLAZING EMBERS. (Awful title, she
hated it too, but you know editors.):
 |
| Blazing Embers by Deborah Camp |
“Burying a body
is grave business.”
~~~~~
Below I’ve added the first line from my first
Grace Cassidy mystery, THE INCONVENIENT CORPSE:
“Grace Cassidy
stared at the stranger’s body; he was about sixty, pot-bellied, naked, and very
dead.”
THE CORPSE WHO WALKED IN THE DOOR, the
second in that series, had to be revised. Here’s the result:
“The knife
dripped blood with each step that Grace Cassidy ran.”
Book three, THE CORPSE AND THE
GEEZER BRIGADE, starts like this:
“The last thing Grace Cassidy expected to see when
she accepted a job as inn sitter in Tulsa, was a gathering of steely-eyed old
men seated in the library of the B&B.”
~~~~~
First lines from some of my published novellas:
“It was madness.
One didn’t buy a husband in the same way one bought a lumberyard.”
(Okay, that’s two sentences.) The Spinster, the Pig and the Orphan: from the anthology THE FOXY
HENS AND MURDER MOST FOWL. Deadly Niche Press.
~~~~~
“I went on two
first dates with my ex-husband.”
Flirting at Fifty; from the anthology
CHIK~LIT FOR FOXY HENS. Diva Publishing.
~~~~~
My current WIP, (working title switches
between GOOSE OVER MY GRAVE and THE EDGE OF NOWHERE):
“Liz O’Brien’s
day started with a feeling of wrongness.”
This is a suspense novel and will have a
change of pace from my usual cozy mystery. If anyone out there has a preference
for either of these titles, please let me know.
~~~~~
In conclusion let me quote a statement from
Stephen King in a 2013 interview:
"An opening line should invite the
reader to begin the story... it should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to
know about this."
No one can say it better than the
master-writer himself.
Does anyone out in cyberland have a
favorite first line? If so, I’d love to hear it.
Cheers,
Jackie
In a way, I also felt the importance of first sentences lay in the feeling of relief and release they produced in the author to know that s/he had at last got started. But you're right, of course: a good one sucks you in and, equally, a bad one can make you shut the book. The only one of mine that a reviewer has ever remarked on is the opening of the preface to The Sparrow Conundrum: 'They were desperate to get rid of their virginity and this was the night.'
ReplyDeleteI love the opening of Elmore Leonard's Tishomingo Blues. It's long and the second sentence needs to be included as part of its impact:‘Dennis Lenehan the high diver would tell people that if you put a fifty-cent piece on the floor and looked down on it, that’s what the tank looked like from the top of that eighty-foot steel ladder … when he told this to girls who hung out at amusement parks they’d put a cute look of pain on their faces and say what he did was awesome. But wasn’t it like really dangerous?’
But the one which has always been fascinating for me is from Madame Bovary. It seems harmless: 'We were in class when the head-master came in, followed by a "new fellow," not wearing the school uniform, and a school servant carrying a large desk'. It's not the content of the sentence that's striking, it's that first 'We'. It means the narrator (Flaubert) was in Emma Bovary's husband's class, but the 'we' never appears again after that opening scene and yet all the innermost, intimate sequences of Emma's life are recounted by him.
You're right about a good first sentence producing a feeling of relief in the writer. Thanks for adding that. The first sentences you've mentioned are truly wonderful. That first line from THE SPARROW CONUNDRUM rocks!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your input.
Hi! I remember that you always liked that first sentence in Blazing Embers.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this post.
And I'm crazy about The Edge of Nowhere.
Thanks, Debby. Your opinion counts a lot with me.
ReplyDeleteI consider all first lines important. They set the stage for the entire book. I liked all the first sentences you listed, especially yours.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jean. You've done some first lines yourself that grab my attention.
ReplyDelete