The Killing Dance

 

My last two posts covered necromancers in space and Frankenstein's monster, so to round out the Halloween theme, I wanted a vampire book. There are very many choices available. Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series is influential, best-selling, and has reached twenty-seven volumes. This potent sentence starts the sixth book in the series, The Killing Dance. 

There's an intriguing contrast in the first four words. "The most beautiful" anything attracts desire. We compete to spend time with beautiful people and own beautiful art, furnishings, and homes, and to spend time in beautiful locations. On the other hand, we are repelled by corpses. The stench of decay creates an automatic reaction of disgust. We arrange our lives and deaths so that we see as little as possible of corpses. When we do see someone deceased, it is most often in the distanced, ritualized contexts of a hospital or funeral. 

So "the most beautiful corpse" establishes a fast push-pull sensation in a small number of words. 

The next phrase, "I'd ever seen" also accomplishes a lot in a few words. "I" brings in a character, the narrator. "Ever" intensifies the claim of beauty – it is not just the most beautiful of the moment, it is the most beautiful of all time. "I'd ever seen" could raise a question: How many corpses has the narrator seen, and were they attractive? Where some narrators would be slyly suggesting that this is the only corpse they've seen, the informal "I'd" and the short words create a matter-of-fact tone that suggest this is a direct statement instead of an ironic one. It seems likely that the narrator has seen some corpses, and isn't that surprised to see another. 

The final words of the sentence, "was sitting behind my desk," reinforce the even tone by describing an everyday situation in common words. To sit behind a desk is ordinary. There are no descriptive flourishes about what kind of desk, or the way of sitting. The narrator has seen something surprising – a beautiful corpse – and rather than becoming emotional, goes on to talk about common situations in neutral words. 

In short, the narrator keeps their cool when faced with a beautiful corpse, betraying neither attraction nor disgust in the remaining words. 

The beautiful, unexpected person in an office is a situation that begins many private investigator stories. This sentence picks up that heritage, with the even-tempered narrator and the troublesome client ready to start the action. 

There's also one type of corpse that is most known for its beauty: the vampire. To call a vampire "beautiful" is to admit an attraction; to call a vampire a "corpse" is to push it away. We don't yet know, from this sentence alone, that the narrator is facing a vampire. We do know the narrator has mixed feelings. Thus this one sentence starts both an outer conflict, between the narrator and the problem created by the corpse, and an inner conflict within the narrator's own feelings. 

Laurell K. Hamilton has wound up the propulsion of her story in one seemingly simple sentence. This is excellent writing. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

Frankenstein

I first read Frankenstein around my junior high years. Primed by Frankenstein movies and current horror tales, I expected something gorier. There are deaths in Frankenstein but little splatter. Mary Shelley created an atmosphere of dread, and asked fresh questions about whether we are responsible for our creations. She also gave the monster a chance to talk. 

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818. The sentence is long, as was common at that time. It also features strong, emotionally laden words, a feature of Romantic style, which was dominant in the early 19th century. These are the words that create the strongest emotional response: rejoice, disaster, evil, forebodings. The last three are all negative, which outweighs the lone positive word in the list: rejoice. 

The sentence implies two people, one who is speaking, and "you," one who hears or reads the words. The narrator is reassuring "you" that their evil forebodings have not come true. We have no place, no concrete details – there is nothing here that can be seen, heard, touched, tasted, or smelled. As far as time goes, we only know that an enterprise has commenced. 

"Commenced" means that the enterprise is begun. It does not mean that it has completed. So it is not as reassuring as the narrator hopes to say that "no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise." Will disaster accompany the middle of the enterprise? The completion of it? Also, "disaster" means a huge and enveloping crisis – to say that there has been "no disaster" still leaves open the possibility of many smaller, and still quite serious, problems. 

Both the first and last words of the sentence project the future. The first words, "you will rejoice" are what the narrator expects his later words to accomplish. But as we have seen, the middle words only weakly argue for that outcome. The final words are what "you" projected into the future: "evil forebodings." "You" had a feeling that the enterprise would go badly. "Evil" here can carry two senses. It could intensify the negative strength of the forebodings, or it could mean that the forebodings were themselves a danger. In expressive writing, all the possible meanings can influence how readers feel about the sentence. So both meanings have an effect and both may reflect the author's intentions. 

With only "disaster" avoided, and only at the "commencement," and with "evil forebodings" placed in the strongest position, the sentence creates tension rather than reassurance. The dangerous future still looks more likely than that "you will rejoice."

