Today, I was privileged to speak to the
Baldwin Writers Group in Daphne, AL, and had a great time. Thanks, folks, for
the kind invitation. I very much appreciated the opportunity and your
hospitality.
One of the topics I
spoke on was the importance of a good, inviting opening line, opening
paragraph, or opening chapter. You read a lot of advice that says start a story
in the middle of some captivating situation. This is the hook with
which a writer can snag the reader’s interest.
Ken Follet, in The Pillars of the Earth, starts off
with “The small boys came early to the hanging.” Wouldn’t you want to find out
more?
This one from Toni
Morrison’s Paradise speaks volumes: “They shoot the white girl first.”
One of my personal
favorites is from Corrie ten Boom’s memoir, Prison
Letters: “From time to time, I wrote short sketches on scraps of paper.”
In a 2013 interview
with Joe Fassler, Stephen King said: “An opening line should invite the reader
to begin the story.” He goes on, “For me a good opening sentence really
begins with voice.” He thinks readers are drawn to the story because of the
voice of the writer.
In each of the
opening-line examples above, I believe you can get a good sense of the author’s
voice, how the rest of the story is going to be told.
Introductory lines
are hard to write and generally fluid; that is, they change as the writer gets
further into the story. King, himself, said it used to take him months or even
years to settle on an opening line. (I doubt it takes him years now,
considering how prolific and masterful a writer he is.) He also said, “A really
bad first line can convince me not to
buy a book—because, god, I’ve got plenty
of books already—and an unappealing style in the first moments is reason enough
to scurry off.”
Wow, would I hate
that. All those hours and months that turned into years wasted because I blew
the first line.
For both of my
romantic suspense novels, I tried to develop first lines that fit both the
story and the genre.
Here’s my first line
for Deadly Star:
“I am not going to die; I am not going to die.”
And for Choosing Carter:
Bryn McKay’s body ricocheted off the passenger door as the pickup,
engine roaring, veered from one side of the Colorado mountain road to the
other.
What do you think?
Okay, you-all guys
keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same.
cj
cjpetterson@gmail.com
Choosing Carter (Pub: Crimson Romance)
Deadly Star (Pub: Crimson Romance)
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