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I noticed on amazon that they pulled a line out of A MAGIC OF TWILIGHT and put it underneath the title. Which got me to wondering...
How important is the first line of a novel to a reader? I would think that it's not as important as the first line of a short story, since readers tend to be more 'patient' with a novel. But does the first line of a novel matter? Do you expect to be hooked from line one?
I'm curious...
Just for grins, here are the first lines from each of my novels (in no particular order). Which one makes you most inclined to read on? And most importantly, why? Here they are:
For that matter, which one doesn't grab you, and why?
Or, for another game entirely, can you tell me which line belongs to which book? :-)
How important is the first line of a novel to a reader? I would think that it's not as important as the first line of a short story, since readers tend to be more 'patient' with a novel. But does the first line of a novel matter? Do you expect to be hooked from line one?
I'm curious...
Just for grins, here are the first lines from each of my novels (in no particular order). Which one makes you most inclined to read on? And most importantly, why? Here they are:
Thunder arrived as a stunning burst of light.
The lioness slipped through the tall, dry grass surrounding the house, her muscular haunches down as she stalked.
He woke up... somewhere.
McWIlms never let his hand stray far from the sheathed dagger's hilt.
She had a name, but she would not let it enter her thoughts.
Hell screamed behind them, a nightmare of fire and death.
Pause. And shiveringly inhale.
Jemi pushed the welding equipment into the navigational compartment.
Raw power smeared red and purple across the night sky, held captive in the glow of the mage-lights...
MUSIC UP:
"Talk about jumping out of the frying pan..."
Wednesday had to be the most depressing night of the week in any nightclub.
CosTa's belly ached, her stomach muscles drawn taut from lack of food over the last three days.
The autumn day was as hot as any in recent memory.
The pines nearest Torin Mallaghan sighed in the wind as if weary of holding up their branches.
The stone was a gift of the glowing sky.
If a city can have a gender, Nessantico was female.
SStragh stepped unsteadily from the floating stone into moonlit darkness, her bones aching from the cold, her nostrils full of the sharp smell of ozone from the time storm, her neck raw and torn from her fight with the Gairk Klaido.
"Hey!" Aaron shouted.
Green Town sweltered.
For that matter, which one doesn't grab you, and why?
Or, for another game entirely, can you tell me which line belongs to which book? :-)
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The only line on the above list that doesn't grab me is "The autumn day was as hot as any in recent memory." All of the other introduce a character or a place or hook a 'What's this about then?' interest.
In general, a novel has to get me by about page 2 or 3, and at least by the end of the first chapter, or I toss it.
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I've spent a fair amount of time crafting my first sentences for my last four books.
I also find that I'm *much* more critical of first sentences that I read in others' books.
And, surprisingly, they're often a great gauge of my overall reaction to the book. I just set aside, unfinished, a fantasy novel that got so bogged down in internal politics that I could not penetrate past the half-way mark. And then, I looked back at the first sentence, which ran on for half a page, detailing the environment, and I told myself I should have been forewarned!
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The same goes for said-bookisms, dodgy POV changes and other miscellaneous writing sins.
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OTOH, I love your cautionary tale! :-)
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Also, I'm very rarely browsing purely at random. By the time I'm reading the first line I'll have read the blurb at the back or a review or be familiar with the author already.
I don't recall the first lines of any of my favourite novels. I suppose that could say more about my memory than the quality of the prose. :)
From your list:
If a city can have a gender, Nessantico was female.
This one grabs me the most, possibly because I like stories in cities, and it implies that the city is going to be almost a character in the novel. I haven't read it, so don't know if that's true...
Hell screamed behind them, a nightmare of fire and death.
This one seems to be trying a little too hard. :)
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"It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea."
Thankfully the rest of the book (Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve) fulfilled the promise of the first line.
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Those that mention only abstract persons (he, she, them) don't have the same effect.
The dialog beginnings don't grab me.
The only one of these I actively dislike is "Thunder arrived as a stunning burst of light." because it is filled with cognitive dissonance for me. (Thunder is a sound, how can it have a light? Is this thunder as in, you know, thunder or is it Thunder as in a character in this story?)
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Hmm... I often tend to start chapters with dialog, usually jumping into the middle of a conversation. I like that as a writer.
You're right about the cognitive dissonance on Thunder, but Thunder in the book is a thing, not a sound...
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Having said that, not having read any of your novels (sorry), the two lines that grab me most are "The stone was a gift of the glowing sky." and "She had a name, but she would not let it enter her thoughts."
The SStragh line doesn't do anything for me, but I don't do fantasy much.
Applecon pictures up soon. You feature predominantly.
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Looking forward to seeing the Applecon pictures!
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Regarding the opening lines, this one grabs me the most:
Hell screamed behind them, a nightmare of fire and death.
and this one the least:
"Hey!" Aaron shouted.
and this one's from Thunder rift:
Thunder arrived as a stunning burst of light.