One other note – this is the kind of sentence that might start a letter. "You will rejoice to hear" fits very well with "when you receive this letter." In fact, the headings in Frankenstein say this is Letter One. When there were fewer novels, to tell a tale in the form of letters may have been a familiar way to approach the writing. The term for book-length fiction written in letters is an "epistolary novel." Dracula also takes this form. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

Gideon the Ninth

 

Tamsyn Muir wrote a long and packed first sentence for Gideon the Ninth, one of this year's Hugo Award nominees. She set up a detailed and clearly different world for her story. Let's look at the pieces.

First we have a time stamp: "In the myriadic year of our Lord." "Myriad" is a word that means either "very many" generally or "ten thousand" specifically. "Year of our Lord," as a translation of the Latin phrase "anno domini" recalls medieval times and monasteries. Then, between the dashes, the meaning takes a twist. "Ten thousand" clarifies "myriadic." "King Undying" is a little off to describe the "our Lord" that "year of our Lord" refers to in our world and "kindly Prince of Death!" doesn't match in either tone or terms. This time is disjointed from ours. 

I particularly like "kindly Prince of Death!" The Greeks called the Furies the Kindly Ones to mollify them, as the Celts called the fae the "fair folk" to soften their attention. So "kindly" here balances on an edge – is this "Prince of Death" truly kind, or is he capricious and powerful enough that those who speak of him try to soothe him? "King Undying" and "Prince of Death" places him as someone who does not die himself but has dominion over those who do – or can cause death. "The kindly Prince of Death" has a strict alternation of accented and unstressed syllables, creating a strong, march-like rhythm. To put the final gloss on the phrase, the exclamation point adds extra emphasis to the word "Death" – strengthening the rhythm and treating "Prince of Death" as something to be excited about. Why would someone be cheerily enthusiastic about death or its ruler?

Now we have a time that is not our time and a world that is not our world, since it has the King Undying in it. Some sentences would be content to accomplish that much and raise curiosity about the narrator's attitude toward death. This one has half its words still to go. 

Tamsyn Muir next places a person in this time and world. The name "Gideon Nav" is a close match to our naming conventions but not a name we'd expect in our world. We learn of three specific bundles she grabs, "her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines" which show her priorities. The sword suggests she is a fighter, with an archaic weapon. The shoes are a fairly common item to pack. The dirty magazines are a surprise, placed in the strong final position in the list. The previous allusions to monks and premodern weapons don't match the modern, popular culture of "dirty magazines." By the time we had mass color printing, we'd stopped using swords and saying "the year of our Lord." Plus, we often tend to romanticize knights and ladies and thus imagine them too noble for smut. 

Finally, Gideon "escaped from the House of the Ninth." "House of the Ninth" is a return to the aristocratic flavor of "sword" and "our Lord" (and those words added an internal rhyme to the sentence). "Escaped" is a vivid word that creates excitement. It means she is running from danger. What is the danger? Will her escape succeed? 

At forty words, this is a long sentence for a contemporary opener. That length contributes to an antique feel. The fusion of feudal words with a pop of current culture and a date that must be in the future shows that this world won't color inside expected lines. That's fresh. I'm curious about Gideon Nav, her world, and her situation, and ready to see a new story. Muir has used her extra words well. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

Adulthood Rites

When writing science fiction or fantasy, how important is it that the first sentence signal that we are not in the current world? 

One way to approach the question is to see what effective writers do. Octavia Butler published influential science fiction and her legacy has continued to grow. The first sentence of Adulthood Rites lets us know that her main character is different from the people we know.

"He remembered much of his stay in the womb." Human memories most often start around age three. (Here's a quick article about that: Earliest Memories.) Since the brain has yet to fully develop before birth, it takes some extraordinary and perhaps supernatural ability to remember that time. Butler put a clue that her story takes place in another world right in her first sentence. 

The sentence features a character, "he." He has at least one exceptional characteristic, remembering his time before birth. Look also at "his stay" – this is how we talk about someone visiting a home or taking vacation lodgings – it is as if he chose to be there, and might have chosen otherwise – which adds unusual agency to his unusual mental capacity. Whoever he is, he has significant power. 

So far, Butler has promised that we will see the story of someone very capable of impacting the world. She also offers us poetic language. "Remembered much" is a graceful and uncommon phrasing; "womb" is the more mythic word for the uterus. She is also promising us pleasing language. And because we see this is not our world, she promises a new world to explore. 

