7.08.2014

Oh My Words!



In his 1830 novel, Paul Clifford, English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton penned this famous opening:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

Can you say, “Take a breath?”

Or this one from Tristram Shandy, by Laurence Stern:

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly consider'd how much depended upon what they were then doing;--that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;--and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost;--Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,--I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that in which the reader is likely to see me.

You will notice that, despite the capital letters, there are colons and semi-colons separating the words, not periods. By the time I got to the end of it, I’d forgotten what he was talking about.

How about Raymond Federman’s opening line from Double or Nothing:

Once upon a time two or three weeks ago, a rather stubborn and determined middle-aged man decided to record for posterity, exactly as it happened, word by word and step by step, the story of another man for indeed what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal, a somewhat paranoiac fellow unmarried, unattached, and quite irresponsible, who had decided to lock himself in a room a furnished room with a private bath, cooking facilities, a bed, a table, and at least one chair, in New York City, for a year 365 days to be precise, to write the story of another person—a shy young man about of 19 years old—who, after the war the Second World War, had come to America the land of opportunities from France under the sponsorship of his uncle—a journalist, fluent in five languages—who himself had come to America from Europe Poland it seems, though this was not clearly established sometime during the war after a series of rather gruesome adventures, and who, at the end of the war, wrote to the father his cousin by marriage of the young man whom he considered as a nephew, curious to know if he the father and his family had survived the German occupation, and indeed was deeply saddened to learn, in a letter from the young man—a long and touching letter written in English, not by the young man, however, who did not know a damn word of English, but by a good friend of his who had studied English in school—that his parents both his father and mother and his two sisters one older and the other younger than he had been deported they were Jewish to a German concentration camp Auschwitz probably and never returned, no doubt having been exterminated deliberately X * X * X * X, and that, therefore, the young man who was now an orphan, a displaced person, who, during the war, had managed to escape deportation by working very hard on a farm in Southern France, would be happy and grateful to be given the opportunity to come to America that great country he had heard so much about and yet knew so little about to start a new life, possibly go to school, learn a trade, and become a good, loyal citizen.

Obviously, I must prefer shorter openings, since these made the list of American Book Review’s 100 Best Openings!

So what makes for a great opening line? The variety of opinions matches the number of readers, naturally. We all have our favorites, opening lines which keep us riveted to the page. Share your favorite opening line in the comments below. Vive la difference!

36 comments:

  1. Selections two and three of these would have resulted in in challenges for my fastest closing (and possibly throwing) of the works in question. Obviously I am a philistine. And a forgetful one too. At the moment all the great opening lines I have read, savoured and loved have escaped me.
    Mind you - a dragon will get me every time.

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    1. Aren't they ridiculous, EC? And to think they were voted among the best... Dragons, of course, rule!

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  2. I'm with you, River. Short, snappy, opening lines for me. I've been recommended many great books, only to give up trying to read them because of sentence length.

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    1. As a writer I'm guilty of the run-on sentence, Ellie, but as a reader? Short and snappy is my preference too. :)

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  3. "In the cellar at Hallowdene Abbey the monks were boiling their Bishop," the opening line of Sylvian Hamilton's, The Bone Peddlar has been my favourite for as long as I can remember.

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    1. Wow, Sam! That is an awesome hook for sure! I love it. :D

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  4. Definitely short first lines with a lot of impact for me too. My eyes popped out of my head a bit reading those sentences. Hm, the one I can think of off the top of my head is from the first book of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King - "The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed."

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    1. I haven't read the Dark Tower series for so long, Christine. Great first line! Now off to Amazon to reacquaint myself with them, since my paperbacks died long ago. :)

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  5. I must admit, I read the first selection and barely skimmed the second and third ones. My attention span must be that of a gnat's lol!!

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    1. Exactly the point I was making, Angela. :) (Not about the gnat! LOL) Who would want to read something like that?

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  6. It needs to grab my attention and drag me into the story. Since we all have different tastes, I would assume different readers have different Siren calls. All of the above would be too long for me these days. Since I'm currently revisioning/editing, I want to take a red pen to all of these.

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    1. I hear ya, Mary. My eyes bled as I researched these. :)

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  7. Whoa. *shaking head*

    I like openings that bring me into the scene immediately.

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    1. These are meandering through the countryside, aren't they, Misha? I couldn't even follow the trail of thought in them!

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  8. That first one is a classic that practically all scary stories afterwards followed! I love it. Back in the day, their sentences were sometimes paragraphs long and rather hard to follow. Very wordy indeed. Some of my favorites are: Old Marley was as dead as a doornail and Call me Ishmael.

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    1. And your favorites prove that a lot of impact can come from very few words, Gwen!

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  9. I wonder who judges these as the best openings. Personally I prefer shorter opening lines, ones that pack a punch or at least pique my interest.

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    1. Exactly, Cherie. I can't imagine these being voted as best openings by anybody!

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  10. I actually didn't mind the first two much, but I'd never dream of WRITING something that long! You're right - in today's world, shorter is better. Openings are so, so subjective though.

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    1. They are subjective, Nicole. With texting, I think we've traveled into the area of shorthand only. :)

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  11. There's only a date for the first piece, however, back in the day this was the expected format for stories. Perhaps the judging included context.

    Who knows what people in fifty or a hundred years will think of the length of sentences today.

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    1. You're right, widdershins. I can't imagine what people fifty years from now will think of our present style! The rules and preferences change constantly, even from ten years ago.

      Oddly enough, the third one, Double or Nothing, was published in 1999!

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  12. I like the question provoking first lines the best. I don't know which one is my favorite though.

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    1. It's hard to find a question in the above examples, isn't it, Loni? LOL!

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  13. Those opening lines made me think they had to be in the "classics" section of books, not the "best lines" section.
    I'm a fan of shorter opening lines.
    In the book I'm currently re-reading (I can re-read and write on the same days), it starts with:
    "The sentry never saw the dark-clad figure ghosting through the night toward Castle Araluen."

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    1. That's a great opener, Tyrean! Very mysterious. Makes me want to know more.
      Yeah, that "best lines" list is rather suspect. :)

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  14. The first line from Camus' The Stranger: "Today, Maman died."
    Short, sad, strong.

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    1. Awesome choice, Catherine. A wealth of emotion in a tight package. :)

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  15. Thanks for share ..
    You asked for comments and follow my blog
    http://putyourheartshere.blogspot.com/2014/07/jessica-simpson-weds-eric-johnson-so.html

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  16. Hi River ... we certainly need to be drawn in - and the last two certainly don't help me want to read more - whereas the London one does ... wonderful examples your commenters have given here ...

    I certainly admire readers and thinkers who can read and articulate well ... long passages or speeches defeat me .. something I must try and get to ... short and succinct with some character ..

    Cheers Hilary

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    1. I agree, Hilary. The first one, although long, is descriptive and filled with foreboding. The second two are mush. I got bored just trying to read them!

      Have a great weekend!

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  17. It's so funny to me that these were voted among the best. I'm like EC, I think I would have stopped reading the books right at the start.

    I think my favorite opening line is from 1984: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

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    1. I had a very hard time wading through them, Julie, although the first one has great description.

      Any time a clock strikes thirteen you've got my attention. ;)

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  18. OK the 2nd one had me thinking of my cheese doodles half way through. The 3rd one made me want to slap the author upside the head. They were chosen for best openings??? On what drug were the judges on and who paid them off?? Maybe I am too dull-witted to see the "beauty" in the 2nd 2 but please! I would never read those books at all. The first one seems the best to me.

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    1. I think you'll have to stand in line for the slapfest, Birgit! Cheese noodles as a daydream works for me. :)

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