Start Your Story With A Line From Your Favourite Novel
Sometimes, when you’re reading a novel, a certainly sentence will stick out to you. Whether it is because of its content, or its structure, or simply the way it sounds when you read it, we all fall in love with sentences from time to time.
I love first lines of novels. I collect them and study them, and will always read the first line of a book that catches my eye in the book store, even before reading the blurb.
Occasionally I will come across a sentence that I fall in love with because I feel it would be a perfect first line. Such sentences are usually short, bold, shocking, hard-hitting, and visual.
I came across a sentence like this when reading Stephen King’s brilliant Under The Dome.
“The explosion was white and all-encompassing.”
This has all the hallmarks of the perfect opening sentence. It raises questions, it establishes tone, it’s simple and to the point. Taking this as a first line, it would start your story off with a bang. Literally. I can imagine writing about what comes next, as your story reveals the reasons behind the explosion and the damage it goes on to cause.
Your Non-Visual Writing Prompt
When you’re reading, why not record these sentences that stand out to you? After a while you will have built up a collection of not only great examples of how to write a sentence, but a collection of writing prompts.
Pick one, and open your writing software of choice. Write down that sentence, and then keep writing.
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.
This is something that I always do whenever I can’t get started with a story, and is why I started a Writing Inspiration section on my blog featuring the opening and closing lines of various novels :) (http://katmusselwhite.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/writing%20inspiration for anyone interested!)
I’ve also found that using the opening line to a song can be a really big help!
I want to share a favourite paragraph… when I read this I put the book down, took a breath, and read it again. I can’t say what it is that makes these sentences so beautiful, but I went back to them over and over. It’s from John Irving – In One Person.
“Both the sex with Miss Frost and actually being a writer were unlikely, of course – but were they remotely possible? Curiously, I had enough hubris to believe so. As for where such an exaggerated pride or unearned self-confidence came from – well, I could only guess that genes had something to do with it.”
Great idea Christopher. I use index cards as bookmarks and record sentences I like as I’m reading, and I do have a fairly large collection of these. But I’d never thought of using them as a writing prompt, so thanks for the suggestion!
One of my favorites, (chosen at random): “He drew in the first few breaths slowly and deliberately, holding the smoke in his lungs until he felt it burning the edges of his soul.” from Paul Bowles’s short story, Under the Sky.