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The first line/paragraph is a book's most important selling point. The author didn't design the cover, pen the blurbs or write the back cover copy. He/she did write the first line, though, knowing it was meant to hook the reader into the book. If the first line of a book doesn't grab me, I don't buy or borrow it. And if it starts with the weather, I swear off the author entirely.
My passion for first lines is so powerful...I actually run an LJ community dedicated to 'em:
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A stellar first sentence will make me nod, but a mediocre one doesn't make me throw the book across the room.
If the comments here are any indication (and they might not be!), novel readers are a more patient lot than one line.
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I'm ambivalent about opening lines. One line won't break the book for me but a really stunning opening line will stay with me for years. The opening line to Tom Holt's "Who's Afraid of Beowulf?" is one of those for me. I don't have it exactly by memory, but it's something like: "Someone had scribbled 'Godforsaken' between 'Welcome to' and 'Caithness' on the road sign."
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Ooh, I love that Holt first line...
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I think I like "Pause. And shiveringly inhale." Because the fact that it feels like a lyrical/poetic form is intriguing. It makes me wonder if the whole book is like that, if it's a narrator's thoughts and if so if all the narrator's thoughts are so, or if this is some other form of beautifully worded introduction.
Some of the others feel like obvious grabs for attention, but of the rest, the one that works the best for me is "Wednesday had to be the most depressing night of the week in any nightclub." because it suggests that this Wednesday is about to be different, and so I'm curious and willing to watch. :)
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>Thunder arrived as a stunning burst of light.
awful.
I don't know what thunder is, since it's clearly not what I normally think it is, but I still don't know what. So I'm confused, which is uncomfortable. I just want it to go away.
>The lioness slipped through the tall, dry grass surrounding the house, her muscular haunches down as she stalked.
Too many words. Has the core of a good beginning, but "muscular haunches" in particular is telling me about it instead of showing it to me. "Tall, dry" also has too many adjectives.
>He woke up... somewhere.
I am in fact, intrigued, even though I can tell the author wants me to be. Nicely concise.
> McWIlms never let his hand stray far from the sheathed dagger's hilt.
*yawn*
> She had a name, but she would not let it enter her thoughts.
trying to hard. Sudden tension, DRAMA! and I don't care about the character yet, so I'm not happy about being so worried about her already.
>Hell screamed behind them, a nightmare of fire and death.
So, um, what else is new about Hell? Is it hot, too? Or was that allegory? I would not keep reading.
>Pause. And shiveringly inhale.
Nice. Here, I like the ambiguity. And the poetic consistency of doing the pause. With punctuation.
>Jemi pushed the welding equipment into the navigational compartment.
Hasn't turned me off, hasn't gotten my attention. Would keep reading.
>Raw power smeared red and purple across the night sky, held captive in the glow of the mage-lights...
I'm hoping this is not the first book in a series. Not sure why. Yet this is not a bad beginning.
>"Talk about jumping out of the frying pan..."
Seems to be trying to catch my attention. Instead, I'm a little bored.
>Wednesday had to be the most depressing night of the week in any nightclub.
Nice. I've already got a sense of atmosphere, with a little suggestion that something's gonna (has to) change/happen soon.
>CosTa's belly ached, her stomach muscles drawn taut from lack of food over the last three days.
I would trim this and leave the "last three days" for another sentence. the reference to stomach muscles throws me into speculation as to the effect of hunger on stomach *muscles* as opposed to the parts of the stomach that actually process food. "drawn taut" is such a strong phrase I actually stopped there for a minute, which I think is maybe not what the author wanted.
>The autumn day was as hot as any in recent memory.
Is this a global warming novel?
>The pines nearest Torin Mallaghan sighed in the wind as if weary of holding up their branches.
Would have liked a better lead-in sentence just before this one, so/or I could be on a first-name basis with Torin by now.
>The stone was a gift of the glowing sky.
Fine. very good. What's next? I want to read it. *squints eyes.. maybe I did already* anyway, good. short, sweet, interesting, unusual, yet internally consistent and melodious.
>If a city can have a gender, Nessantico was female.
Already feeling thrown by a bit of a change of tense.
>SStragh stepped unsteadily from the floating stone into moonlit darkness, her bones aching from the cold, her nostrils full of the sharp smell of ozone from the time storm, her neck raw and torn from her fight with the Gairk Klaido.
I like this one too. Tells enough, not too much. intrigues.
>"Hey!" Aaron shouted.
what.ever. would probably keep reading though.
>Green Town sweltered.
Again, like it. Sense of atmosphere, something to wonder about, but I'm not uncomfortably confused.
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Depends on how invested the cover or name of the author had me. I tried to approach these lines as though I didn't know they were yours- just knowing it was your book, or someone else's whom I know, I might give it a few paragraphs or even a few pages - or sometimes if the first part doesn't grab me, I'll leaf through to see if another part does.
If, on the other hand, someone had given me the book, it would definitely take me more than a first line to put me off from continuing to read.
