By PJ Parrish
The opening line of a book is the single hardest line you write.
Many writers would disagree with that. But for my money, those folks are: A. lucky devils for whom all things come easy; B. diligent do-bees who can scribble down anything just to get started and then go back and rewrite or C. writers who aren’t really very good at what they do or maybe are just phoning it in.
I know, that sounds a little harsh. But I truly believe this. I have such respect and, yes, envy for writers who create great openings. I am not talking about “hooks.” Hooks are easy. I am firmly of the mind that anyone can write a decent hook. You’ve seen them, those clever one-liners tossed out by wise-ass PIs, those archly ironic first-person soliloquies, those purple-prose weather reports that substitute for mood.
No, not hooks. I’m talking about those rare and glorious opening moments that are telling us, “OO-heee, something special is about to happen here!”
We here at TKZ talk alot about great openings, especially for our First Page Critiques. We worry about whether we should throw out a corpse in the first chapter, whether one-liners are best, if readers’ attention spans are too short for a slow burn beginning.
A great opening goes beyond its ability to keep the reader just turning the pages. A great opening is a book’s soul in miniature. Within those first few paragraphs — sometimes buried, sometimes artfully disguised, sometimes signposted — are all the seeds of theme, style and most powerfully, the very voice of the writer herself.
It’s like you’re whispering in the reader’s ear as he cracks the spine and turns to Page 1: “This is the world I am taking you into. This is what I want to tell you. You won’t understand it all until you are done but this is a hint of what I have in store for you.”
Which is why, this week, I have been staring at a blank computer screen. I am trying to start a new book. (Yeah, I know I told you I am retired, but the urge is still there.) I have a good idea. I have outlined in my head the first couple chapters. But I don’t have a first line.
I sit here, staring at my blank Word document, as that cursed cursor blinks like a yellow traffic light in a bad noir novel. I NEED that one line because it’s not just an opening, it’s a promise. A promise to a reader that what I am about to give them is worth their time, is something they haven’t seen before, is something that is…uniquely me.
Well, shoot. I’m rambling. I’ll let Joan Didion explain it. I have a feeling she gave this a lot more thought than I have:
Q: You have said that once you have your first sentence you’ve got your piece. That’s what Hemingway said. All he needed was his first sentence and he had his short story.
Didion: What’s so hard about that first sentence is that you’re stuck with it. Everything else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you’ve laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone.
Q: The first is the gesture, the second is the commitment.
Didion: Yes, and the last sentence in a piece is another adventure. It should open the piece up. It should make you go back and start reading from page one. That’s how it should be, but it doesn’t always work. I think of writing anything at all as a kind of high-wire act. The minute you start putting words on paper you’re eliminating possibilities.
Didion gave this interview around the time she published her great memoir after her husband’s death The Year of Magical Thinking. The first line of that book is: “Life changes fast.”
Maybe I am more hung up than usual on openings because I have read some really bad opening lines. I won’t embarrass the writers here because they are still alive and I believe in karma. Oh what the hell, I will give you one because this writer deserves to be shamed:
As the dark and mysterious stranger approached, Angela bit her lip anxiously, hoping with every nerve, cell, and fiber of her being that this would be the one man who would understand – who would take her away from all this – and who would not just squeeze her boob and make a loud honking noise, as all the others had.
Okay, I cheated. That is one of the winners from the Bulwer-Lytton bad writing (on purpose) contest. But didn’t you believe for just a moment there it was real?
Let’s move on to some good stuff. Right now, I am re-reading Jeffrey Eugenides’s Middlesex. Look at his opening line:
I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.
There, in that one deceivingly simple declarative sentence lies the all tenderness, irony and roiling epic scope of Eugenides’s story. And I don’t even care that he used semi-colons.
And then there’s this one:
The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call “out there.”
That’s from Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. This is the first line of a long paragraph of description that opens the book, yet look at what it accomplishes — puts us down immediately in his setting, conveys the book’s bleak mood and hints with those two words “out there” that he is taking us to an alien place where nothing makes sense — the criminal mind.
What is so terrifying about openings, I suppose, is that you only have so much space to work with. And, as Didion said, once you’ve moved deeper into that first chapter, that golden moment of anticipation is gone and then you are busily engaging all the gears to move the reader onward.
I read a lot of crime novels. I do this to keep up with what’s going on in our business but I also do it out of pleasure. But too many of them rely on cheap hooks. That said, here are a couple good openings from books I pulled off my crime shelf.
