First Lines

So, I read a bunch of writing blogs.

Not like, a thousand of them. I mean, the number of writing blogs I check out with any regularity is somewhere in the low double digits. The number I check in on daily or almost daily is single digits. I know some people are devoted to things like blogs and web comics, but I've never been able to do it.

Anyway, one of the things that always comes up on these blogs is the issue of first sentences.

If you read and believe these blogs, many of which are written by successful authors, then first sentences hold a ton of weight in the world of publishing. Apparently a first sentence is supposed:

• Grab the reader with something that makes them question what comes next in the book. Asking a question in the readers mind that must be answered.
• Present an accurate picture of your entire novel
• Present some form of excitement to pull people into the book and make them not want to put it down
• Be powerful enough that if someone read just that sentence, they would want to buy the book
• Grant 3 wishes, including wishes for more wishes.

Okay, so I made one of those up. The point being that according to all of these people, the first sentence holds the weight of the novel on it's shoulders. 

Gee, as if starting a story wasn't hard enough. 

I've had a bunch of different opening lines for Eastgate in the various false starts I've had with it so far.

So, lets take a chance and look at a few of them and discuss some possibilities for NaNoWriMo.

In a hole in the wall bar, there lived an elf.

I know I mentioned this one in my post about Seren. This was the first first line to Eastgate, before Eastgate had a name or really even much of a plot or world.

This line is an obvious play on Tolkien, and I remember that when I thought of it, I thought it was genius.

Yeah...sometimes we get a little too in love with our ideas. Even the terrible ones

Anyway, while I think that this line does in fact kind of ask a question (the question only really exists because I think the line plays with your expectation of elves, and not because it creates an interesting story idea or anything) it does absolutely nothing, in my eyes, to propel me into the story.

Several months later, I had rethought the story a bit, added a bunch of cast members and had an actual plot. That was when the opening line became:

“So, what exactly do you people do here?” she asked.

This line may well make it back into the final cut, if only because the scene it begins is, frankly, too damn good to cut. It just wasn't the right scene to open the book with.

So, let's see. Does this line meet the criteria? 

Well it certainly asks a question, that much is obvious. Though, frankly I don't know that i does anything else. There's a lot of other questions that surround the one that you see, but I don't know that any of them are powerful enough that they really pull you into the story. 

This line could begin just about any book, and the answer that follows it, it just about as vague as the question, and only then leads into a bit of a snarky comeback once all it said and done. The scene, like I said, is really good and I know that some version of it will end back up in the new draft, but it just wasn't a scene that'd pull a cold reader into a story.

I decided that starting the story as late as this scene started it wasn't a great idea. It'd require quite a bit of catch up in terms of explaining what lead these people to be talking. And, while the scene does handle that, it doesn't do it in a way that gives the audience as much to work on as the characters. So, I shifted a couple of previously parallel events around and started with a scene that involved the two, really, central characters.

I also decided that I needed to really start with a bang, so I decided to do an in medias res thing:

Seren hated the chase.

Not so much a question, is it?

I mean, sure it makes you ask a lot of questions. Possibly more than the first try, which was, in fact, a question .

Why does this line pose so many questions? Probably because it gives you more. First you have to ask "Who's Seren" and then you have to ask "What kind of chase?", because frankly there are a few ways that word can be used. Ultimately it also asks who she's chasing.

The other thing that I this does it give you some sort of insight into this story. It's probably a story with a lot of action (of you take chase literally) and if Seren hates chases, this isn't her first.

Ultimately though, I'm still not sold on this line opening the story. The fault isn't with the line itself. Primarily I'm not sold because, while I love Seren, and shifting this scene to having Seren as the view point character opened up this scene in a new way.... I'm just not sold on opening the story with her.

I feel that it limits my ability to really give information on the world of the story. So much of this world is new, and not I'm worried that opening with someone who is jaded against everything limits my ability to describe the world and it's workings early enough that the audience won't have to worry about the nuts and bolts of the world when the plot really kicks in.

But I guess that's not really a problem with the first line, it's an issue of, really, the first chapter.

Anyway, lately I've been thinking of opening with a line that goes something like:

It had been 40 years since the failure of the Winter Rebellion, and the dark god that had ruled the land for so many centuries had only tightened his grip since the uprisings failure.

Now, this is where you ask me why I'd open with a line that has little to do with anything I've really discusses thus far.

Well, I think, first off, that this line, or sort of line, sets the world right away. You know that this is a story where evil has won (which is the foundation to the story and it's world). You know that something called the Winter Rebellion happened 40 years ago, and that it failed (this is a very important aspect to not only the novel, but the greater story involved). It also tells you that since the rebellions failure, for whatever reason, the Dark Lord has become an even worse overlord (again, very important). 

The last two things in particular tie in to a major point in the story.

To me, this is the instant "We're not in Kansas any more" opening, which I think it a foot in the door to what I need to audience to get from the get-go. The problem I have is that I wonder if the line forces you to ask questions, and demands that you read further in order to get those answers. Does it tickle your interest or is it so unexciting that you just don't give a damn? Does it make you say "Okay, I'm curious enough to pay $8 for the paperback" or does it make you say "I think I'll just read Mistborn again"?

So, noble blog reader.... what do you think? Does this new opening line work for you? What would you change? Do you think I should look at going back to one of the lines I used earlier, or some variation? Or should I scrap them all and think up something else?

You've been looking at this blog... time to interact with it. 

Post a comment and give me your opinion.

No, I'm serious. Comment and give me your opinion.