The opening lines of a novel are like an introduction to the rest of the story. Some have become famous. “It was a dark and stormy night” is the well-known beginning of that struggling novelist Snoopy in the cartoon Peanuts. It is also the first line of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel Paul Clifford (1830), as well as the first line in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. (L’Engle admitted she was having a little fun with her readers by using that line.)
I hope you spend a lot of time thinking about your novel’s first sentence. It is a first impression. Let’s make it a good one. For as John Gardner wrote in his book On Becoming a Novelist,
We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images.
Can you recognize any of the following first lines (without Googling them)? Give your best guess in the comments below. (Author? Book title?) The answers will be posted in the comments later today.
(1) “It is 348 years, six months and nineteen days ago today that the citizens of Paris were awakened by the pealing of all the bells in the triple precincts of the City, the University and the Town.”
(2) “Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton.”
(3) “When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.”
(4) “Alex Stafford was just like Mama said. He was tall and dark, and Sarah had never seen anyone so beautiful.”
(5) “Rayford Steele’s mind was on a woman he had never touched.”
(6) “On that November afternoon when I first saw Cutter Gap, the crumbling chimney of Alice Henderson’s cabin stood stark against the sky, blackened by the flames that had consumed the house.”
(7) “At dusk they pour from the sky. They blow across the ramparts, turn cartwheels over rooftops, flutter into the ravines between houses. Entire streets swirl with them, flashing white against the cobbles.”
(8) “You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.”
(9) “A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out at either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once.”
(10) “It all began with the aurochs.”
Fun Fridays – January 26, 2024
It was a dark and stormy night
(wrote the beagle on his house),
and we dared not show a light
for it could wake a sleeping mouse
that would skitter down the baseboard,
claws a-ticking on the tiles,
harbinger now for rodent-horde
wearing gay and winsome smiles
as they head unto the larder
(which bears rounds of luscious cheese)
that will make it ever-harder
to convince them to depart, release
our home, oh, once so handsome
from their Mickey-Mousy ransom.
The only line I know is #5 and that was from the first book in the Left Behind Series
What I always think of when someone asks (usually at a writing workshop) what is a memorable first line, I always say: “There used to be a time when only God knew when you would die.”
I literally gasped when I read that the first time. You know what book that comes from, right Steve? 😉
And, of course: “In a hole there lived a hobbit.” Although I love the description more than the first line.
I knew Left Behind and Christy (which made me want to read them both again) and I’m guessing #1 is The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and #9 is A Man Called Ove, but no clue about the others. Fun post!
#2 The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway.
At the risk of sounding ignorant, I will admit that I didn’t know any of them. I guess I have a lot of reading to do.
Numbers 1, 2, 5, and 6 have been identified so far.
Authors:
1. Hugo
2. Hemingway
5. LaHaye & Jenkins
6. Marshall
Six more to go!
Steve
I only recognize two.
3. Hunger games
7. All the light you cannot see
I read A Man called Ove, and The Sun also Rises, and sadly didn’t recall that first line.
You did indeed reveal 3 & 7
That leaves
4.
8.
9.
10.
Oooooooh! I should have known The Hunger Games! That is one of my favorite series!
4. Redeeming Love
Do you know this one: It was hot that day in the hills of Tennessee. I remember because the aged boards that made up the tiny church’s floor creaked with every step.
Yes. #4 is Redeeming Love.
I knew 1, 5, and 6, but none of the others.
I dearly want to know #10. Aurochs are interesting.
#10 is The beginning of Lawhead’s Song of Albion trilogy! One of my favorite opening lines.
Kristi,
You are correct! That trilogy is one of my all time favorites.
Thanks!
It is time for the great reveal (5pm Eastern):
You readers are an impressive group! Eighty percent were identified. Only 8 and 9 were missing.
As promised, here are the answers to the ten examples above…
1. from The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, by Victor Hugo
2. from The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
3. from The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
4. from Redeeming Love, by Francine Rivers
5. from Left Behind by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins
6. from Christy by Catherine Marshall
7. from All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
8. from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
9. from A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
10. from The Paradise War (book one of “Song of Albion”) by Stephen Lawhead
What a fun post!
Michael thrust his sword through the neck of another warrior angel and spun around to face two more, only vaguely aware of the angels, and parts of angels, that fell like a horrific rain from the skies (soldiers he had trained, brothers he had loved—no time for that now!) he chided, there was war in Heaven—no, not war—rebellion!
[Opening line excerpt from THE PORTALS by Oliver John Calvert] Coming soon to literary agents in your area (I hope).
Serve the LORD with gladness family!
Love “intrigue”. Thanks for the fun post!