81–90 of 202 posts
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know, I couldn't get through a chapter of Anna Karenina but it's still a great opening line. “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Keep going. It’s an amazing story.
Surely: "It was the day my grandmother exploded" warrants a mention..
Iain Banks? Pretty sure it is, can’t remember the title…
(I don't actually think this is good writing)
Does anyone know of a book wherein the last line is the same as the first? In the sense of making the book self-referencing? Something along the lines of, “And so it is with you.”
See also https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/ Since 1982 the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest has challenged participants to write an atrocious opening sentence to the worst novel never written. The whimsical literary competition honors Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel Paul Clifford begins with “It was a dark and stormy night.”
What makes a great opening line? A great rest-of-the-story. Nobody praises the opening line of a story that they otherwise think is rather boring.
What makes a great opening line? A great rest-of-the-story. Nobody praises the opening line of a story that they otherwise think is rather boring.
I don't know, I couldn't get through a chapter of Anna Karenina but it's still a great opening line. “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”