What’s in a first line?
Hopefully, it has enough of that magical something to pique the reader’s interest and make him want to continue reading. In other words, you have to have a good hook. But you have to get it right . . . just right. My buddy, Doug Allyn, who’s in my opinion one of the best short story writers ever, once told me he’d labored on getting the right first line for one of his stories for over an hour. After filling up a couple of pages with variations, be finally thought he had the best one, only to find that it was the same sentence that he’d first written.
What goes around, comes around sometimes.
Let’s take a look at some good first lines and rate them for their suitability. Let’s start with the so called classics.
Call me Ishmael--- Herman Melville, Moby Dick. If only the rest of this dreadfully bad novel held up as well as this opening line. I read it as a high schooler and immediately wanted to find out more about this Ishmael dude, but after a few more pages I went scurrying for the Cliff’s Notes.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. –Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities. Yeah, Charlie knew how to open a book, all right. I just wish he would’ve left word what happened to that Edwin Drood guy.
Elmer Gantry was a drunk.--- Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry. And I’ll bet he looked just like Burt Lancaster, too.
He was facing Seventh Avenue at Times Square.---James Baldwin, Another Country. Okay . . . And?
Okay, let’s get to the real writers who carried things and kept people interested in reading (while those who wrote the serious literary classics continue to be lauded over in the ivory towers of colleges and universities and turn more people off reading.)
It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid-October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills.---Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep. Wow. Can anybody doubt that Chandler was one of the best writers who ever picked up a pen? I read this line many years ago and it still blows me away. What great imagery: “… a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills.” Chandler was a frustrated poet whose prose was so elegant it sang and danced its way across the page.
Meyer came aboard the Busted Flush on a dark, wet, windy Friday afternoon in early December.---John D. MacDonald, The Green Ripper. You know I wouldn’t let this one go by without using a line from the great John D. He was one of the greatest writers of the Twentieth Century and never got all the credit he so richly deserved.
Above all things in heaven or on earth, John LePere loved his brother.---William Kent Krueger, Purgatory Ridge. Kent is not only a good friend of mine, he’s one of the best guys writing today. He is a modern Raymond Chandler and has helped to put the state of Minnesota on the map, even if they did elect Jessie “The Body’ Ventura.
The lawyer, whose name was John Truttwell, kept me waiting in the outer room of his offices.---Ross MacDonald, The Goodbye Look. Ross MacDonald was an underrated writer as well. Although he forged the way for many mystery writers to be taken seriously, it’s sad that he’s generally forgotten today. While he is best known for his Lew Archer series, I found his early books equally fascinating.
There are no hundred percent heroes. ---John D. MacDonald, Cinnamon Skin. The John D. again. There may not be any one hundred percent heroes, but he was one hundred percent writer. Quite possibly the best there ever was.
Now on to those great writers of today.
Revenge is like any other religion: There’s always a lot more preaching than there is practicing. --- Andrew Vachss, Another Life. Who but the remarkable Andrew could write a line so fascinating that you’ll be thinking about it long after you’ve finished reading this blog? He’s without a doubt the leader of the pack . . . He’s the best of the best.
Johnny Merton was playing with me, and we both knew it.---Sara Paretsky, Hardball. Sara knows how to play hardball, all right. Her openings always crackle.
The two women looked at me with such sizzling fury I was afraid their eyeballs might catch fire. --- Julie Hyzy, Grace Interrupted. Julie sure knows how to open a story. You can tell this one’s beginning in the middle of something, and after reading this opening, who wouldn’t be continuing on to see how the fireworks?
The night watchman thought he saw a flicker in the woods.---Brian Garfield’s short story “Jode’s Last Hunt.” This is a short story example of modern master Brian Garfield, whose short stories and novels are virtually all examples of first rate writing.
An explosion of chrysanthemums, candlelight, Oriental carpets, Byzantine eyes.---Joseph Wambaugh, The Black Marble. Only Wambaugh could get away with using a fragment as his opening sentence. This is my favorite of his many novels, I guess because it was the first police procedural that I read which was also a love story.
Lying prostrate, Serge Duran gaped at Augustus Pelbesly who was racing inexorably around the track.---Joseph Wambaugh, The New Centurions. This was Wambaugh’s first novel and it inspired me to go into police work. In some ways, it was his best. Ironically, I won the physical fitness award in my police academy class, just like Gus Plebesly.
Here are a couple of my own entries:
Waves of heat rose from the tapering ribbon of expressway, and Martin Walker could hear the distant rumble of motorcycles. --- Random Victim
Steady ripples of the current collided with waves fanning from the bow of the tow and barge. ---The Heist
I was back to driving the Beater.--- Dead Ringer
Sure Christmas comes but once a year, but really, who would want to go through it any more often?--- Windy City Knights
Okay, it’s time for me to reveal my all-time favorite first line:
It unrolled slowly, forced to show its colors, curling and snapping back whenever one of us turned loose.--- James Dickey, Deliverance. If you’re familiar with this magnificent book, you’ll understand that this opening foreshadows the entire story in just a few words. Dickey was a nationally recognized poet when he wrote Deliverance with a poet’s vision.
Well, I’ve left a lot of good first lines out, but I hope you’ve enjoyed the ones I did list here. Remember, for a writer, the first line is the hook.
