The Great Opening Line

I recall one of those books we had to read in high school. In it, one of the characters is writing a book. Or he would be. If he didn't get up every single day and erase the first line of the book he'd written the day before and then spend the entire present day crafting an entirely new opening line (that will only be deleted tomorrow). 

Yet the opening line of the novel wherein this desperate writer is a character was deceptively bland. It goes: The unusual events described in this chronicle occurred in 194- at Oran. 

Not the shooting star of a first line that you might expect to lead you to lose yourself in the subsequent prose. Yet almost every single one of us assigned to read the novel did get sucked into the story and the brilliant writing.

So what makes a great first line? One exuberant flush of color and delight (like the moss rose bloom in my photo)? Or should they be more calculated? After all, first lines in fiction have so many jobs to do. 

• Convey the voice of the author, the voice of the POV character, and the tone of the story all at the same time.
• Build a world.
• Establish a story question.
• Speak to genre.
• Create a contract with the reader.
  
• Hook the reader.
• Serve the story.

In genre fiction, we're taught early that our first lines must be compacted under pressure into shining diamonds that must do as many of the above within a reasonable (often fewer than twenty) words. It may be a wonder than any of us ever get past the first line of our novels. If we do, it's most likely because our first lines are rarely our first lines. Most of us allow ourselves, out of necessity, to write the worlds worst first lines, then we hone them only after the draft is complete. Anything else leads to madness. And incomplete drafts.

How do you write a great opening line? Don't. That is seriously my best advice. Leave it alone. Write the story. Let the opening line take care of itself until well after the story is complete. Only then, I'd argue, do you have complete insight into the characters, the story arc, and the emotion that will help you come up with a worthy opening line. I'll then suggest that you focus on crafting an opening line that sets reader expectations for the rest of the story. The reason being that a brilliant first line, while a lovely thing, sets the bar for the rest of the writing. Start with a bar that's too high and you leave yourself no where to go. Every single line that follows will need to be equally polished and brilliant. Great work if you can get it. I'm not saying throw away your first line. I am arguing that over polishing a first line or first page or first chapter creates something that no longer serves the rest of the story and creates an expectation that the rest of the story might not uphold. I'm more interested that the writing sounds like you than I am in how clever the first line might be.

"Sun glinting off the barrel of a gun stopped Captain Ari Idylle dead in her tracks." 

That's the first line from my first published novel. Nothing special. But the 'uh oh' moment should tell you that you're about to go on an adventure with Ari. And it should maybe convey that while today isn't shaping up the way she'd expected, there aren't any dead bodies laying around. Because I didn't go with gore and horror to open Ari's story, you might catch the hint from this opening that there's tension to come, but the story isn't trying to be gritty or horrific.You might pick up that since this character is a captain that she's experienced and competent. You might assume that she's clever or at least observant. 

When I wrote that first line, I wasn't aiming for any of the stuff above. I wanted to start the story on action. Nothing more. No normal world. No easing into conflict. I wanted my angle of attack to be a cliff face that Ari (and the reader) slammed into. I wanted those things because it was what I like in a story. I can't help but feel that if you write an opening sentence to your story that reflects what you like in a story, I'm going to know right away what kind of book you've written and that sentence is going to tell me far more than you ever intended. 

That's a great opening line.

What I Hate: How Long You Got?

Holy horse feathers. Whose idea was it to make me think back to high school AP English? That class taught by the dude wearing suits from the year I was born. That teacher who liked to get aggressive and tell me I wasn't the best writer in his class. That class where it was all I could do to not shout back that so long as I stayed in his class I'd never get any better as a writer, either.

Woo. O_o This will not be a pretty stroll down memory lane, y'all. So you know how Vivien doesn't have time for hate? S'okay. I picked up what she set down and I have ALL the detestation and loathing. Not for individual books. Much. I mean to this day I don't see the point of Catcher in the Rye or the book about the idjit kid who shoves his best friend out of a tree. On the other hand, there were books I really, really liked. The Plague. A Clockwork Orange. I still have a soft spot for The Most Dangerous Game and The Lottery.

No, here's my hate-rant.

We were instructed to read privileged, long dead white male authors. As if there were no other perspectives on earth. No other views of the world or how we exist within it. How do I know the authors were privileged? It's all in their bios. They all went to college, which in the time(s) most of them were writing meant privilege. I don't mean to say we shouldn't have read some of these guys. Some of them were brilliant writers. Give me Mark Twain any day. But why not Harriet Tubman? Would it have killed anyone to ask us to read a black woman's words? To let us catch the most fleeting and horrifying glimpse of her world? Would anyone have been scarred forever to learn that the white, European male perspective isn't the only one on earth? Apparently it would have because books by women or people of color weren't even offered as options on the alternate reading list.

It took until I got to Evergreen State College for someone to begin pointing me at literature by people who didn't look like me. The Color Purple by Alice Walker is still etched into my head. So are some of the really contentious discussions we had around the themes of the story.

Here's the interesting thing. The discussions in AP English classes were boring. No one got heated. In fact, there was actually precious little 'discussion'. Yeah, yeah, here's what the book was about. Sure, cool imagery, bro, but a sentence with 123 words? Really? Isn't there a drug to help with that? But once discussion turned to something like The Color Purple  in college - those discussions were ANIMATED. No one was bored. I think it was because our worlds and our perspectives had been challenged and we were unsettled by it. We had to talk it out. That, to me, is what makes great literature. If a book can shake you up *just* enough - then the book won.

The Classic that Wasn't

Catcher in the Rye.

I read it. Even finished it. Not because I wanted to. Not because I liked anything I read. I finished that book solely because I had innocent, blind faith that it HAD to get better. Somewhere. Somehow.

It didn't. Ever. How the ever living hell do you write 300 plus pages of some dude whining? I swear to all the gods, Salinger was paid by the word for that piece of kindling. I was (and still am to this day) vastly disappointed that Holden Caufield never DIED in that book.

I get there are people who love this story and this character. Maybe teenage angst wasn't my thing even when I was a teenager.

The other one I loathed and still do is A Separate Peace by John Knowles. Again. Had to finish it. It was on the final. But ye gods and little fishes. Did you know that all of these so called 'classics' by angst-ridden (and now dead) white guys could have been hundreds of pages shorter with just a little Prozac?? Why are despicable characters without any kind of hope of redemption worth any amount of my life energy?

All I can say is these two books totally justified the speed reading course I'd taken in 8th grade. I could not quit those books fast enough and still comprehend enough to write the papers on them that were required. Bleh. Even after all this time, I want to go scrub my hands clean after recalling those stories.

I far and away preferred The Color Purple. And To Kill a Mockingbird. And The Plague. And Wuthering Heights - though how Heathcliff came to be a romantic icon is beyond me. Wrote him up as an illustration of the concept of evil in literature for my English AP exam. All while singing Kate Bush in my head. How did you cope with reading books you disliked for required courses? And do you still force yourself to finish books you don't like?