Kristen Simmons's Blog - Posts Tagged "ya-fusion"
Opening Lines
As my friend Fraulein Maria says, “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.”
I was recently rereading A TALE OF TWO CITIES by Charles Dickens, and was blown away (as always) by the opening line. You’ve probably heard it: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” etc., etc. In the history of literature that has to be one of the best first lines ever written.* I mean, the sheer physical size of the sentence (119 words) is enough to catch the reader’s attention. Then, on top of that, Dickens covers every emotion on the spectrum by pointing out that for every good thing that exists there is a dark side (Luke…I am your faaaather…) working against it. Glad it’s the “spring of hope?” Guess what? It’s also the “winter of despair.” Pretty excited that we have “everything before us?” We don’t. We have “nothing before us.” Maybe Dickens was Taoist, because he totally nailed the whole yin and yang thang.
(As an aside, Dickens uses a concept called anaphora (http://dictionary.reference.com/brows... ) in that opening line. I tried to work in this vocabulary wonder in a clever way, but alas, fell short.)
I agonize over first lines. I write them and rewrite them, knowing full well I’ll just be going back in revisions and rewriting them again. It’s like the hook line in a query letter; your one shot to win someone’s attention. It’s not only the reader’s first taste of the story; it’s the starting point for which the remainder of the manuscript is framed. It’s your first impression, your pick-up line, your hope that they’re interested enough to learn a little bit more.
So how do you make an opening line catchy without being kitschy? How do you tease, but not appease? There are a million and a half ways to do this (I know, I’ve counted). I don’t claim to be an expert on first lines by any means, but I LOVE to read them, so here are a few themes meant to inspire:
(See the full post at: http://yafusion.blogspot.com/2011/09/...)
I was recently rereading A TALE OF TWO CITIES by Charles Dickens, and was blown away (as always) by the opening line. You’ve probably heard it: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” etc., etc. In the history of literature that has to be one of the best first lines ever written.* I mean, the sheer physical size of the sentence (119 words) is enough to catch the reader’s attention. Then, on top of that, Dickens covers every emotion on the spectrum by pointing out that for every good thing that exists there is a dark side (Luke…I am your faaaather…) working against it. Glad it’s the “spring of hope?” Guess what? It’s also the “winter of despair.” Pretty excited that we have “everything before us?” We don’t. We have “nothing before us.” Maybe Dickens was Taoist, because he totally nailed the whole yin and yang thang.
(As an aside, Dickens uses a concept called anaphora (http://dictionary.reference.com/brows... ) in that opening line. I tried to work in this vocabulary wonder in a clever way, but alas, fell short.)
I agonize over first lines. I write them and rewrite them, knowing full well I’ll just be going back in revisions and rewriting them again. It’s like the hook line in a query letter; your one shot to win someone’s attention. It’s not only the reader’s first taste of the story; it’s the starting point for which the remainder of the manuscript is framed. It’s your first impression, your pick-up line, your hope that they’re interested enough to learn a little bit more.
So how do you make an opening line catchy without being kitschy? How do you tease, but not appease? There are a million and a half ways to do this (I know, I’ve counted). I don’t claim to be an expert on first lines by any means, but I LOVE to read them, so here are a few themes meant to inspire:
(See the full post at: http://yafusion.blogspot.com/2011/09/...)
