At the Beginning
Yesterday I talked a little on outlining, so going along with that I will talk about my most bitter of enemies... the opening line.
I've noticed there aren't many writers out there that take the opening line seriously. They all think: what could make one sentence more important than all the others? The opening line usually isn't even the most exciting of things; your conflict doesn't start at the beginning of your story, right? You need to set up the characters and the scene before you start the action...
And this is why those writers deserved to be smacked.
Maybe twenty years ago setting up the characters and scene first was alright. Any literary masterpiece you read is all about the lengthy descriptions of how the main character's hair was like a never-ending cascade of golden silk, or how the sun played just right over the crest of the hill, illuminating ever blade of grass as if it were a sea of jade.
Gag me with a spoon.
No one writes like that anymore -- well, that's a lie. Maybe I should say no one that gets published writes like that anymore, unless they're writing the next great bodice-ripper.
Over the years our literary sense of what is important has grown. No amount of Mary-Sue bombshells or vast sea-of-jade grass is going to satisfy us. We need action. We need conflict. And most of all, we need humor.
As a reader, I have a lot of books to choose from. I don't always listen to the New York Bestsellers list, nor do I listen to the reviews of my peers. Sometimes, but now always. Instead I play a little game with an author I've never heard of. The rules of this game are simple. Entertain me.
I open the book to the first chapter.... no the prologue, introduction, or random rambling that isn't Chapter One. I read the first sentence. If it's horrible, I put the book down. Right there. If it's good, they pass the first test and now it's time for the second. The second part of the test isn't always accurate... but I open to a random page about 3/4 of the way through and read the entire page. If I don't find humor, conflict, or some sort of emotion... I buy the book but I'm not excited to read it. If I find one or all of these the book tops my 'to-read' list, sometimes shoving a book I'm already reading out of the way.
So, what makes a good first sentence? Let us get an example of one from first-time novelist J.F. Lewis and his book Staked (I really recomend this novel... it's amazing.) Chapter One of Staked starts:
"Somewhere in the middle of my rant it occurred to me that I'd killed whoever it was I'd be yelling at, so arguing was no longer important."
Right away I know two things about this character: he's quick to anger, and quick to kill people he's angry with. In a few more sentences you notice that he's also very forgetful, and has no idea who this person that he killed is.
Now stop. Think. How much more important is it to know those three things nearly right away then to know the color of his hair/eyes/skin or the kind of city he lives in? Novels are about characters and plot. Why shouldn't your opening line show both of those?
In Staked, Eric is suspected of killing a really important werewolf. Because he's so forgetful, he doesn't know if they guy he killed was that werewolf or not. All he knows is he killed someone. Finding out who, why, and proving those two is the premise for the novel.
Opening lines are of the most importance, but somehow many writers seem to think they're just another sentence. It takes me weeks, sometimes even months, to come up with a good opening sentence... because I want to take my reader's interest and hold it for ransom right from the get-go.
Shouldn't you do the same?