- We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody dropped a girl off the bridge. — John D. MacDonald, Darker Than Amber
- They threw me off the hay truck about noon. — James M. McCain, The Postman Always Rings Twice
- The girl was saying goodbye to her life. And it was no easy farewell. — Val McDermid, A Place of Execution.
- I turned the Chrysler onto the Florida Turnpike with Rollo Kramer’s headless body in the trunk, and all the time I’m thinking I should’ve put some plastic down. — Victor Gischler, Gun Monkeys.
Not bad for one-liners. Then there are the more measured openings:
Death is my beat. I make my living from it. I forge my professional reputation on it. I treat it with the passion and precision of an undertaker – somber and sympathetic about it when I’m with the bereaved, a skilled craftsman with it when I’m alone. I’ve always thought the secret of dealing with death was to keep it at arm’s length. That’s the rule. Don’t let it breathe in your face.
But my rule didn’t protect me.
That’s from Mike Connelly’s The Poet and it works because it succinctly captures his protagonist’s voice and the theme of the story.
I think this blog post has been therapeutic for me. I think I am going to quit obsessing about the first line and just get the story up and moving. The more I get to know my characters, the more they will open up to me. Maybe one of them will whisper that golden opening line. I can’t remember the exact quote, but Joyce Carol Oates has said that until she knows the ending of her story, she doesn’t know how to start.
I get that. As weird and convoluted as this might sound, sometimes you have to write the last line before you can write the first. Sort of like Picasso signing his painting. Because what a great opening but the writer’s true signature?
A few of my openings.
❦ “And here,” said Bungorolo, Zaragoza’s official torturer, “here we have our rack.”
❦ It was the dwarf who most upset me.
❦ Jon covered his blond head with a large bandanna, wrapping it around in front to cover his nose and mouth, and tying the corners at the back of his neck.
❦ The first scary thing happened on Saturday, a week before school started.
❦ It was foggy that night in 1946 as I drove my black ’32 Ford up La Cienega into the Baldwin Hills, heading for the X on the map.
❦ Candles burned low in the late night darkness, flickering at each corner of the old wizard’s bed.
❦ It was to be my first kill.
I like them all. But they have me curious….are you writing in the same sub-genre in all of them? Lots of variety there.
The genres represented are:
❦ “And here,” said Bungorolo, Zaragoza’s official torturer, “here we have our rack.” picaresque
❦ It was the dwarf who most upset me. dystopian
❦ Jon covered his blond head with a large bandanna, wrapping it around in front to cover his nose and mouth, and tying the corners at the back of his neck. APOCALYPTIC
❦ The first scary thing happened on Saturday, a week before school started. coming of age
❦ It was foggy that night in 1946 as I drove my black ’32 Ford up La Cienega into the Baldwin Hills, heading for the X on the map.noir
❦ Candles burned low in the late night darkness, flickering at each corner of the old wizard’s bed. high fantasy
❦ It was to be my first kill. Future SciFi
“a book’s soul in miniature” Yes, that’s the ideal, conveying voice, atmosphere, and theme in one sentence. We might not always achieve that, but it’s a great way to focus your efforts.
oh for sure, we often fall short. And this is why, more often than not, I find myself going back and rewriting the opening. A theme, slippery eel that it is, doesn’t usually reveal itself until you are well into the book. Atmosphere and voice I can usually manage to capture early. But theme? It comes, to me at least, sotto voce, and I have to be listening very carefully to hear it.
I’m starting (or will be very shortly) a new novel. I don’t worry too much about opening lines–I worry about starting in the right place and often toss the first few goes at Chapter 1, so going back to fix my opening sentence isn’t a big deal.
Of all my opening sentences, I like “No matter what his Klingon-spouting nephew said, today was not a good day to die.”
Yeah, I agree. I used to sweat the first line FOREVER. It is paralyzing to write like that. The more experienced I got, the more willing I was to let things flow and trust that I could go back. Have thrown out so many false start chapters. I keep them in a file for yucks.
“No matter what his Klingon-spouting nephew said, today was not a good day to die.” — That has to be one of my favorite opening sentences of all time. 🙂
Thanks so much, Michelle. It’s from Dangerous Connections.
Kris, the best line in this post is:
“I am trying to start a new book. (Yeah, I know I told you I am retired, but the urge is still there.)”
What good news for us fans!
The first lines that come easiest for me are ones spoken or thought by characters. Once I’m inside a character’s skin, it’s easier to understand their problem, conflict, fear, etc.
From Until Proven Guilty: Tawny Lindholm Rosenbaum longed to be anywhere else except sitting at the defense table in a courtroom beside an accused rapist.