This sentence makes a strong argument for signaling a different world right away. Since I like different worlds, powerful characters, and rich language, I am eager to read on. 

Adulthood Rights is the second book of Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy. The first sentence of the first book, Dawn, is "Alive!" and the first sentence of the third book, Imago, is "Slipped into my third metamorphosis so quietly that no one noticed." While "Alive!" hints at something strange, "a third metamorphosis" is very clear about it. I count that as two more tallies in the Yes column on whether to start an alternate-world book with a clue in its very first sentence. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

The Atlas of Love

I almost didn't write about this sentence because I felt faintly embarrassed about the title The Atlas of Love. Laurie Frankel is a good writer; I gave her book This Is How It Always Is one of my rare five-star ratings – but her titles so far don't accord well to me with the contents of the books. 

However, this first sentence works.

We have a person – "I" – and a location – "the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria." We have a problem: "found a baby." We have a time stamp: "When I was six years old." Let's take those elements one by one. 

"I" tells us that the voice we hear now will be the voice of the book. It's a graceful voice. This sentence rolls with several natural breaths in its structure. I'll break it with /s to show the clauses: When I was six years old, / I found a baby / in the lobby / of the Waldorf-Astoria. There's an understated internal rhyme between "baby" and "lobby" – most often, when rhyming words that end in unstressed syllables, the rhyme includes the vowel of the penultimate syllable and everything that follows it. That would give us the more obvious rhymes of "baby" and "maybe," or "knobby" and "lobby." The ear picks up the matching consonant and last vowel of "baby" and "lobby," but they call less attention to themselves than the longer rhyming portions would. 

The longer starting and ending clauses with shorter clauses between is also a poetic structure. 

"The lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria" is a precise place. The baby wasn't in a room, where one might expect it. The Waldorf-Astoria is an upscale hotel, where a lost baby is both more unexpected and possibly more fortunate than on the doorstep of a church or orphanage or in a dumpster. Do you see how we've already heard those stories and how they suggest grimmer outcomes? Waldorf-Astoria gives a bit of lightness and a bit of surprise – well-placed as the final word in the sentence. 

"Found a baby" is a problem because babies should not be lost. Babies should be attended, even more carefully than the rolling cases and backpacks we take to the airport. 

Finally, "when I was six years old" doesn't necessarily mark the current time of the sentence. The narrator's voice, with its precision and moderate length sentence, is an adult voice. So the narrator is looking back. However, to find a baby at that young age suggests both early heroism and a clue to the shape of a life. Since this is the story the narrator starts with, that baby left a mark. "When I was six" begins a personal myth as "Once upon a time" begins a folk story. 

This is a great first sentence. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

 

Bastard out of Carolina

 

Bastard out of Carolina is Dorothy Allison's novel of a child growing up at odds with the people around her. Her first sentence sets up that conflict right away. 

She calls out two names: Bone and Ruth Anne. Bone is an unusual name, especially for a child. It's a little unsettling, recalling skeletons and mortality. What would be your first vision of someone named Bone? Perhaps a man known for violence that left stark white showing through flesh, or a widow, wrinkled and shrunken so that her thinness leaves the underlying structure barely covered? Surely not a preschool girl. We toss away bones, and at least hope to see children guarded and precious. 

Ruth Anne, with the two Biblical names and a middle name of a single syllable included, belongs to Southern tradition in the United States. Without naming a location, Allison has already implied one. 

Names are personal and integral. They form part of our identity – and reflect our relationships with the people around us. Bone is the name the narrator has "been called" – someone else has given it to her and pushed that identity on her – "all my life" – as far back as she can remember. 

"But" – there's a word to create an opposition in a single syllable. "All my life, but" – puts an end to what has happened so far. This is it. She is making a change. "My name's Ruth Anne," asserts a new identity.  Now she will carry an appellation that marks her female and as worthy of extra syllables and formality as the other daughters around her. Now she'll go by something that sounds like the name of a person instead of an object. 

This is very elegant word crafting, all in words of one syllable and in a simple structure. In one sentence, the narrator is asserting her right to be a person and her conflict with those who called her otherwise. We have voice, person, desire, implied location, and true conflict between the narrator and her society wrapped in a single sentence. Although the short words and short sentence may appear artless, they include many of the strongest elements for an effective first sentence. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

Goldfish

 

"Goldfish" is one of twenty stories that Raymond Chandler published between 1933 and 1939. I drew it from his Collected Stories. As in many of Chandler's best-known works, his detective Phillip Marlowe tells the tale. 

