Novel First Lines
Posted by Matt Uhrich
Inexplicable Book Cover
The first line of a novel is the most important line in the most important paragraph on the most important page. Sol Stein writes:
Some years ago I was involved in an informal study of the behavior of lunch-hour browsers in mid- Manhattan bookstores. In the fiction section, the most common pattern was for the browser to read the front flap of the book’s jacket and then go to page one. No browser went beyond page three before either taking the book to the cashier or putting the book down and picking up another to sample.
That was written almost 15 years ago. I’m sure people have gotten even more impatient when decide whether they should buy a novel. It’s quite a bit of pressure. It’s also why writers look at the first lines of their favorite novels to provide inspiration.
One of my all-time favorite books is Treason by Orson Scott Card. It’s actually a revised version of a previously published novel named A Planet Called Treason (which I've never actually read). It being one of my favorites is the only reason I have chosen it for an example of a good first line. Here it is, It gets the job done well.
I was the last to know what was happening to me. Or at least I was the last to know that I knew.
Reading it, I want to know what the speaker now knows and what he now knows he now knows. And look at that cover! It has a guy in a space suit walking to a space ship and he's walking with a cane. Cool! Except nowhere in the novel are there any space suits or space ships–there may be a cane but I don't remember. Did the artist even read the book’s blurb? I hope to one day have to ask my publisher why there is a dragon fighting a spaceship in front of a destroyed city on the cover of my novel which contains none of those things.
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For a good laugh and many fine examples of horrible science-fiction and fantasy covers, check out Good Show Sir.
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This is my new favorite commercial.
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