What are some of the best introductions that you have ever heard?

Could you be more specific?

I don't quite understand, either. Do you mean introductory paragraphs, or introducing new characters, or something else entirely? Prologues, perhaps? What are you after?

From Sumner Locke Elliot's Edens Lost

Suddenly, he became again the boy in the gardens of the crematorium sixteen years ago and again Eve said, "Come to us if you like."

Click to expand...

The entire intro bit from Elizabeth McCracken's sad little memoir: An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination

and the preamble to Gillian Mears' novel: Foal's Bread.

and lots of others.

Try a bit of Anthony Burgess.

A Clockwork Orange

'What's it going to be then, eh?'

There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry. The Korova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O my brothers, have forgotten what those mestos were like, things changing so skorry these days and everybody very quick to forget, newspapers not being read much neither.

Click to expand...

Earthly Powers

It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.

'Very good, Ali,' I quavered in Spanish through the closed door of the master bedroom. 'Take him into the bar. Give him a drink.'

Click to expand...

Echo Helix, about the Anthony Burgess opening. Some other famous openings that are famous because they really work would include those of One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel García Marquez), The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway), Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain). I also like the opening of The Invisible Man (H.G. Wells) quite a lot.

But less well-known, one of my favorites is from Philip K. Dick's novel The Game-Players of Titan:

It had been a bad night, and when he tried to drive home, he had a terrible argument with his car.

"Mr. Garden, you are in no condition to drive. Please use the auto-auto mech and recline in the rear seat."

Pete Garden sat at the steering tiller and said as distinctly as he could manage, "Look, I can drive. One drink, in fact several make you more alert. So stop fooling around." He punched the starter button, but nothing happened. "Start, darn it!"

The auto-auto said, "You have not inserted the key."


caw

Not a book but a lecture...

First lecture of the first year neurobiology module on my degree course.

"This course is in neurobiology, the study of the biology of the brain." *pause* "It's amazing how much of the human brain you can remove without actually killing the person."

What are your favourite opening pars, Maxitout?

With modern novels, the one I think is written best in every way, that tells about character, that gets to story, that sets mood and tone, that does everything introductory paragraphs are supposed to do, that is, I think, brilliant, is the opening of The Talisman.

On September 15th, 1981, a boy named Jack Sawyer stood where the water and land come together, hands in the pockets of his jeans, looking out at the steady Atlantic. He was twelve years old and tall for his age. The sea-breeze swept back his brown hair, probably too long, from a fine, clear brow. He stood there, filled with the confused and painful emotions he had lived with for the last three months—since the time when his mother had closed their house on Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles and, in a flurry of furniture, checks, and real-estate agents, rented an apartment on Central Park West. From that apartment they had fled to this quiet resort on New Hampshire’s tiny seacoast. Order and regularity had disappeared from Jack’s world. His life seemed as shifting, as uncontrolled, as the heaving water before him. His mother was moving him through the world, twitching him from place to place; but what moved his mother?
His mother was running, running.
Jack turned around, looking up the empty beach first to the left, then to the right. To the left was Arcadia Funworld, an amusement park that ran all racket and roar from Memorial Day to Labor Day. It stood empty and still now, a heart between beats. The roller coaster was a scaffold against that featureless, overcast sky, the uprights and angled supports like strokes done in charcoal. Down there was his new friend, Speedy Parker, but the boy could not think about Speedy Parker now. To the right was the Alhambra Inn and Gardens, and that was where the boy’s thoughts relentlessly took him. On the day of their arrival Jack had momentarily thought he’d seen a rainbow over its dormered and gambreled roof. A sign of sorts, a promise of better things. But there had been no rainbow. A weathervane spun right-left, left-right, caught in a crosswind. He had got out of their rented car, ignoring his mother’s unspoken desire for him to do something about the luggage, and looked up. Above the spinning brass cock of the weather vane hung only a blank sky.
“Open the trunk and get the bags, sonny boy,” his mother had called to him. “This broken-down old actress wants to check in and hunt down a drink.”
“An elementary martini,” Jack had said.
“ ’You’re not so old,’ you were supposed to say.” She was pushing herself effortfully off the carseat.
“You’re not so old.”
She gleamed at him—a glimpse of the old, go-to-hell Lily Cavanaugh (Sawyer), queen of two decades’ worth of B movies. She straightened her back. “It’s going to be okay here, Jacky,” she had said. “Everything’s going to be okay here. This is a good place.”
A seagull drifted over the roof of the hotel, and for a second Jack had the disquieting sensation that the weathervane had taken flight.
“We’ll get away from the phone calls for a while, right?”
“Sure,” Jack had said. She wanted to hide from Uncle Morgan, she wanted no more wrangles with her dead husband’s business partner, she wanted to crawl into bed with an elementary martini and hoist the covers over her head. . . .
Mom, what’s wrong with you?
There was too much death, the world was half-made of death. The gull cried out overhead.
“Andelay, kid, andelay,” his mother had said. “Let’s get into the Great Good Place.”
Then, Jack had thought: At least there’s always Uncle Tommy to help out in case things get really hairy.
But Uncle Tommy was already dead; it was just that the news was still on the other end of a lot of telephone wires.

