In the Beginning

I'm forever trying to figure out what things really mean. How things really work. That's why I took a radio clock apart before I was old enough to read. That's why I was always in trouble for asking rude questions. Also why I studied linguistics and became a technical writer (until just recently, when I got kicked upstairs to fancy-dancy "Content Strategist." Now there's no living with me!).

I have to say, Genesis leaves out a lot more than it includes.

The King James bible is frustratingly moot on the question of how, or what raw materials might have been at hand, and super oh so amazingly silent on "how come?"

Most origin myths are.

Humans find it incredibly difficult to imagine a world without humans, so the why of it all never gets mentioned. Please don't be cross with me for calling Genesis an origin myth. It fits the pattern, and it was written by man, and there have probably been a few errors, poetic rewordings, and reorderings-for-a-more-pleasing-read between the original events and now. For example, saying the stars were created after the earth. Some editor probably thought it flowed better that way. We know that's not literally what happened, right?

The thing is, that editor was correct. I don't know a better opening than "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."And the rest of it wouldn't flow as well without playing around with what happened when.

I like this first line, too: "I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte." (Red Harvest by Dash Hammett)

And: "Elmer Gantry was drunk." (Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry)

And: "They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did." (Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea)

And: "Francis Marion Tarwater's uncle had been dead for only half a day when the boy got too drunk to finish digging his grave and a Negro named Buford Munson, who had come to get a jug filled, had to finish it and drag the body from the breakfast table where it was still sitting and bury it in a decent and Christian way, with the sign of its Saviour at the head of the grave and enough dirt on top to keep the dogs from digging it up." (The Violent Bear it Away by Flannery O'Connor)

The only thing that keeps me from burning every piece of paper in my house and pitching my computer into the street one story below, to shatter and spew its bits and bytes all over the tarmac, is the prayerful hope that these writers didn't find their first lines at the beginning of their journey, but toward the end. Because if you're supposed to be able to write like that during a novel's genesis, I'm afraid I'm much more of a typist than a writer.

Oh goodness, we can't end on that note. So what if it took me two years to find an opening line that would past muster? I'm pretty sure there's at least ten good sentences in the novel. At least ;)

Wait, that's not any more cheerful, is it? Perhaps dear reader, you can cheer me up--tell me about something that you knew was just right, right at its genesis? For example, the day I got off BART for the first time and breathed the air in San Francisco, ditching high school in Livermore for the day, I knew it was the city where I most belonged. And when I met my little brother's wife, it was clear that they were meant for each other, and that I would love her to pieces for the rest of my life.

How about you? What did you know was absolutely right from the genesis?

Comments

[Dale]

I loved the first time I drew a comic book and gave it to my friends at school.

[Mysti]

I wish there was a copy of that somewhere!

[Peggy]

This is a great article, and a great topic to explore. Thanks for sharing.

[Priscilla]

One of mine was arriving in San Francisco at the age of three and deciding I wanted to come back for ever and ever... Took another 15 years but I did and still live close enough. The other was knowing I wanted to write. I can't even date that! As far as first lines are concerned, the perfect one is just lurking behind that little gray cell... Happy 2012, Mysti!