My daughter, an aspiring writer, and I were discussing what makes a good opening line for a novel. LPR says, “You’ve got to hook ‘em and make them want to read the next sentence.” I say it’s like the Supreme Court’s definition of pornography: "I know it when I see it.”
So, instead of writing something intelligent this week, I will list the opening lines to ten of my favorite books, all of them classics. You might want to see how many you know.(I'll post the answers next week)
But, more important, Do any of them make you want to read the next sentence? Also, which ones can you identify? All the people who respond will win a very special prize selected especially for them.
THE LINES:
1. “When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable–looking child ever seen.”
2. “The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home.”
3. “To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.”
4. “Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do; once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures of conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice ‘without pictures of conversations?’ “
5. “The primroses were over.”
6. “Once upon a time, many years ago, a little girl lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, in a little gray house made of logs.”
7. “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.”
8. “These two very old people are the father and mother of Mr. Bucket.”
9. ”My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip.”
10. “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.”
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1 comment:
I knew 5 (2,3,4,6,9) and the rest I googled and found out. Interesting set of favorite books. For me the first line isn't as important as the first page. I'll usually give a book that much. But then I have just started r4eading again now that TV has ended as I knew it (exasperating converter box experience, bad fringe reception, general pissed off feeling from not being asked if I wanted to go digital, and it's mostly garbage anyway so who cares). I started reading recently The Peaceable Kingdom as per Rob's recommendation and wasn't crazy about the first chapter or so but it has grown on me. An Updike novel (something about Lillies) I couldn't get into however and gave up. Maybe some other time.
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