Tell Me Lines, Tell Me Sweet Little Lines

First impressions matter.  It may be a date, a job interview, or that moment a police officer walks up to your car after pulling you over.

It certainly translates over to the opening line of any story.  Back in the day, it was primarily a device to hook the reader into continuing on through the book.  Now, that opening line still holds that same requirement, but it also competes with the internet, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Netflix, and a myriad of other distractions ready tear a reader away from the pages.  Your opening is more important than ever before.

Admittedly, even while I wrote this update I mentally wandered away for a few minutes to watch a movie trailer.  

I’m cautiously optimistic about “Game Night.”

This week, we’re going to split the topic into two parts – and it has homework!  I haphazardly removed several books from my bookshelf in the den and have listed their opening lines down below.  There may be a slight breach of protocol by not citing the work or the author, but we’re looking for blind first impressions.  Next week, I will certainly list the source material as we dive deeper into each example.

They are not in any order, they are not from the same genre, and they are not all best sellers.  Read each one as if you had simply picked up a copy of the book at a bookstore and were deciding on whether or not you’d find it intriguing enough to purchase – based entirely on the opening line.

Dim the lights, here we go…

“No one could have foretold how it was going to end.  Not even the murderer.”

“During the night, frost had come and used the windowpanes to sketch its fantasies.”

“Our troubles began in the summer of 1914, the year I turned thirty-five.”

“It was five o’clock on a winter’s morning in Syria.”

“There was going to be a funeral.”

“It was nearing midnight when one of the new lampposts on Auburn Avenue achieved the unfortunate fate of being the first to be hit by a car.”

“When the Spook arrived, the light was already beginning to fail.”

“Lady Farley-Stoud set her cup and saucer down with a clatter.  The occasional table beside the armchair in our drawing room wobbled precariously under the impact.”

The following three examples aren’t the very first line.  I included them on the list as they contain two sentences that make up a short opening paragraph…

“The tired old carriage, pulled by two tired old horses, rumbled onto the wharf, its creaky wheels bumpety-bumping on the uneven planks, waking Peter from his restless slumber.  The carriage interior, hot and stuffy, smelled of five smallish boys and one largish man, none of whom was keen on bathing.”

“Toni Diamond heard the ping signaling a text message.  As though the signal had an echo, her daughter Tiffany received a text at the same time.”

“Elisabeth Strenger peeled three boiled eggs under running water, dropped them into a chipped Blue Willow china bowl, and began to mash them with a fork.  She took a quick puff on her cigarette, blew smoke out through the back window, and tapped ashes into the drain.”

If you’ve read them, read them again.  Not one after another after another – it will start to sound like a record skipping through a song.  Let each one sit with you for a few moments.

When we convene next week, we’ll talk more about those incredibly important first impressions, what tone and images they evoke, and most importantly why - or why you wouldn’t - keep reading.