What do we know about Marlowe from the first sentence of "Goldfish?" First, he works. Otherwise, there would be no need to call out "I wasn't doing any work that day." He's not a student, retired, or wealthy – he needs to earn a living. Second, he is an observant, dry, wise-cracker. He paid attention to notice that he was dangling his foot, and he pushed the absurd idea that he might be behind on that activity. 

Chandler has used the comic tool of placing a surprising word at the end of a sentence here. Because this is in Marlowe's voice ("I"), the character has used that tool as well as the author using it. 

The language of the sentence is close to speech. The words are short and common – the longest and least common is foot-dangling, and "dangling" is specific without being pretentious. Marlowe comes across as an attentive but casual working guy, talking directly to us. He speaks clearly and with some humor. The appeal of spending time with someone like that is one of the lures to read on. 

Marlowe also hints that something is about to happen; he tells us that he wasn't working at that point – which implies that work is about to arrive. 

I checked all the first sentences in Chandler's Collected Stories. He most often uses his first sentence to invoke a person or a setting. Problems are more muted. He uses vivid, specific details and strong voice to draw readers in rather than immediate danger. 

It's enough. Raymond Chandler remains respected as a mystery writer and a stylist more than sixty years after his death. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

Painless Poker

 

Here's a sentence that I know the background on. I have been Tommy Angelo's editor since 2006. Let's look at the sentence first, then I'll pull the curtain back on how it came to be. 

Painless Poker's first sentence is direct. It uses short, informal words, as if the author was speaking in person to the reader. "Don't even" has attitude – a pushy, triggered edge – these are the words someone would use who was tired of the same complaints heard over and over again. The author presses us not to speak to him – even though we actually can't. That creates an instant feeling of being in the conversation. We are close – there is no polite distance or protective frame between us and the author. 

And what would we talk about if we could? "How much it hurts." The subject is pain. Pain is the most intense evidence of a problem, personal, present, and physical. The sentence implies that you have pain, and the author knows it. That's the hook – you have pain. There are two people who have problems here – you with your pain and the author, who knows it, but doesn't want to hear about it. 

There is also a promise. The direct language implies that the author will tell you the truth, and the fact that he knows you have pain implies that he sees you, even if he doesn't want to hear about you. So the promise is that you will hear truth that applies to you. 

This is a compelling sentence. I tried to talk Tommy out of it. It was too rude, I thought, to be a reader's first encounter with the book, and it might leave the reader thinking Tommy didn't care. The sentence had come to him after months of engaging with the book, and he knew it was right, so after discussion, he kept it. That's also part of the editing process – because I'd tested his attachment to it, he was able to know that it was right for him. And because I work to "I suggest, you choose," once we'd had the conversation, I supported it from then on. 

Painless Poker is a brash book. It's a genre-breaking combination of poker instruction, autobiography, and fiction. The first sentence breaks convention as well. So it is a good reflection of the book to follow. 

"Don't even talk to me about how much it hurts" is bold, intimate, and divisive. It starts Painless Poker off with a jolt of connection and drama and perfectly suits the rest of the book. 

So I'll give Tommy's subconscious top credit for crafting a capital first sentence. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

Love Lettering

 

Seven words is not very many. Kate Clayborn makes these seven words the entire first paragraph of her novel Love Lettering. She sets them apart for our consideration. What do these highlighted words accomplish?

We have a time, although it is strange. Normally, "On Sunday" refers to a different time than the current time, but "I work" is in the present tense, which says that all of this is happening now. That bothers me a little, as does not placing a comma after "On Sunday." I find it better usage to place a comma after opening phrases that place the rest of the sentence in a time, place, or situation. 

We have a person: – "I" – which means that the voice and the subject are the same person. So the words tell us how this person talks and sees the world as well as what they do. 

Then we have "work." There's a little ambiguity here as well. Does work mean that "sans serif" is the entire profession, or only Sunday's task? Does this task fill the whole day or even longer? Present tense is less precise here than past tense would be. Look at how much changes in past tense and with a comma: "On Sunday, I worked in sans serif." Past tense puts bounds on the activity. 

Finally, "sans serif" is a very specific and somewhat uncommon phrase. For most people, sans serif is probably a distinction between kinds of fonts that they seldom consider. Our narrator works in it. We now know that, for the speaker, sans serif is an important consideration. Those two words make the work detailed and specific, and show that the speaker is precise and technical.

