How to Start a Novel
granta.com
How to Start a Novel
1–10 of 89 posts
Re: How to Start a Novel
#2> If that opening sentence tries too hard, or holds no special friction, the book slips from its holder’s hands – back onto the table, or the shelf, ready to be replaced with a magazine, or a snack, or a screaming child.
I’d love to know a first line amazing enough that one would ignore their own child?
Re: How to Start a Novel
#3> If that opening sentence tries too hard, or holds no special friction, the book slips from its holder’s hands – back onto the table, or the shelf, ready to be replaced with a magazine, or a snack, or a screaming child. I’d love to know a first line amazing enough that one would ignore their own child?
"Ignore this sentence and your child will die."
Re: How to Start a Novel
#4> If that opening sentence tries too hard, or holds no special friction, the book slips from its holder’s hands – back onto the table, or the shelf, ready to be replaced with a magazine, or a snack, or a screaming child. I’d love to know a first line amazing enough that one would ignore their own child?
I think the writer may also be a little crazy, because a magazine or a snack can be considered as recreational activities that you can replace a book with, but it takes a special kind of person to consider a screaming child as recreational.
Re: How to Start a Novel
#5A lot of writing advice focusses on writing the perfect first line/page/chapter, because that's all editors/agents will read.
And so I find many books have great openings, but get boring in 2nd chapter.
So if Im in a store, I always start browsing a book after the 1st chapter-- that gives me a better idea of what the book will be like.
And this advice-- open a book with a "killer" opening isnt always true. When I was doing a writing course with Dean Smith, he had us analyse the openings of our favourite book. For me, at that time, was Jurassic Park.
If you havent read the book, the first chapter is leisurely and slow, talking about a minor character who feels bored at her job as an island doctor. But that chapter is masterfully written, as the very last line hints that there is trouble in paradise, and sets up the main story.
Compared with the movie, which starts in the middle of action, but the scene is dark and confusing, and I always skip it on repeat viewings.
Re: How to Start a Novel
#6I think the author over blows the significance of the first sentence in a novel. It never happened to me to abandon a book because I didn't like first sentence.
Having said that, surprising opening is a thing. For instance the greatest Polish patriotic epic poem starts with: "O Lithuania, my country, thou Art like good health;". Which nowadays is kind of unexpected...
Re: How to Start a Novel
#7There was this character of an aspiring, wanna-be writer in "Plague" (by A. Camus), named Joseph Grand, who obsesses over the first sentence of his novel. He'd keep on rewriting it infinitely, never getting beyond it. "Perfection spells p-a-r-a-l-y-s-i-s", as the man said (Churchill, if I'm not mistaken).
For what it's worth, I considered quoting Plague's first sentence here (if it were somehow fitting or interesting), and as I googled it up, I found an article devoted to this very subject: https://theconversation.com/first-sentences-establish-a-cont...
I didn't find Plague's opener to be particularly inspiring after all, but there are a few other examples.
Re: How to Start a Novel
#8A more useful advice would be on how to finish the damn things.
Re: How to Start a Novel
#9A more useful advice would be on how to finish the damn things.
You get that first sentence right, then you stop. Now you can publish your novel with twitter.
Re: How to Start a Novel
#10Do people really read the first sentence and then stop? If I'm going through the effort of opening the book, then I'll read at least a little more than the first line.