Thursday Thirteen: Opening Lines

Everybody knows the importance of the first chapter. But what part of the first chapter is the most important? That’s right, the first page. And what part of the first page is the real crucial part? Mhm. The first sentence.

Not that I think you should normally start your writing by trying to find the perfect first sentence - opening lines are often like the cherry on the birthday cake, which you can't put there until you've baked the cake, whipped the cream and layered the darn thing together. But they do a lot for the overall impression...

Here are my 13 favorite opening lines (off the top of my head). They're all very different, from very different books, but they all have in common that they grab you by the hair and pull you in:

1. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice

2. “There was a hand in the darkness and it held a knife.” Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

3. "Call me Ishmael." Herman Melville, Moby Dick

4. “Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.” Margaret Mitchell, Gone With The Wind

5. “I was never a virgin.” Susan Isaacs, Lily White

6. “We were somewhere around Barstow near the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” Hunter S. Thompson, Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas

7. "She grew up in a land of fairy tales and miracles." Karen Essex, Leonardo's Swans

8. "It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York." Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

9. "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad." Rafael Sabatini, Scaramouche

10. "It was a pleasure to burn." Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

11. "Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. "J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

12. "Marley was dead, to begin with." Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

13, "In 1940, when I was thirty-one and an old maid, while the whole world waited for war, I fell in love with John Berringer." Susan Isaacs, Shining Through


So what are your favorite first sentences?


Image via A Y U M i