First line of story always sounds awkard....

[mvrk101]

First line of story always sounds awkard, whats a good way to start off?

 

[wishfulthinking]

Write while inspiration/force is with you, and come back and fix it up later

 

[impressive]

Is awkard a bad thing?

 

[HappyLlama]

First line of story always sounds awkard, whats a good way to start off?

Try spellchecker, it works for me.

Awkward:a ill adapted for use, clumsy...

 

[cloudy]

Is awkard a bad thing?

*coke spew*

 

[3113]

First line of story always sounds awkard, whats a good way to start off?

Cut it out, and start with the second line. Or better yet, the second paragraph.

 

[Guest]

For shame! Quit picking on the newbie.

mvrk101 - yes, it can be. It's difficult to write an opening sentence that sounds intelligent yet manages to catch the interest of the reader.

I like wishful's advice about leaving the opening sentence until you've written more of the story.

Then go back and FIX the thing.

 

[cloudy]

For shame! Quit picking on the newbie.

mvrk101 - yes, it can be. It's difficult to write an opening sentence that sounds intelligent yet manages to catch the interest of the reader.

I like wishful's advice about leaving the opening sentence until you've written more of the story.

Then go back and FIX the thing.

but....but...Imp was funny!

Welcome to the AH, mvrk.

 

[3113]

For shame! Quit picking on the newbie.

(Bowing my head, staring at my shoes) ....we were only tryin' to help....honest....

 

[Guest]

but....but...Imp was funny!

Welcome to the AH, mvrk.

Imp's funny as hell, and you are gorgeous.

But we can be nice.

You don't want some mean old Lit bitch accusing us of being mean old Lit bitches, do you?

(Again?)

 

[zeb1094]

I can always come up with a first line, it's the rest of the story that I have trouble with!

 

[Guest]

(Bowing my head, staring at my shoes) ....we were only tryin' to help....honest....

Yes - your post snuck in before mine, my apologies.

This was directed at the naughty girls above you.

 

[impressive]

Imp's funny as hell, and you are gorgeous.

But we can be nice.

You don't want some mean old Lit bitch accusing us of being mean old Lit bitches, do you?

(Again?)

I think it's time for you to start drinkin'

 

[Guest]

I think it's time for you to start drinkin'

BWAH!!!

 

[Colleen Thomas]

First line of story always sounds awkard, whats a good way to start off?

Depens on the story, the effect you're going for and the particular hook you hope to set to keep the reader reading.

There isn't a blanket good answer of a blanket bad answer.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Lots of great books start with an akward first line, that, because we know an dlove the book, becomes famous on its own;
Call me Ishmael
In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit
Some things to try are;
Start with a line of dialogue,
"Sweetheart, you're going to be so sorry for what you did."
or action,
I pulled my car out of the drift, tires screaming for traction and sped away from my persuers once more.
or both;
"Fuck me harder, Harry!" Lilah whispered.

 

[Liar]

First line of story always sounds awkard, whats a good way to start off?

It was a dark and stormy night...

 

[Stella_Omega]

It was a dark and stormy night...

Damn you! I deleted that one from my post, now you make me feel foiolish!

 

[Colleen Thomas]

It was a dark and stormy night...

Snoopy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Liar]

Damn you! I deleted that one from my post, now you make me feel foiolish!

Foolish or foil-ish? Make up yer mind.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Foolish or foil-ish? Make up yer mind.

no can do, Kemosabe, my fingers are stuttering

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Most writers have trouble with first lines. IMHO, the prime directive for an opening line is NOT to advance the story but to "hook" the reader, intriguing them enough to continue reading. If they happen to do both, that's a bonus.

Here are some opening lines that are consider "great" by many folks.

--

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

--

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

--

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

--

They shoot the white girl first.

Paradise, Toni Morrison

--

My mother was a virgin, trust me...

Emotionally Weird, Kate Atkinson

--

Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.

Back When we Were Grownups, Anne Tyler

--

The small boys came early to the hanging.

The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett

--

There once was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb and he almost deserved it.

Voyage of the Dawn Trader, C S Lewis

--

I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Harbine's father over the top of the Standard Oil sign.

The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver

--

"Take my camel, dear", said Aunt Dot as she climbed down from the animal on her return from High Mass.

The Towers of Trebizond, Rose Macaulay

--

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

1984, George Orwell

--

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, J.D. Salinger

--

(And now, last but least, its appearance an exhibition of pure authorial hubris, is the opening I'm proudest of writing here at Lit.)

Sensual and seductive, she lay amid the rumpled sheets of the bed where we'd just made love, relaxed and at ease within the golden skin of her petite, perfect body--not posing, not looking into the camera so much as through it, into the photographer, into me, waiting with an expression of amused tolerance for me to finish and rejoin her.

A Special Photo, Rumple Foreskin (that's me)

--

And in closing, let me add that to study really atrocious openings, one must journey to the home of the Bulwer-Lytton Wretched Writing Contest page

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/#To%20inflict

For it was Edward George Bulwer-Lytton who in his novel, Paul Clifford, gave us the immortal opening line Liar mentioned earlier:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Quiet_Cool]

The awkwardness of a first line, in my opinion, tends to be a simple thing. Any first line can seem awkward on the page, but if it meshes and follows suit with the rest of the story, then who cares how it sounds alone (for the record, I don't feel that any of the lines RF quoted are so horribly awkward).

What you might want to consider, however, is that if the first line feels awkward as you write it, perhaps the story following it isn't ready to be written.

Q_C

 

[cloudy]

In my last story (embarassingly, months ago), I came up with the first line, and then wrote the story around it. I'm still proud of that line:

"The letter arrived three days before Christmas, blown in on a bleak Oklahoma day by unkind fate."

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

In my last story (embarassingly, months ago), I came up with the first line, and then wrote the story around it. I'm still proud of that line:

"The letter arrived three days before Christmas, blown in on a bleak Oklahoma day by unkind fate."

I remember the story and that opening. IMHO, it's a first-rate hook. I doubt many readers could resist hanging around to find out what was in that letter.

Rumple Foreskin