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Crafting killer first lines in fiction
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You only get one chance to make a first impression. And quite often, you only have one line to sell your book.
Say you're at a bookstore. Take a good look at the way people browse. Their eyes wander over the shelves. They usually stop on a book with the cover facing out. If the cover grabs their attention, they'll pick up the book. Maybe they'll read the back cover. Often they flip to the first page. They read the first sentence. And that's when they make their decision.
There's a lot of responsibility resting on a first line. It has to draw the reader in and make him want to read more. So how do you craft a truly awesome first line? Perhaps the key to this brilliance can be found by looking at how other authors did it.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
The Holy Bible
Clear. Succinct. To the point.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
1984 by George Orwell
How can you not read more after this? It starts off like an average line from an average novel, then zings you. Orwell lets us know right off the bat that we're entering a world where things are familiar, yet very wrong.
It was a pleasure to burn.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
It's a clean, simple line that delivers a menacing message.
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 by J.D. Salinger
Is there any doubt in your mind what kind of book you're going to read? The protagonist's voice reaches out and grabs you by the throat.
Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.
Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler
Thousands of women nodded in agreement when they read this line.
And now, two personal favorites...
It was a wild, windy, southwestern spring when the idea of killing Mr. Griffin occurred to them.
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
When I was in high school, Lois Duncan was my favorite author. Written back in 1978, before school violence became such a sadly common occurrence, this was a shocking line. But it also touches a nerve, playing into that animosity that every student has felt at one time or another for a particularly prickly teacher.
It had been five years, one month, and two days since Rye Dalton had seen his wife.
Twice Loved by LaVyrle Spencer
This was the first historical romance novel I ever picked up. From the first sentence, I was captivated and went on to read everything Ms. Spencer wrote. Wouldn't we all love to have that kind of effect on our readers?
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