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I seriously liked "Thunder arrived as a stunning burst of light." It's my favorite after "The stone was a gift of the glowing sky." I tend to like synesthesia, if it isn't overdone; probably because I experience it enough myself to understand how much better it can describe such an experience. In this particular case, whether thunder is what I expect it to be, or a person, either way, I have the image of the light which always precedes the sound, and the understanding that when they arrive almost simultaneously is when things are at their worst, in terms of storms.
Third favorite: "He woke up ... somewhere."
Least favorite: "Pause. And shiveringly inhale." This immediately made me stop to parse the sentence fragments. Pause: verb, second person imperative. Inhale: presumed to be the same. Shiveringly - awkward adverb. Oh, wait ... maybe Pause is a noun. But shiveringly is still an adverb?
By now, I've totally lost the whole point of the thing.
None of the examples you give, however, lead me to doubt your skill as a writer. (And I've added you to my "pick one up and see" list.)
The truth, however, is that while a great first sentence can cause me to settle down with a wriggle of sensual anticipation, a bad one won't stop me from reading further. I come to any story, long or short, with a willing suspension of both disbelief and self, eager to enter into a partnership with the author.
There are always exceptions, of course. "Eye of Aragorn" simply cannot be read with anything but hysterical laughter, and then only for a few paragraphs, at most. In general, however, less than stellar writing still entertains -- if for no other reason than I analyze what went wrong. I have thrown very few books against the wall. It takes more than just bad writing; it takes a complete break of trust. Play fair with me, and I can forgive most anything. Cheat me, and you die against the wall.
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Exactly true for me, also.
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As for me, I will give a novel 50 pages or so before I start to think it is a bad idea. If the thought persists much after that, I put it down.
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This is what I tend to do....open the book in the middle and read some dialogue. I love dialogue. I support and encourage you to start every book with dialogue. That being said I rather liked "He woke up...somewhere.", "Wednesday had to be the most depressing night of the week in any nightclub.", and "The pines nearest Torin Mallaghan sighed..." The last because I love to listen to pines sighing. Someone once told me that first time novelists tend to start their tales with their protagonists waking up. Was that you Steve? Was "he woke up ...somewhere" your first novel?
And now my friend Kathleen would like me to share with you her favorite first line: "There are Gods in Alabama: Jack Daniel's, high school quarterbacks, trucks, big tits, and also Jesus." Personally, I like the fact the author goes on to say she kicked one under the kudzu and left it to the roaches. (Gods in Alabama, Joshilyn Jackson). However, the book does not get my blessing....and the dialogue was very weak.
Long live witty repartee! (and Kurt Vonnegut)
Anne
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No, my first novel (SLOW FALL TO DAWN) is the one that starts out "Pause. And shiveringly inhale." The "He woke up... somewhere" is from CHANGELING, which was the first book in the ROBOTS & ALIENS series set in Asimov's universe.
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Oh this is fun! Let's see... I particularly like:
Thunder arrived as a stunning burst of light.
The lioness slipped through the tall, dry grass surrounding the house, her muscular haunches down as she stalked.
He woke up... somewhere.
Hell screamed behind them, a nightmare of fire and death.
I think that one was my favorite. :-D
Wednesday had to be the most depressing night of the week in any nightclub.
The pines nearest Torin Mallaghan sighed in the wind as if weary of holding up their branches.
The stone was a gift of the glowing sky.
If a city can have a gender, Nessantico was female.
SStragh stepped unsteadily from the floating stone into moonlit darkness, her bones aching from the cold, her nostrils full of the sharp smell of ozone from the time storm, her neck raw and torn from her fight with the Gairk Klaido.
These were the ones that were less successful for me. Not that I dislike them, merely that they don't grab my interest in the same way as the above.
Pause. And shiveringly inhale.
Jemi pushed the welding equipment into the navigational compartment.
MUSIC UP:
This last one confused me. That doesn't mean I wouldn't keep reading, it just didn't make any sense out of context, which of course is true of so many first lines...
"Talk about jumping out of the frying pan..."
Raw power smeared red and purple across the night sky, held captive in the glow of the mage-lights...
CosTa's belly ached, her stomach muscles drawn taut from lack of food over the last three days.
The autumn day was as hot as any in recent memory.
"Hey!" Aaron shouted.
Green Town sweltered.
In trying to parse out the difference in the first group versus the second, I think it's that I like the ones that are a little different, a little offbeat, but also give me something to grab onto... interesting but not too confusing in their different-ness, if that makes sense. I'm also just partial to lines that are just really beautiful... or just sound really beautiful to me or create a strong image. Like the one about the branches.
The ones that don't just automatically suck me in are the ones that are either a little too mundane, or are too far out of my thinking.
And I think over all, first lines ARE more important to writers than readers. Because I tend to read a full first chapter, I give a book a lot of room to grow on me. I've never put anything DOWN because of the first line, that I can think of.
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