Recently I met with a neighbor in the publishing business, and part of the way through our breakfast she started talking about the power of a good first sentence. (Yes, that’s what book nerds do when we meet.) A few days later, the family and I ran into a friend with a fishing hook stuck in her forearm.
There’s a link here. Just give me a minute.
Bacon, Eggs, and Recitations
First, the breakfast meeting with the publishing friend. I ordered yogurt because I don’t like shoving things into my mouth when I talk to interesting people. (Yes, Rob, that’s why I skipped the buffet in San Diego.) She ordered an egg sandwich. This was a really large, and really delicious-looking sammy, so when she offered me half, I broke my rule and accepted. This was a little awkward, because she’d previously mentioned how she planned to bring half home with her, but I was deep into my portion before I recalled that little detail. Oops. Not sorry, though.
Anyway, at one point, she lovingly recited the famous opening line of Tuck Everlasting:
“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning.”
Yes, that’s good. Better than the sandwich, even. It’s literary without being pretentious. The author, Natalie Babbitt, isn’t demanding that you bask in her genius. The sentence sets a mood, and hints that things will soon be descending, dropping, maybe even falling apart. But there’s also wisdom in it; I’d never really thought of the first week of August like that. As a reader, I’m now thinking this Natalie Babbitt person is worth a little of my time and mental focus.
One of my favorites: “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” Book Riot has a great analysis here of that sentence here; I love the line because it drops you right into the middle of a story, a world, and a character’s head in just nine words. Reminds me of Art Blakey’s A Night in Tunisia - after the first few seconds you feel like you’ve been listening to the song forever. There’s no gradual acceleration…you’re speeding halfway down the hill right from the start. That’s the song I play when I start writing.
The First One Last
The first sentence can be stressful for any writer, whether you’re crafting a novel, a poem, an email or a song. Often it’s the very last piece I work on. The goal is to hook the reader, or coax them into continuing, but ideally you also want those words to stick with the reader, the way the Tuck opener has stuck with my breakfast friend. She has no doubt recited it countless times. And now I’ve been thinking about it for two weeks. Which brings me to our friend with the hook in her arm.
The Rusty Hook
On Sunday, a few of us were waiting by the dock in Menemsha, an amazing little fishing village here on Martha’s Vineyard, when family friends motored up to the gas station in their boat. The mom hurried over to say hello and talked about how they’d run over to Woods Hole for the morning. Hooked some albies, too. What a beautiful trip! The water was crystal clear, the Vineyard Sound calm, and oh, the funniest thing happened: she got two old hooks stuck in her arm and couldn’t get them out.
She lifted up her elbow to show us, and there they were…sticking right out of the skin. Being a doctor, she was totally unfazed, and said she’d be fine; she’d get someone to pull them out later. They had a ferry reservation, and those are hard to come by in August.
So…back to writing. A good opening shouldn’t just grab you. It should infect you like a rusty hook. It should lodge in your brain and refuse extraction. The Tuck opener does that. Mrs. Dalloway, too. The showy but melodic opening of Ulysses - “Stately, plump Buck Mulligan…” - lives in a rent-controlled studio in my brain. So does L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time opener, for different reasons.
A good first sentence does raise the bar, though. You have to deliver a story that lives up to the promise. And an ending that’s satisfying, and makes the whole endeavor feel worthwhile, and maybe even worth re-reading at some point.
No pressure.
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Good luck getting back into the school groove…
"A good first sentence does raise the bar, though. You have to deliver a story that lives up to the promise."
Very true. And I'll give you an example of a novel that did not live up to its first sentence. Not for me, at least. MOON PALACE by Paul Auster. The first sentence: "It was the summer that men first walked on the moon." The rest of the book: totally forgettable.
Brilliant! What a pleasure it is to spend a few minutes listening to you think and talk, good sir. I love it.