With this short sentence, the narrator has shown that they know their work, and will speak to us clearly and bluntly. 

Does the sentence contain a problem? That is not as clear. We don't yet know if working in sans serif is tedious or challenging or otherwise fraught. What this first sentence has promised is the company of a distinct, forceful, and observant voice, and the pleasure of seeing a specific life through those eyes. 

Gods of Jade and Shadow

 

Silvia Moreno-Garcia starts Gods of Jade and Shadow by saying the contents of the sky change the lives of people. She graciously summarizes the thesis of astrology. She's placing the characters of her novel under control of forces beyond their reach. 

She's also dividing the world into two: those born lucky and those born unfortunate. Which means that she has already created two sources of conflict: people versus cosmic forces and the lucky versus the unfortunate. 

It's a slightly unusual place to begin a story. As yet, we have no particular person to focus on. And, the novel calls for someone who can take action. A character who follows a predetermined path is an automaton rather than a protagonist. Even if the available actions are very small, there must be some choices to make a story. 

We like characters who take action. So it's risky to start a story by putting the results under the control of the stars and planets instead of in the hands of humans. 

The word "born" is very important here. It holds out the possibility that the stars and planets only dictate where someone begins, and not where they go from there. 

The beauty of the sentence also helps draw a reader on. "Some people are born under a lucky star" has almost passed into cliché, and then Moreno-Garcia plays on it with the contrast she makes in the second half of the sentence. "Misfortune telegraphed" contains two less-common words, an attractive rhythm, and an old-fashioned flavor. Telegraphs are not common any more. Then "position of the planets" is more specific than "lucky star" and has the poetic effect of the repeating Ps. 

I'm hoping when I read this that a central character will challenge the cosmic forces that placed them in an unfortunate circumstance, and that the story will continue in lovely language. If the author satisfies those hopes, the book will please me. 

Spoiler alert: She met my hopes. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert 

Pride and Prejudice

 

Jane Austen published during the early part of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's career. Unlike his writing, hers  continues to find a wide audience. 

Now that there is an entire industry in Jane Austen-inspired media, I’ve seen this line played upon again and again. It’s a lovely line. It has struck me with different forces as I’ve reread Pride and Prejudice at varying intervals. The first time I read it, I was too innocent to hear the irony. I rushed by, eager for plot and character. 

But look at the delicate tensions already in these first words: truth and acknowledged – as if it’s the popularity of a statement that creates its veracity; single and of good fortune – because the unmarried state only needs remedy when there is money to support it; must and wife – must marking necessity where one could hope that wife sprang from love. 

There are more implied tensions: between the universal acknowledgers and the singular man and wife, and between the man and the wife he "must be in want of." Must he? Is he forced to take one, whether it's his taste or not? These are the archetypal conflicts between society and individuals, and between one individual and another. One sentence winds the spring of all the action to come. 

The words "truth universally acknowledged" have a similar effect to "everybody knows." They establish the common agreement – the judgment of society. If I cut this down to contemporary, informal language, I might write "Everybody knows a rich bachelor must want a wife." What's lost? Both the emotion and the rhythm are blunter. It's also a little harder to question. The pauses that come from the commas, and the extra time to reflect as we follow the extra words, make it a little easier to start to wonder if this "truth universally acknowledged" is actually true. 

All the clauses of the sentence work together. "It is ... acknowledged" is a passive verb form, which hides who takes action. Modern style discourages passive verb forms, and so do I. However, passive tense sets an expectation here – that people will not act outside the dictates of society – which is core to her story, and it also gives Austen a chance to insert some wry awareness of that non-action. 

The first sentence of Pride and Prejudice is quite a bit shorter than the first sentence of Paul Clifford, which I looked at last time. That helps it appeal more to current tastes. What helps more is that the sentence maintains its focus, and has a touch of self-awareness and humor. Jane Austen, with her "universally acknowledged" is looking at her society, and she invites us to share the view. 

The Bad First Sentence of Paul Clifford, Which Launched Ten Thousand Parodies

 

I've largely looked at good first sentences so far. For my first bad first sentence, what could be better than to choose the author who inspired two separate contests for bad sentences? 

Edward Bulwer-Lytton supported himself well with his writing. He published more than two dozen novels, plus several plays and collections of poetry. He was popular in his time, and sold books from 1827 to 1873 – a substantial career. Yet, now we recoil. In 1982, the English department of San Jose University started Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for bad first sentences, and in 2001, Adam Cadre started the Lyttle Lytton contest for efforts to generate equal cringe-worthiness at restrained length. Both contests continue to the present day. 

