First Lines

First lines are so important, they are the opening of your tale and must grab the reader’s attention from the moment they open the book. But what makes a great first line? It’s hard to pinpoint and I don’t think there is a formula you can use. Charles Dickens likes to use statements, something big and bold that tells the reader that this book is grand. ‘A Tale Of Two Cities’ started with:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.”

If you don’t know what the book is about, you immediately want to find out what the author is talking about. The line continues in its contradictory narrative for a few lines, but the first is what hooks its readers. Agatha Christie’s first lines are, I consider, the best. She uses a well calculated, seemingly random, description from a scene that drags its readers focus exactly where it needs to be for the story. ‘Murder on the orient express’, for example:

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

Doesn’t tell you much, but you know where you are and you are now desperate to find out why you are in Syria at five o’clock in the morning at winter. I’m sure these first lines were not found immediately, but worked on over and over again in order to make them perfect for the story they were telling. I know that when I write a novel, I often re-write the first chapter, or prologue, from scratch, 2, 3 or maybe more times, until I am happy with it. The first line gets your readers’ imaginations exactly where you want them. Once their attention, their imagination and their thoughts are where they’re supposed to be, you can paint the tale around them. Sounds easy, but it’s really not. Painting the tale is no easy feat on its own, but without a good opening line, it’s almost impossible.

What do you think? Read, follow, comment and enjoy. M x