I’ve been obsessing over the opening lines of my novel. I’ve tried like mad to make them fascinating, or at least so interesting it makes the reader want to read on.
This morning I let someone read the first page of my book. She said, "It’s good, but the first line doesn’t really paint a picture in my head. I, of course,started to cry agreed it could be stronger. It can always be stronger, right?
After she left I started to wonder just how scintillating the opening lines published books have. So I hopped over to Amazon.com to find out. I didn’t break a sweat or anything; I just took a quick look through the books they were flogging for summer. I thought you might also want to peek at them, for comfort or misery only you can decide.
Mine, because I’m a masochist that way:
Time: it was the one thing they had in unending supply, and the one thing they were running out of. Even for people with time machines, Murphy's Law still applied.
And a bunch of books that are successfully published:
It was the first game of the season at Florida Field, and in typical fashion the Gators had scheduled something less than a fearsome opponent.
I’ve been cordially invited to join the visceral realists. I accepted, of course. There was no initiation ceremony. It was better that way.
A killer in waiting, Fred Brinkley slumps in the blue-upholstered banquette on the upper deck of the ferry.
Tap-tapping the keys and out come the words on this little screen, and who will read them I hardly know.
It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs. Shears’s house. Its eyes were closed.
In what was to have been the future, Ansel rolled toward her, half awake, half forgetful.
We’ll begin our story with Jody. She had lived on the block in her studio apartment since college, a luxurious accommodation at the time, certainly compared to the dorm room she was leaving.
The snow started to fall several hours before her labor began.
I was unconscious. I’d stopped breathing. I don’t know how long it lasted, but the engines and drivers that keep the human machine functioning at a mechanical level must have trip-switched, responding to the stillness with a general systems panic. Autopilot failure - switch to emergency manual override.
I never wanted to be a mother. Even when I was a girl playing dolls with my sisters, I assumed the role of the good Aunt Claudia.
The Shreveport vampire bar would be opening late tonight.
Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.
I was not there, yet I was there. No, I did not go to the trial, I did not hear the verdict, because I knew all the time what it would be.
Two lonely figures came down from the high mountains. They were dressed in travel-worn furs and leather helmets with ear flaps strapped beneath their chins against the cold.
"How long did it take them to die?"
The man this question was posed to didn’t seem to hear it.
Let me tell you of the worlds I’ve left behind.
When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.
This morning I let someone read the first page of my book. She said, "It’s good, but the first line doesn’t really paint a picture in my head. I, of course,
After she left I started to wonder just how scintillating the opening lines published books have. So I hopped over to Amazon.com to find out. I didn’t break a sweat or anything; I just took a quick look through the books they were flogging for summer. I thought you might also want to peek at them, for comfort or misery only you can decide.
Mine, because I’m a masochist that way:
Time: it was the one thing they had in unending supply, and the one thing they were running out of. Even for people with time machines, Murphy's Law still applied.
And a bunch of books that are successfully published:
It was the first game of the season at Florida Field, and in typical fashion the Gators had scheduled something less than a fearsome opponent.
I’ve been cordially invited to join the visceral realists. I accepted, of course. There was no initiation ceremony. It was better that way.
A killer in waiting, Fred Brinkley slumps in the blue-upholstered banquette on the upper deck of the ferry.
Tap-tapping the keys and out come the words on this little screen, and who will read them I hardly know.
It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs. Shears’s house. Its eyes were closed.
In what was to have been the future, Ansel rolled toward her, half awake, half forgetful.
We’ll begin our story with Jody. She had lived on the block in her studio apartment since college, a luxurious accommodation at the time, certainly compared to the dorm room she was leaving.
The snow started to fall several hours before her labor began.
I was unconscious. I’d stopped breathing. I don’t know how long it lasted, but the engines and drivers that keep the human machine functioning at a mechanical level must have trip-switched, responding to the stillness with a general systems panic. Autopilot failure - switch to emergency manual override.
I never wanted to be a mother. Even when I was a girl playing dolls with my sisters, I assumed the role of the good Aunt Claudia.
The Shreveport vampire bar would be opening late tonight.
Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.
I was not there, yet I was there. No, I did not go to the trial, I did not hear the verdict, because I knew all the time what it would be.
Two lonely figures came down from the high mountains. They were dressed in travel-worn furs and leather helmets with ear flaps strapped beneath their chins against the cold.
"How long did it take them to die?"
The man this question was posed to didn’t seem to hear it.
Let me tell you of the worlds I’ve left behind.
When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.
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