I just caught Alan Titchmarsh on Breakfast talking about his novels and promoting the new one. I was astonished that he couldn't remember the opening line from his newly published novel. Admittedly, the line is not memorable and his writing is bad, but surely he at least should have it imprinted on his mind? Perhaps this is just one of the hallmarks of the throwaway novelist.

You would like to think he'd remember his own words...

If he weren't a professional broadcaster, I wouldn't be surprised at all: it's amazing how adrenalin can make you go blank.

One of the best tips I was given for doing broadcast interviews was to write the names of your main characters down. You wouldn't believe you need to, but you do. I'm not normally lost for words in any context, and I'd been writing the novel for the best part of five years, and yes, having them written down did save me from death by embarrassment. And I've heard loads of interviews where it's quite clear that the interviewee has suffered something similar.

I am a bit more surprised at Titchmarsh, because he's a pro broadcaster. But I also know pro actors who find performing their own writing almost terminally agonising.

On the other hand, a) he wrote that first sentence perhaps eighteen months or two years ago, and b) maybe the first sentence is one of the things that his editor had a hand in, or c) was changed at the last minute. (My editor asked me to re-write the first page of TMOL - though admittedly not the first sentence, after the proofs went out.

I didn't think about the pressures of live telly, and I don't suppose it is usual to be asked to quote your first line. But I would have thought most writers would, with a moment's thought, be able to do so - it's probably the most important line in any piece of writing. It just struck me as very careless and uninvolved with his own writing.
Edited by tatterdemalion at 11:11:00 on 27 March 2014

I would say an opening line isn't necessarily important unless you're writing Literary Fiction that aims to be a literary classic some day. And, as Emma says, it probably isn't his original opening line; most likely that got edited out after he submitted the completed manuscript. 
Writers can get very anal about their opening lines, but ask a reader to quote one from any of the novels they've read recently and I doubt any will come to mind.
As Louise Doughty says (to paraphrase), the writing should be invisible to allow the story to come across unhindered. 
And as Terry Pratchett says (to paraphrase), throw away your opening chapters as they are where you introduce your characters to yourself; it's information the reader doesn't need to know. 
Edited by NMott at 19:23:00 on 27 March 2014

The other possibility, of course, is that a ghost is involved in writing his stuff, to a greater or lesser extent.

I've been trying to think whether I remember the opening lines of my novels, and the answer is ... yes.

But then I'm one of the writers who can't start writing a novel till s/he knows what the opening line is - it's the point at which all sorts of fundamental questions comabout what this story is and how I'm going to tell it, so the opening line is a sort of proxy for the whole thing: finding it/hammering it out is a way of finding/hammering out the shape and nature of the whole thing.

I don't think that all writers work that way - and certain someone writing a novel at speed, under contract, might not have time or need to spend three weeks wandering around in their material and their life, with their ears pricked for the first whisper of The Right Sentence.

Also, in Naomi's terms, my stuff is literary-ish. But I would think that a writer would be more involved with their first line than any one reader is, so I'm not sure that writers and readers have parity in this questions, though they do in lots of others.

it's amazing how adrenalin can make you go blank.
 

I used adrenalin in my MS, but after doing some research found that the recognised spelling has an added 'e'. Adrenalin is a trademark.
Sorry, I'm not trying to be pedantic, and I'm sure Emma knew this, anyway.   

Interesting, Alan - I've just checked, and the Oxford Dic for Writers and Editors says:

adrenalin not -ine; in US, adrenaline is the hormone, Adrenalin (propr.) the synthetic drug.

So it's one of a few million US/UK distinctions. I wonder if the US -e is partly to make sure that no one treads on trademarked toes.

I would say an opening line isn't necessarily important unless you're writing Literary Fiction that aims to be a literary classic some day. And, as Emma says, it probably isn't his original opening line; most likely that got edited out after he submitted the completed manuscript. 
Writers can get very anal about their opening lines, but ask a reader to quote one from any of the novels they've read recently and I doubt any will come to mind.
As Louise Doughty says (to paraphrase), the writing should be invisible to allow the story to come across unhindered. 
And as Terry Pratchett says (to paraphrase), throw away your opening chapters as they are where you introduce your characters to yourself; it's information the reader doesn't need to know. 

I think the opening line is always important. It's a powerful tool for grabbing the reader and a really good one can set tone, theme and more.

Maybe readers can't remember opening lines, but writers really should be able to. And perhaps the readers you're thinking of are only reading for the story, not the language.

I haven't read LD or TP, but I do get a little tired of this idea that writing should be 'invisible'. It shouldn't trip you up, sure, but invisible? I want more than story, I want lines I'll gladly read twice for the sheer pleasure of it. And throwing away your opening chapters may become necessary in draft, but that doesn't mean the opening chapters in a published novel should have been discarded.

One (wo)man's 'getting anal' is another's getting it right.

Emma: yes.