How important are first lines? DO they matter? Do they really, huh, huh? Do you try and put maximum effort into grabbing the reader from the very off or is the overall story more important.

What's your favourite first line and why?

Geoff

I think first few lines are really important. If you can't whet the appetite of the reader right from the beginning, then really are they going to want to want to know more?

But, if the overall story's crap then there's really not much point.

Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again...
(Rebbecca, Daphne Du Maurier)
and
'He said, 'Save yourself if you can', and I said firmly enough, though I was trembling and clutching at straws, 'I intend to. Will you stand at my side?'
(Every Man For Himself, Beryl Bainbridge)

these two really stand out for me, and the second one definitely made me buy the book- because it got right in there with the big question. It's about the Titanic and a wonderful book but that line just suckered me in and to the cash till. Great question Geoff. Yes they are pretty fundamental but some great books don't do it, and in our twenty seconds and I'm gone world may not make the grade.. sadly.

"Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler's pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die."

Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club

How amazing is that line, it's like a kick to the groin that causes you to fall to the floor and hit your head causing concussion.

First lines have never been particularly important to me. I tend to read an entire page before I even take in what I've read.

My half-finished experimental novel, Half-Life, starts immediately with some background on the main character, demonstrating that he is strategic and forward thinking, which then goes on (a few hundred words later) to explain why he reacts the way he does to the news that he has only six months to live.

I think the only thing I've done where I create atmosphere in the first few lines is an unfinished, untitled short story which begins: "The idea was simple. Look, but don’t touch. Take a peek, just to see how she is, but don’t get too close; don’t fall into the trap. ".

It takes less than 5 seconds to read that. The few sentences that set the scene. If you can't give a story a little more than 5 seconds, that's being a little too impatient. I was told recently that I was rash by not giving a 50 word poem more than 5 minutes to decipher...

The opening few pages are important. The first few lnies can be whatever they NEED to be, to kick the story off.

'A strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sadness.'

The opening sentence of 'Bonjour Tristesse', which I think is a lovely hook into the story.

The rest of the opening paragraph measures up, too:

'In the past the idea of sadness always appealed to me, now I am almost ashamed of its complete egoism. I had known boredom, regret, and at times remorse, but never sadness. Today something envelops me like a silken web, enervating and soft, which isolates me.'

I think the opening of a story can be almost like a poem which positions the reader for what's to come. It can get away with a certain voluptuousness which would perhaps be inappropriate kept up for the rest of the book, but which serves a purpose, both literary and engaging, right there at the beginning.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.


it's not that I agree with the generalisation made by larkin, but the 1st line here is a great example of an attention grabber - isn't it?


They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.


Michael

"Call me Ishmael" - Moby Dick. I don't know why that was the first one that popped into my head. Because it's intriguing perhaps? Or maybe it's intimacy?

"All this happened, more or less." Slaughterhouse Five. Nice and mischievous.

But my favourite-

"It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the Archbishop had come to see me." Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess. Which on the face of it may seem needlessly provocative and bordering on Whitehall Farce until you consider the fact that the entire novel concerns (amongst many other things) a man's lifelong struggle to reconcile his sexuality with his religion. Rather nicely sets up the story in my view.

I was just about to add Moby Dick...first one to pop into my head too. LOVE IT! The tone, the immediacy, the way that, straight away, you're sucked into Ishmael's net.

It may be that the overall story is really more important but that's no reason to have a weak opening. Crucially, the first sentence is the first, and possibly the only, thing that the publisher's reader will look at. If they have a heap of 100 manuscripts to dash through that day, guess what they'll do if the first sentence is naff...

Chris

If they have a heap of 100 manuscripts to dash through that day, guess what they'll do if the first sentence is naff...

Reminds me of a chat I had with a BBC producer once and the number of short films he said he had submitted to him that started with a shot of an alarm clock ringing. Thunk! Next!

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."

Probably the most memorable of Charles Dickens' opening lines. It sticks in my mind, even though I've only ever heard an audio version of A Tale of Two Cities.

Yes, a good first line can be important to draw the reader in. It has to be followed by a good second line, third line, fourth line, and so on, of course. As much as a good opening might grab my attention, if the rest of the first page doesn't live up to the promise, I'm likely to change my mind about reading the book.

I think it's really about starting a story in the middle of a scene, or else at some other key point in the plot, and then choosing a good way of grabbing the reader's attention right from the word go.

Alex

As much as a good opening might grab my attention, if the rest of the first page doesn't live up to the promise, I'm likely to change my mind about reading the book.

Indeed, you can't just pour all your artistry into the opening then sit back, but I do think the opening is the place to concentrate your creativity for effect, before pulling back to a less poetic storytelling style. If this is your style, of course, I'm not saying the poetic approach is the only way, but the opening should certainly have impact one way or another. Perhaps it's like starting with the specific and progressing to the general?

Somewhere else in the book, du Maurier might have just written something like 'I dreamt about Manderley last night' and the sentence might have been serviceable enough. But would you want the book to open with that line?

As much as a good opening might grab my attention, if the rest of the first page doesn't live up to the promise, I'm likely to change my mind about reading the book.

Indeed, you can't just pour all your artistry into the opening then sit back, but I do think the opening is the place to concentrate your creativity for effect, before pulling back to a less poetic storytelling style. If this is your style, of course, I'm not saying the poetic approach is the only way, but the opening should certainly have impact one way or another. Perhaps it's like starting with the specific and progressing to the general?

Somewhere else in the book, du Maurier might have just written something like 'I dreamt about Manderley last night' and the sentence might have been serviceable enough. But would you want the book to open with that line?

Jan

<Added>

Sorry, posted this twice by mistake.

Reminds me of a chat I had with a BBC producer once and the number of short films he said he had submitted to him that started with a shot of an alarm clock ringing. Thunk! Next!

I once went to a talk by a lit agent who said something similar about novels where the opening passage has a character waking up with a hangover and then lying in bed piecing together the events that had brought them to wherever they now were. An easy way to get your manuscript binned, apparently.