A Look at the Opening Paragraph(s) of Our Favorite Novels

dgiharris said:

You are missing the point. This isn't 'just' about focusing on someone else's opening paragraph, but focusing on 'why' said paragraph grabs some of us.

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No, I get that point.

But we have so many of these posts, and so few of people actually seeking the same level of critique of thier own work.

I think there's a lot to be learned from studying how other people write, but like I said, there comes a time when you need to start applying this to your own work.

I think it would be more beneficial sometimes for us to look at our own opening paragraphs and see how they work for us as a reader.

I wasn't saying to stop looking at other peoples, I simply think that there comes a time when you can read about writing, or you can write. And all the studying in the world is no substitute for practice.

Here's a first line I love: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." (Orwell's 1984. I write this on a bright cold day in March and, well, I'm afraid it's half-past...)

What has been very helpful in my own writing is to take a paragraph from a random published novel in my chosen genre and re-write it to make it good (the books I read are almost all over-written). This is a VERY instructive exercise, I've found.

The spring rains had softened the ground, so Dunk had no trouble digging the grave. He chose a spot on the western slope of a low hill, for the old man had always loved to watch the sunset. “Another day done,” he would sigh, “and who knows what the morrow will bring us, eh, Dunk?”

--The Hedge Knight

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BTW, the above story has a lot of good lines and paras, but as for why this opening works:

Establishes setting and characters while carrying the action.

AND

This action gradually reveals/builds the story.

What I find interesting is that a number of you have posted lines or paragraphs from old or "classic" books as opposed to recently published books.

My agent says she sees, all too often, books written after the style of the author's beloved hero in literature -- whose books probably couldn't get published in today's market.

Something to think about.

CheshireCat said:

What I find interesting is that a number of you have posted lines or paragraphs from old or "classic" books as opposed to recently published books.

My agent says she sees, all too often, books written after the style of the author's beloved hero in literature -- whose books probably couldn't get published in today's market.

Something to think about.

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That's interesting.

In Fort Repose, a river town in Central Florida, it was said that sending a message by Western Union was the same as broadcasting it over the combined networks. This was not entirely true. It was true that Florence Wechek, the manager, gossiped. Yet she judiciously classified the personal intelligence that flowed under her plump fingers, and maintained a prudent censorship over her tongue. The scandalous and the embarrassing she excised from her conversation. Sprightly, trivial, and harmless items she passed on to friends, thus enhancing her status and relieving the tedium of spinsterhood. If your sister was in trouble, and wired for money, the secret was safe with Florence Wechek. But if your sister bore a legitimate baby, its sex and weight would soon be known all over town.

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Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank. What character building in one single paragraph!

Jamie Stone said:

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank. What character building in one single paragraph!

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Man, you're right!

The Birthgrave by Tanith Lee

To wake, and not to know where, or who you are, not even to know what you are--whether a thing with legs and arms, or a beast, or a brain in the hull of a great fish--that is a strange awakening. But after a while, uncurling in the darkness, I began to discover myself, and I was a woman.

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I love this one because it leaves the narrator and the reader at about the same level of wanting to figure things out.

For me at least, this thread isn't (and doesn't need to be) an in-depth study of openings so much as it is an opportunity to share those book openings that have moved and impressed us (and I am always about sharing those things that bring us joy!). There are, after all, plenty of threads on AW that aren't about critiquing our own writing so much as they're about "There's this awesome thing I love, and I want to share it with you and tell you why I love it!" What better place than AW to mutually share our love of good writing, and talk about why we love it so?

That said, this isn't the opening to my favorite book of all time (which I don't currently have at hand), but it is from a book that I recently finished and loved, and it's the most that a book's opening paragraph has grabbed me in a long time:

I am old now and have not much to fear from the anger of gods. I have no husband nor child, nor hardly a friend, through whom they can hurt me. My body, this lean carrion that still has to be washed and fed and have clothes hung about it daily with so many changes, they can kill as soon as they please. The succession is provided for. My crown passes to my nephew.

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From C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces. The character's voice sounds out with perfect clarity. Right away I felt as if I knew this person and what they were all about.

In particular (and this is one of those things that happens throughout the book), this character has a habit of jumping from very morbid or horrifying or dramatic statements to something comparatively banal. Sometimes the jump is dismissive (as in this paragraph), sometimes it is because the character, Orual, just can't take it all in and must focus on something else, something minor. But I think it's a great technique, used well here.