Also, maybe the OP can clarify why s/he wants these? I suspect, given hir other thread, that s/he's trying to pinpoint what makes a good opening paragraph. If that's the case, it might be even more helpful if we not only mention our favourite openings, but also why those openings work.

After all, examples aren't necessarily as helpful to a writer seeking to improve as deconstructed examples are (if that knowledge is what the OP is after.)

neandermagnon said:

Not a book but a lecture...

First lecture of the first year neurobiology module on my degree course.

"This course is in neurobiology, the study of the biology of the brain." *pause* "It's amazing how much of the human brain you can remove without actually killing the person."

Click to expand...

That could so be the opening of a horror/thriller novel...

Brightdreamer said:

That could so be the opening of a horror/thriller novel...

Click to expand...

Or a novella, or even a short. It's a great couple lines when you really think about it, able to carry a story of almost any length.

jjdebenedictis said:

Also, maybe the OP can clarify why s/he wants these? I suspect, given hir other thread, that s/he's trying to pinpoint what makes a good opening paragraph. If that's the case, it might be even more helpful if we not only mention our favourite openings, but also why those openings work.

Click to expand...

The PK Dick opening I quote works for me as an almost perfect example of the real meaning of "Show, don't tell." The protag is introduced, immediately, and he's drunk. Nowhere is it "explained" by the author that he's drunk. But it's shown, damn clearly,and real quick. And that says a whole lot about Pete Garden, the protag, and we readers can expect to know a lot more about him, real quick. Which we do.

caw

blacbird said:

The PK Dick opening I quote works for me as an almost perfect example of the real meaning of "Show, don't tell." The protag is introduced, immediately, and he's drunk. Nowhere is it "explained" by the author that he's drunk. But it's shown, damn clearly,and real quick. And that says a whole lot about Pete Garden, the protag, and we readers can expect to know a lot more about him, real quick. Which we do.

Click to expand...

I would add that the opening you quoted immediately provides the reader with a situation they don't quite understand (the talking car.) Their brain has to work a bit to sort out what is happening, and like any good sleuth, the brain is on the hunt for more clues. Those clues can only be had by reading farther into the story, so the reader is "hooked" by the opening and reads on.

Plus, it's a really funny scene. Thus this opening scene provides a carrot (humour) and stick (unsatisfied curiosity).

The Clockwork Orange opening works because it's in a distinctive voice. It uses unfamiliar words in a way that makes their meaning clear, and in doing so indicates that this is a near and quite disturbing future. (And if you know the origin of the terms, you can get an idea of what's happened. But not knowing them doesn't affect the flow of the story.) That's a whole lot of world building in a few words.

Earthly Powers also has a distinctive voice. Don't tell me you wouldn't want to read on after that combination of events.

The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed sub-category. He's got esprit up to here. Right now, he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night. His uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the very light out of the air. A bullet will bounce off its arachno-fiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door, but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. Where his body has bony extremities, the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello, protects like a stack of telephone books.
-- Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson

Click to expand...

I love this one because it proves that "Show, don't tell" should be considered a suggestion, not a law. This opening paragraph is all telling, but it's entertaining and intriguing and visceral. Your imagination fires to create images; you understand you're reading about the future; you're hooked by the punchy voice. This paragraph immediately promises that the author has something interesting for you, if you only keep reading.

I really liked the prologue to Donna Tartt's The Secret History. It does a good job getting the reader in the space they need to be before experiencing the story. The last lines stayed in my head for a long time: "I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell."

The ones I quoted worked for me because voice. I knew immediately that this was a writer I could relax with: someone who knew what they were doing.

AW's Jamie Mason has a stonkingly good first line with "Three Graves Full":

There is very little peace for a man with a body buried in his backyard.

Click to expand...

Sets the mood perfectly for what is to come.

I hate to be that person, but the opening to Harry Potter was one of the reasons I kept reading as a kid. Honestly, I don't remember many openings, even with books I positively love. Thinking back, the opening to Harry Potter is the only one I actually remember. I am a product of my times.

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

Click to expand...

From Saramago's novella, The Tale of the Unknown Island -

A man went to knock at the king's door and said, Give me a boat.

I very much recommend going to a library or good book store and looking for work in the genre you plan to write in. Look for award winners. Read the first pages of each one. Ask yourself whether you want to read more. Are there any you can't put down? Why? What made you want to keep reading? If you don't want to, what do you think would make you want to?

I have a stack of first pages on my desk. They're from a workshop I took. All are middle grade. I reread them when I go to do draft two of anything for that age range. Different genre may have different needs in that first page.

Classic best first line, Charlotte's Web. That line sets up a lot.

From Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal:

For thirty-five years now I've been in wastepaper, and it's my love story.

AshleyEpidemic said:

I hate to be that person, but the opening to Harry Potter was one of the reasons I kept reading as a kid. Honestly, I don't remember many openings, even with books I positively love. Thinking back, The opening to Harry Potter is the only one I actually remember. I am a product of my times.

Click to expand...

I'm seconding that. When I first read Harry Potter, I was convinced that I would hate it and didn't want to try reading it. I was sick to death about everyone going on about Harry Potter books. My friend shoved the book in my hands and forced me to read it. If I hadn't been hooked from the very first word I would've shoved it right back at her. As it happened, I read the whole thing that day and went and bought all the other books that had been released so far, and all the others on the day they came out.