Years ago, I started jotting down the first sentence of a book if it really captured my fancy.
The opening sentences I'm sharing with you are real winners. They inspire me to work on that all-important first sentence of a new book.
Some of these are familiar because they're quoted so often, but others may not ring a bell with you.
From Oldest to Most Recent
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. —Charles Dickens, 1859
"The strange thing was," he said, "how they screamed every night at midnight." —In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway, 1925
"Where's Papa going with that axe?" said Ferm to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast. —Charlotte's Web, E. B. White, 1952
It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbers, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. —The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath, 1963
There were 117 psychoanalysts on the Pan Am flight to Vienna, and I'd been treated by at least six of them. —Fear of Flying, Erica Jong, 1973
Nobody was really surprised when it happened, not really, not at the subconscious level where savage things grow. —Carrie, Stephen King, 1974
The scream was distant and brief. —Phantoms, Dean Koontz, 1983
The lady was extraordinarily naked. —Eight Black Horses, Ed McBain, 1985
There are some men who enter a woman's life and screw it up forever. —One for the Money, Janet Evanovich, 1994
I knew what it was when I heard the shots. —Suitable for Framing, Edna Buchanan, 1995
The wild child of Parrish, Mississippi, had come back to the town she'd left behind forever. —Ain't She Sweet?, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, 2009
The evening sky was streaked with purple, the color of torn plums, and a light rain had started to fall when I came to the end of the blacktop road that cut through twenty miles of thick, almost impenetrable scrub oak and pine, and stopped at the front gate of Angola Penitentiary. —The Neon Rain, James Lee Burke, 2010
The only thing that saved Sabrina Snow was the car alarm on the twenty-year-old Renault Espace she'd bought when she'd arrived in France. —Dead Heat, Joan Reeves, 2017
What on earth was she doing here—so far out of her comfort zone, she might as well be on Mars? —The Key to Kristina, Joan Reeves, 2020
Takeaway Truth
What kind of opening sentence captures your imagination?
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Joan, I used to keep a list of the opening line from my favorite books. An inspiring post.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I still do that. Some habits are hard to break. *g*
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