From Deep Fake Double Down: Monroe Old Child always wondered if his father knew he would be born seven months after his death.
From soon-to-be-published Fruit of the Poisonous Tree: “Don’t tell Dad I’m in town,” said Mimi Rosenbaum.
Great first lines.
I second Michelle, Debbie–compelling first lines!
I especially like the last one. I usually don’t like quotations/dialogue for openers but that one works for me.
When my creative juices aren’t flowing, I make up first lines. Here are a few that I like.
Jenna Malone had never killed anyone on a Tuesday. Today would be the first time.
“We should tell her now before she finds out on her own.”
“He can never know the truth.”
“I hope you still know me after today.”
I regret the day I found the love of my life.
Right now, this is the first line from my work-in-progress. “It was a dark and stormy night… and there wasn’t a damned thing Rafe could about it.” I’m sure I’ll change it, but for now, it captures the essence of the story.
Oh I LOVE that one about regretting the day you found the love of your life!!!!
This is one of my all-time favorite first lines from a movie — James Cameron’s Avatar.
When I was lying there in the VA hospital, with a big hole blown through the middle of my life, I started having these dreams of flying.
I like that. I assume it’s that main guy talking, or thinking?
Yes, the main character.
I’m so glad to hear that you are back behind the keyboard, working on a new novel, Kris. Looking forward to hearing more about it.
A few of my openings:
Empowered: Agent: It was the three month anniversary of my being paroled from Special Corrections. All I wanted was a job, to get out of this wet dress, and a break from the chorus of plant voices singing their happiness in my head now that it was raining.
Empowered: Traitor: The damn Columbian rain forest wouldn’t shut up.
Gremlin Night: Burt the ogre was late. I squatted in heeled boots in a snowy alley in Peoria, calves burning, hair damp, stomach rumbling, all because an ogre crime boss took his sweet time to show up at his own blasted night club.
Book Drop Dead: An orange tabby kitten stalked a crumpled scrap of paper outside the Fir Grove branch library.
For me, first person openings often have a different energy than third, but both can of course equally engage the reader.
“The damn Columbian rain forest wouldn’t shut up.” Great line!
Yeah, that is my favorite as well. It tickles the imagination immediately because even if it’s just from Tarzan movies, we all can hear a tropical forest!
I agree. Peeps: For some reason, my replies are not showing up here. Sorry for this.
“A great opening is a book’s soul in miniature.” I’m going to print this and hang it on my wall. It made me return to my books to see if I had touched on the soul of each one in the opening.
From Lacey’s Star: “I do not like handsome men.” – The first person narrator is an independent young woman who has to decide whom she can trust as she tries to solve a murder mystery.
From Time After Tyme “The branch made a creaky noise, and the ground looked really far away.” – Here the first person narrator is a plucky ten-year-old who’s willing to literally go out on a limb to solve a local murder mystery.
Glad to know you’re starting a new book!
Thanks! I had forgotten how terrifying and thrilling it can be to begin again.
The hands-down best opening line I ever read was from The Knife of Never Letting Go, the first volume of Patrick Ness’s epic YA Adventure, Chaos Walking:
The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don’t got nothing much to say. About anything.
Dog lover here, so I am chuckling at that one. But I would think just the opposite — dogs have so very much to say. You can see it their eyes.
My advice to newbies on that first line and first page is to just put something down and get going. The most brilliant first sentence in the world will most likely be deleted in the first edit because it has almost nothing to do with the actual beginning of the story you want to tell.
Very true. As I said, I have a whole computer folder of deleted first lines and paragraphs. Man, what pretentious, pseudo-poetic crap. 🙂
Great post, Kris!
My favorite of your example is: “ They threw me off the hay truck about noon.”— James M. McCain, The Postman Always Rings Twice
And this is from a WIP barely off the ground:
“What have you done, Father?”
Happy Tuesday! 😉
“What have you done, father.”
Echoes of my favorite opening line ever from Charlotte’s Web:
“Where’s Papa going with that ax?”
So many great ones here today. It’s always fun to see openers from other authors. Here are a few of my own.
From my WIP, working title “Camshafted”:
A funny thing happened on my way to the car crusher.
From my Sumerian historical, Eden’s Promise:
In her first year wandering the Zab road alone, the child from Anshan learned to tuck the cobra out of sight before begging food.
And my takeoff on the Jane Austen P&P opener:
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a detective in possession of a good clue must be in want of a crime.
Cheers!