First sentence -- how important?

[StrangeLife]

King totally hooked me with this beginning...

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."


... and I think I have expressed my admiration for the way J.K. Rowling was able to characterize a family in just one sentece, which also happened to be the first line of Harry Potter...

"Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."


Of course there is the famous...

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."


Yes - the first line can definitely be important.



Even in porn-stories....

"The day I tried diaper-sex for the first time I had CocoPops for breakfast."

 

[RoyceConnors]

A question was asked before recently, as to what made a story great. One of the first things is how it starts and continues to keep you focused on it until its done. It can end up being a good story, but if it lacks that element of a great beginning, it's doubtful it'll be considered a great story.

 

[Serafina1210]

Here's one of the greatest first sentences of all time:

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

But it's hard to say what makes it great. It doesn't plunge you into the story. Nothing at all happens. No characters are introduced. It's not dialogue. So what makes it work so well?

 

[Weird Harold]

Like I said, I'm not saying it's not important. I do believe the first sentence should at least pique your interest. But I've read more than one article that makes it sound like the first sentence is do-or-die, and I just don't think that's the case the vast majority of the time. I don't think a first sentence, unless it's a terrible run-on or full of errors or something like that, is enough to judge anything on.

I think people confuse, "If you can condense your Hook down into a single sentence," with "You must condense your Hook down into a single sentence."

 

[sr71plt]

I rarely put my hook in the first sentence, let alone the first paragraph.

 

[jezzaz]

I truly don't think it matters that much.

If someone is going to put your story down because the first sentence doesn't speak to them, then chances are they are going to put it down because of something else later on.

It's more the first page that matters I think - beyond even the first paragraph.

One sentence is not enough to get a read on someone's style - even a first paragraph isn't, particularly if you don't have dialog in it. A full page - provided there's dialog (I'm constantly surprised at some of the dire dialog that people write in their stories on Lit - they have a compelling story, decent characters, but the moment they open their mouths they don't speak like real people do - no contractions, no slang etc) gives you more to go on.

Like I said, dumping a story or book after the first page I can see - even if I personally think that's even premature - but after the first sentence? If you do that, then there are issues that are only going to come up somewhere else anyway.

And even then, quite a lot of people will keep going if someone else has told them "This is great!" even if it's not. That's got to be the reason Dan Brown keeps selling books, because it sure isn't the quality of the story telling.

 

[Equinoxe]

Here's one of the greatest first sentences of all time:

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

But it's hard to say what makes it great. It doesn't plunge you into the story. Nothing at all happens. No characters are introduced. It's not dialogue. So what makes it work so well?

I think that its brilliance is much like the brilliance of another great opening sentence:
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Likewise, nothing happens, no characters are introduced, and it isn't dialogue. While it similarly does tell you a vague something about the story you are about to read, it's not in immediately obvious way either.

But what both do and do wonderfully is make an interesting observation about life. Whether either is literally true—or even poetically true—is irrelevant. It suffices that they are interesting—well and truly interesting. Philosophically interesting, if in a casual sense. They are not narrative and do not introduce you to the characters or the plot, but subtly, without you necessarily even realising it, insinuate themselves into reality.

Perhaps it's that they do not draw you into their world, they set themselves into yours. Neither wholly nor literally, but meaningfully and in meaning.

To borrow a sentiment from a completely different book:
Truth becomes fiction when the fiction's true;
Real becomes not-real where the unreal's real.

And we're back to the first two words of my comment. For now.

 

[StrangeLife]

Well, according to Bilbo Baggins every journey, regardless of how long, begins with the first step. So maybe it would be an idea to come up with a great first line and then write the rest of the story based on it?

She grabbed my right foot and whispered tenderly "Hydroplane" and I knew my world would never again be the same.

Stand aside in awe bitches cause I sense a Great American Novel (tm) in the making.

 

[TamLin01]

Theresa Kitchen's play "Seminar" has a memorable scene where a veteran writer blows up another writer's story by pulling her opening sentence apart. Worth watching.

"I scowl with frustration at myself in the mirror."

The first line from one of the most widely read works of erotica in recent times.

Nothing special about it, right?

But the success of the work doesn't mean that it's a good opening line. Honestly, I think the question is sort of odd; don't we all want our opening sentences to be good regardless of how important they are? Don't we want every sentence to be good? No one would ever knowingly accept a bad first sentence, so it seems like whatever distinction we make here is academic.

San Jose State University hosts an annual competition for who can conceive the worst possible opening sentence of a novel, named of course after Bulwer-Lytton of "Dark and stormy night" infamy. The naming was not a mark of affection either, and a living descendent of BL engaged in a rather testy public debate with the contest founder (which was amazing). Worth looking over in any case.

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2014win.html

 

[Hypoxia]

San Jose State University hosts an annual competition for who can conceive the worst possible opening sentence of a novel, named of course after Bulwer-Lytton of "Dark and stormy night" infamy. The naming was not a mark of affection either, and a living descendent of BL engaged in a rather testy public debate with the contest founder (which was amazing). Worth looking over in any case.

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2014win.html

I mentioned the Bulwer-Lytton contest a few posts back (#20). Thanks for the link. A cousin gave me the first four paperback collections of B-L contest stories. I find myself re-reading them regularly -- not exactly for inspiration...

 

[TamLin01]

Sorry I overlooked that. But yeah, fun times with the "winners."

 

[ishtat]

Here's one of the greatest first sentences of all time:

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

But it's hard to say what makes it great. It doesn't plunge you into the story. Nothing at all happens. No characters are introduced. It's not dialogue. So what makes it work so well?

Basically she got the guts of the plot of a 350 page book into less than 25 words - and brought a smile to her female readers.

She did almost as well with, "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich..."

She engaged her readership.

 

[Swilly]

I think a fantastic first sentence can be an incredible thing, but it isn't a necessity.

If you have one, you damned well better make sure the rest of the story compares well to it!

 

[Hypoxia]

I think a fantastic first sentence can be an incredible thing, but it isn't a necessity.

If you have one, you damned well better make sure the rest of the story compares well to it!

^^this^^

I have a pile of great titles and first sentences -- that may be almost impossible to follow up on. Ratz.

 

[49greg]

I haven't ever thought about it when writing a story, but a first sentence, or at least the first paragraph is important to me in Lit. If the story doesn't sound interesting by then, chances are I won't finish it.

Not to say it has to be a snappy hook, it just has to show promise.

As I said, I haven't thought about baiting a hook, but books and stories I've read have sometimes used a first line or two that showed a situation part way through the story. Something like the movie with William Holden floating face down in the swimming pool. Following that opening the story is then told from the beginning showing how that circumstance came to pass.

I did that in at least one of my stories. I like that ploy and for me it works when I'm reading.

 

[Hard_Rom]

First paragraph maybe. First sentence could be "I woke up late on Saturday." Not very attention grabbing. But if they then describe why they woke late or the consequences that is different.

Snoopy started all his stories with "It was a dark and stormy night."

Then again.

"I woke up late on Saturday." is a crappy first sentence. Still think paragraph over sentence. But first sentence is start of first paragraph.

 

[sr71plt]

The sentence just needs to be a bit longer: I woke up late on Saturday on a slab in the morgue.

 

[SecondCircle]

The sentence just needs to be a bit longer: I woke up late on Saturday on a slab in the morgue.

Very intriguing indeed....