Where to begin? I agonized over this question
when I wrote my first mystery novel. For my first sentence should I go for
something literary, something clever, a play on words? Trained as a journalist and
a nonfiction writer for years, I was tempted to write a first sentence that
summarized the story or the theme. And I did. Then came my second novel—the
just-released Desert Kill Switch—and
I decided I needed a new way to start.
One of the most significant ways that writing
fiction has influenced my recreational reading is that I pay closer attention
to first sentences. Sometimes they can put me off a novel immediately. Or draw
me in. I’ve become a student of first sentences.
When writers and editors put together lists
of best first sentences, the work of classic novelists tends to cluster at the
top, Austen, Melville, Dickens, Orwell. They provide excellent examples, but
are they suitable for a murder mystery? “Call me Lyle,” (one of my main characters) is not memorable, except perhaps as a
riff on Melville. “It was the best of times for Lyle.” Nope.
A first
sentence is like a first impression when you meet someone. Does a person’s
verbal greeting or looks attract your attention and encourage conversation?
Like someone going out with a highly touted blind date, a writer is eager to
make a good impression.
One of the best first-sentence writers
around, Stephen King, offered this advice in The Atlantic Magazine in July, 2013. “There are all sorts of theories
and ideas about what constitutes a good opening line. It’s a tricky thing….But
there’s one thing I’m sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin
the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.”
Anne R. Allen, mystery writer and co-author
of How to be a Writer in the E-Age: A
Self-Help Guide, agrees. “On that first page, we have only a few lines to
grab the reader and keep her from putting the book back on the shelf. We have
to present an exciting hook…but not overwhelm [readers] with too much
information.”
One item of information that may be extraneous
in first sentences is weather. It’s become clichéd thanks to the familiar “dark
and stormy night” penned by British novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton 187 years
ago. “Never open a book with the weather,” is the oft quoted line from Elmore
Leonard. Yet years before Leonard offered his advice, Raymond Chandler used
weather in the first sentence of The Big
Sleep. And I think he got away with it:
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.
Mystery writer Lilian Jackson Braun used
weather to begin The Cat Who Tailed a
Thief in 1997. “It was a strange winter in Moose County, 400 miles north of
everywhere.”
Adding to my confusion, I discovered this
advice Ernest Hemingway wrote to John Dos Passos in a letter* in March 1932:
“Remember to get the weather in your god damned book—weather is very
important.”
Can’t ignore Hemingway. What to do? I turned
for help with my first sentence to noir master James M. Cain. He used a short
but telling sentence to begin his famous depression era, The Postman Always Rings Twice. With nine words the narrator tells
us he’s a less-than-first-class traveler and perhaps disreputable, too. “They
threw me off the hay truck about noon.”
Sometimes unusual or intriguing sentences are
best to grab your interest. Ross Macdonald, one of the best stylists of the
detective genre, started his 1954 Find a
Victim this way: “He was the ghastliest hitchhiker who ever thumbed me.”
Since most mystery, crime and detective
stories involve murder, you could begin with that. “Hale knew, before he had
been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to kill him.” That’s how Graham
Greene began his dark 1938 tale, Brighton
Rock.
Ultimately, I abandoned the weather, decided
a reference to murder could wait for the second paragraph of my novel, and went
with an intriguing first sentence that conveyed action.
“Lyle Deming braked his Mustang hard and
aimed for the sandy shoulder of the desert road.”
----
Ernest
Hemingway Selected Letters 1917-1961, Carlos Baker,
editor, Scribner Classics, 2003; original copyright 1981 The Ernest
Hemingway Foundation, Inc. and Carlos Baker.
----
Mark
S. Bacon began his career as a southern California newspaper police reporter,
one of his crime stories becoming key evidence in a murder case that spanned
decades.
After
working for two newspapers, he moved to advertising and marketing when he
became a copywriter for Knott’s Berry Farm, the large theme park down the road
from Disneyland. Experience working at Knott’s formed part of the inspiration
for his creation of Nostalgia City theme park.
He
taught journalism as a member of the adjunct faculty at Cal Poly University –
Pomona, University of Redlands, and the University of Nevada – Reno. Bacon is
the author of business books and his articles on travel and other topics have
appeared in newspapers from the Washington
Post to the San Antonio Express News.
Most recently he was a correspondent for the
San Francisco Chronicle.
I try not to obsess over the first line. It's easier in short stories, when I use dialogue or place the protagonist in the middle of the action.
ReplyDeleteLots of good examples! My favorite remains Julia Spencer-Fleming's "It was one hell of a night to throw away a baby" from In the Bleak Midwinter.
While I do spend considerable time working on my first sentences, my theory is that as long as the reader moves on to sentence #2, I've succeeded in my opening-line task. Then, if the reader continues from paragraph one to paragraph two, I've crossed the second reader hurdle. The next crucial step comes at the page flip from the first page to the second. I think I've captured my potential reader's attention if they follow the story on the turn from page two to page three.
ReplyDelete~ Jim
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ReplyDeleteThank you, Mark, very enjoyable blog.
ReplyDeleteThere's a great Facebook Group called First Line Monday where readers share the first line of the book they're reading that week. It's a lot of fun, instructive, and puts lots of books on my TBR pile.
I enjoyed reading this, Mark. I just started the tenth book in my series, and I'm going to go back to see if the first line is likely to catch the reader's attention and make them want to go on. My critique partners liked the beginning and the end of it and couldn't wait for me to
ReplyDeletecontinue.
First sentences are like most things in writing--if you know the "rules" and how they work, you are in a position to decide whether, in this particular instance, the rules should be applied or broken.
ReplyDeleteAs Jim says, if the first sentence leads to readers going on to the second, it's a successful first sentence.
Jim, I think your comment also applies to turning the page from the end of chapter 1 to the next chapter. Maybe someone should write a post about last sentences in chapters.
ReplyDeleteMark -- good point and one that I cover in my course when I talk about revising scene-by-scene. I suggest authors look at the opening and closing of each scene to make sure of the introduction and at the end leaving a compelling reason for the reader to flip the page.
ReplyDelete~ Jim