Off to a Good --Though Slow -- Start

[queenoftheskies]

So I started the next novel this morning.

I wanted to do it last night, but I was EXHAUSTED (probably from going back to work which is a complete physical, mental, and amotional drain even on the best of days) and just couldn't get myself going.

I'm clear on the basic plot and the basic threads that make this novel up, but don't have all the details yet. Have some pretty cool scenes, I think, lots of angst, good set-up for tension coming from several directions.

I set up my manuscript format and sat and stared and stared at the screen this morning, allowing possible openings to tumble over each other in my mind. Did I start on Earth? Did I start in Eternity? Did I start on the distant planet?

Did I just start? Just jump in and go? That's the way I used to do it, but these days, I seem much more inclined to come up with a first line that moves me first.

Maybe that's another reason I didn't start yesterday.

But, it came to me this morning and even though it might change later, I'm happy with it now. It kinda sets the stage for what Lilli has to go through in this novel so it's there for me, right up front, like a mantra.

Maybe that's what an opening sentence is for me, in addition to a hook to drag my reader into the story. A mantra of what my story is going to be. So I start with that feel for it and hold that feel throughout the story.

What's an opening sentence to you folks? Just a hook for the reader?

What's your favorite opening sentence that you've ever written?

Comments

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

It's a hook for the reader and promise of what's to come. :)

[cicadabug.livejournal.com]

For me, writing the opening sentence is like laying the first stone of a building that I'm inventing as I go -- it is the anchor stone, of sorts, that determines the structure and tone of the entire piece. It doesn't necessarily have to be a hook or even significant to the plot in any way (though obviously it's nice when it is), but every piece I've ever written has been indelibly built around that opening sentence and, though in revisions I'll often leave few words untouched, that first sentence almost always remains the same -- and if it doesn't, usually nothing else in the story does either.

[dragonmyst.livejournal.com]

I usualy end up starting mid-action to draw the reader in and to draw me in. it helps build my momentum.

[ogre-san.livejournal.com]

The opening sentence has to carry a lot of weight. Yes, it's a hook, but there's more to being a hook than just getting the reader's attention. Damon Knight once said that a problem with a lot of stories is that the writer thought of a really killer first line and then spent the rest of the story trying to justify that line. A killer hook isn't enough by itself, and may even be a distraction. Rather, the function of the first line is to imply a great deal about what is to follow, and make the reader think that the story is worth exploring.

In effect, the first line is an implied contract with the reader: "Follow where I lead and I promise not to waste your time." We violate that contract at our peril.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I just start. And I explore as I write. And I often discover that the book would work better if I started it in a different place. Until I have critical mass, I don't worry about the first sentence at all, and until I have the whole thing finished and revised to coherence, I don't worry about polishing it.

To me, the first _sentence_ is of less importance than the first paragraph. _The Dreamer's Friend_ begins with "The colour suits you!" which could belong to any number of conversations, but it's only in the next paragraph that it becomes clear why the words are spoken - the character has gained another level of magical training, for which a different colour sash is awarded, so that's whent he story starts.

I don't have any first lines that are complete darlings, and none are so memorable that I would be able to repeat them off-hand.

[reannon.livejournal.com]

It's never "just a hook." In order to hook the reader, it has to draw them into the story. I've read a lot of opening lines, and tried my hand at the mysterious, the scene-setting, the funny...

Sanctuary: "John Crawford almost shot his best friend two days after his wife died."

A More Perfect Union: "It really was a dark and stormy night."

Abaddon: "Cold rain fell on the cobblestones, mixing with the blood in the alley behind St. Bartholomew's Church."

But of course, the best opening in the English language is:

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 so 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.

-- The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (1959)

Opening sentences

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

For me personally...I don't know if this is the best opening sentence I've ever written or not, but I would say the opening to chapter 1 of my Camelot book: the character comes to a battlefield literally moments after the battle has ended and says, "The killing ground was a place familiar to me from childhood."

The idea of a childhood places being radically different to you as an adult is one theme that's always resonated deeply within me.

[nycshelly.livejournal.com]

Since I write as I go, the first sentence is the one that leads to the next, and so on, so it's what the story hangs on.

Yeah, I always try........

[dracschick.livejournal.com]

to go for a catchy opening sentence. Or two:)