Adrian posted a question about first chapters, but what about opening sentences? Anyone brave enough to post theirs for comparison?
Since I'm asking, I'll take the early flak.
From Walls of Jericho - 'Louis-Henri Loison could not die.'
From Leopardkill - '"Another dead 'un over here!"'
From Dog Watch (WIP) - '"It is vital, major, this letter be delivered."'
From Hand of the Baptist (WIP) - 'Staring intently towards Valetta's distant guardian wall, General Napoleon Bonaparte leaned against L'Orient's rail, his grip alternately tense then relaxed as the French flagship dipped and rose on a gentle Mediterranean swell.'
The last one's too long, but that's early days yet ;)
Almost forgot to say. Yes! Victoria's first line is already a classic on these pages :)
Thanks Jonathan that's a huge compliment. I appreciate it.
David, your AK47 line is great :) Made me sit up and pay attention that's for sure.
"She floated: liberated by the morphine."
"Raymond had a swift image of how the proceedings would be the moment they opened the sarcophagus".
"An AK47 always had a tendency to grab his attention".
Isn't it the case that when we read any first sentence we are likely to already be influenced by the cover?
It makes me wonder how often we are more influenced by that and/or the blurb on the back or the flyleaf?
When it comes to writing, whether it is beginning a story. a chapter or just a work session I think that the first sentence, the first few words and even the first page are not significant.
:-O Blasphemy!
I am serious though. From a scribbler's viewpoint the essntial thing is simply to start scribbling - the darn thing will probably get at least edited at some point in the future. It may get corrected, adjusted, modified, deleted, relocated, reinstated, shortened, lengthened, divided, battered to death... Whatever its future it just has to be written...
Then again, I am probably taking "first sentence" too literally.
So, after the first 900,000 words have been completed, revised thrice, endlessly edited etc we will want the whole thing to start with the perfect first sentence...
Why?
Yes, historically there are superb first sentences that stand out - but don't they stand out in the context of what they lead into? If the rest of the book, even just the rest of the paragraph had been rubbish would we recall them at all? Would anyone say "Fantastic first sentence! It really grabbed me! Pity about the rest of the book..."
Again, returning to the original point. How much are we already expecting something just by either the publisher or the (known) author? Maybe even just an author's name - known or not? (Which gives us something else to fret about ;-) ). We have expectations of Mills and Boone or Tom Sharpe. We would probably have a preconception of the kind of work a "Clarence Arthur Wimpole" would produce. Perhaps we want the first sentence to confirm our expectations rather than to be an example of literary genius...
David