Avi

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First Lines

“Mar­ley was dead, to begin with.”

That’s the open­ing words of Dick­ens’ A Christ­mas Car­ol, and they are, in my judge­ment, as remark­able as they are mem­o­rable. Indeed, the first words of any piece of writ­ing are cru­cial, being as they are, the win­dow, the door, the invi­ta­tion, the induce­ment, call it what you will, to keep read­ing. A weak open­ing is not help­ful. A good one is cru­cial. A fine open­ing is often the key that opens the book, and over time, keeps it open.

“It is a truth uni­ver­sal­ly acknowl­edged, that a sin­gle man in pos­ses­sion of a good for­tune, must be in want of a wife.”

Thus, Jane Austen, for Pride and Prejudice

“Call me Ish­mael.” Moby Dick

“Alice was begin­ning to get very tired of sit­ting by her sis­ter on the bank, and hav­ing noth­ing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sis­ter was read­ing, but it had no pic­tures of con­ver­sa­tions in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “with­out pic­tures or conversations?”

Alice in Wonderland

“In the begin­ning, God cre­at­ed the Heav­en and the earth.” King James’ ver­sion of The Bible.

“In my younger and more vul­ner­a­ble years, my father gave me some advice that’s I’ve been turn­ing over in mind ever since.”

Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

Many years ago, I read a piece by a writer who wrote for­mu­lae fiction—the Hardy Boys, in fact. He wrote the bulk of the books eas­i­ly, quick­ly. But the first page, he said, he rewrote many, many times. It made a deep impres­sion on me, and over the years, I have labored many an hour over the first page. It’s worth it.

The True Confessions of Charlotte DoyleFor a fair num­ber of my read­ers I sus­pect the open­ing sen­tence of The True Con­fes­sions of Char­lotte Doyle is a favorite. But it did not come eas­i­ly. I don’t put in the same league as the sam­ples above, but it seems to have stayed in reader’s minds. For rea­sons I don’t recall, I saved the evo­lu­tion of that sen­tence. The writ­ing went like this:

  1. Many years ago, I was accused of murder.
  2. It’s hard to believe that I was once accused of murder.
  3. No one believes me when I say I was once accused of murder.
  4. Look­ing back, it’s hard to believe I had any­thing to do with murder.
  5. How many girls are ever accused of murder?
  6. How could I, a girl, have any­thing to do with murder?
  7. Not many girls are accused of mur­der and found guilty at a trial.
  8. Few girls of thir­teen are accused of mur­der let alone found guilty.
  9. Not every thir­teen-year-old girl is accused of mur­der, brought to tri­al and found guilty.

Did those famous first lines I first cit­ed above require the same kind of evo­lu­tion? I have no idea. It’s fun to spec­u­late. Per­haps genius, is just that, genius.

But to close, here’s a notion: Read­ers, share what your favorite open­ing words might be.

8 thoughts on “First Lines”

  1. This is a won­der­ful post, Avi — and an impor­tant one.

    My per­son­al favorite among my own first lines is from JENNIFER MURDLEY’S TOAD: “If Jen­nifer Mur­d­ley had­n’t been forced to wear her broth­er’s under­pants to school, the whole thing might nev­er have happened.”

    It man­ages to get in a laugh word (under­pants) with a set-up that cre­ates a ques­tion. (“What whole thing?”)

    I wish I could man­age one like that every time I’m at bat! I do think the “if/then” for­mu­la­tion is one good way to start.

    Reply
    • This is one of my favorite first lines ever and I used it often when I was a school librar­i­an teach­ing the impor­tance of open­ing sen­tences. Now back in the pub­lic library, I use it to engage that read­er who isn’t sure what s/he likes or wants to read. Atten­tion-get­ting, fun­ny and a sure-fire hook!

      Reply
  2. “It was a dark and stormy night.” –Madeleine L’En­gle, A Wrin­kle in Time, for all the rea­sons why …

    Reply

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