Friday Question: What Is Your Favourite First Line?
In my very first article for FYW, I discussed how to write a great first line. Doing this is incredibly important, if you want to hook your reader and get them to read on, which of course you do.
Throughout literature there are some stunning examples of great first lines. So…
What Is Your Favourite First Line?
Great opening lines are perfectly crafted, set the tone for the story to follow, and usually raise questions in the reader’s mind that they want to read on and find answers to. The best ones transcend the story that follows, they are quotable and find themselves part of culture far beyond simply being the first sentence in a book.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
Some are grand, others are simple. But whatever your favourite is, please let us know!
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Post your favourite opening lines, famous or otherwise, in the comments below!
Image courtesy of Kelly Sedinger.
Christopher Jackson is the Editor for Fuel Your Writing and a creative copywriter. He is currently working on Project: Snotbook, an interactive children’s storybook for iPad.
1801. – I have just returned from a visit to my landlord – the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with.
“Last night I dreampt I went to Manderly again.” Rebecca, by Daphne duMaurier
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. – The Catcher In The Rye
My favorite from Gabriel Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude:
“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”
Mark Blasini
I think everyone gives these 2 examples…they are the ones we’re supposed to say. But how many have actually READ either of these? I’ve read 100 in Spanish and the translation given here is in question anyway! Some first line! Anyway, Love in the Time of Cholera is MUCH better, in both languages.
Thanks for the comment, allena!
I guess it depends on what truth you got out of them. Love in the Time of Cholera is more of a love story, and I’m not so much into love stories as I am into stories about the solitude and absurdity of mankind. What’s so interesting about One Hundred Years of Solitude is the fact that (at least for me) there wasn’t any character in the story that had truly found “love.” Love is dallied around, hinted at, and ignored — but it is never fully present in the novel.
Which is novel in itself.
Mark Blasini
I remember that first article Christopher, and loved it. I have a “thing” for first lines because if I’m not captured within a few pages I usually put the book aside, (which I’m improving on some, giving certain books more of a chance…).
Normally I prefer short first lines that startle, shock, make us wonder, (who doesn’t?), but one of the greatest first lines ever is quite long – from Flannery O’Conner’s The Violent Bear It Away:
“Francis Marion Tarwater’s uncle had been dead for only half a day when the boy got too drunk to finish it and drag the body from the breakfast table where it was still sitting and bury it in a decent and Christian way, with the sign of its Saviour at the head of the grave and enough dirt on top to keep the dogs from digging it up.”
And yes, the book more than lives up to that first line, it’s one of the best I’ve ever read.
My absolutely favorite first lines, or first paragraphs are from John Dies at the End. These few sentences grab my attention, as well as setting a grotesque tone for the rest of the story.
“Solving the following riddle will reveal the awful secret behind the universe, assuming you do not
go utterly mad in the attempt. If you already happen to know the awful secret behind the universe, feel
free to skip ahead.
Let’s say you have an ax. Just a cheap one, from Home Depot. On one bitter winter day, you use said
ax to behead a man. Don’t worry, the man was already dead. Or maybe you should worry, because you’re
the one who shot him.”
“Death is my beat.” – Michael Connelly’s “The Poet”