What happened? How does an author go from very successful to the icon of bad sentences? 

And what makes this sentence bad? 

I'll start off by saying I do think he used his punctuation well. That's damning with faint praise (a coinage from Mark Twain), I know. He also used a lot of words that create tension: dark, stormy, night, torrents, violent, gust, rattling, fiercely agitating, scanty, flame, struggled, darkness. 

Actually, that's our first clue: current sentences often gain their force from one or two well-chosen words. Bulwer-Lytton belongs to the Romantic school, where the more passionate words filled a sentence, the better. In our era, we are more often wishing our writers would get to the point than that they would carry us away in a flood of feeling. We like our sentences shorter. We also like them more restrained. 

Suppose we grant Bulwer-Lytton as many words as he pleases and also that those words be as dramatic as he chooses – are there still problems with the sentence? Yes. 

First, the sentence undercuts itself. If Bulwer-Lytton's aim was to create drama, he let the tension out badly with "except at occasional intervals" and "(for it is in London where our scene takes place)." "Except" sets up an opposition. In this case, the opposing force is lax and unspecific, so that all the previous drama leaks away. It was good sense to put in the parentheses – every word between them except "London" is bland and weak – and the parentheses let us pay less attention to those. It would have been better to omit the entire phrase, perhaps fitting "London" in somewhere else. Plus, "where our scene takes place" talks about the writing instead of about the story, pulling us out of the drama. 

Psychologists call observing a situation as if you were outside it "dissociation." It reduces the emotional intensity of an experience. It doesn't work with the large number of dramatic words here. 

There is a logical problem. Can many lamps have one flame? Wondering about that also pulled me from feeling into thinking. Then there's the way many elements of the scene all act: the rain falls, the wind checks and rattles and agitates, the lamps (or is it that flame?) struggle. It's hard to care about any member of this skirmish when they all have their moment in the sentence and none of them are human. 

Perhaps, since we are allowing many words, we must also allow repeating them. This sentence contains both dark and darkness. I wouldn't recommend that. Suppose Bulwer-Lytton had limited himself to the seven words before the semi-colon. There is redundancy even there. Night is dark, and a stormy night is more so. He doesn't need to tell us that. The only goal of including dark, stormy, and night together is to pile up emotion – which he will undercut later. 

Bulwer-Lytton's semicolon, parentheses, and commas separate the phrases well and give the reader many places to breathe before the period. But the sentence throws its efforts in too many directions to create a coherent mood. So even if he wants to stir the feelings and doesn't care if he is brief or restrained or logical, the sentence fails. If I was editing for modern tastes, I'd start by crossing out at least the words before the semicolon, the entire phrase that starts with except, and the parenthetical comment. And then I'd cross out some more. 

But I learned to write after Strunk and White laid down prescriptions for brevity. I sometimes disagree with them, and I still live in the zeitgeist they reflected. Bulwer-Lytton died almost half a century before the first edition of the Elements of Style. His time was more willing to forgive extra words. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

A Hat Full of Sky

 

Terry Pratchett made me laugh more than any other author. A Hat Full of Sky is the first of his books to feature Tiffany Aching, and a good entry point within his phenomenally popular Discworld series. 

Right away, he's creating a humorous atmosphere. John Vorhaus' book The Comic Toolbox gave me a vocabulary and an awareness of techniques for comedy; Terry Pratchett taught me by demonstration over the course of decades and the forty-one books in the Discworld series. I am richer for both their work.

The first truth about humor is that no joke works for everyone. What brings one person to helpless laughter can leave another person cold. Terry Pratchett's writing worked very well for me and for quite a few others, as witnessed by the millions of copies of his books sold worldwide. 

What techniques make this sentence funny? First, there's a funny name. Vorhaus notes that this is a hard technique to pull off. "Nac Mac Feegle" has a sharp rhythm then a fade. With the hard endings of the final letter Cs, "Nac Mac" reads as two strong syllables. They are short, and, to pronounce them, we need a bit of a stop after each C, so that come as two separated raps. "Feegle" on the other hand, starts with an emphasis that trails off into the almost swallowed syllable "gle"– and it's an unknown word which is closest to the English word "feeble." The contrast between strong and weak syllables sets up a surprise. Much of humor comes from unexpected combinations like this. 

We have a variety of associations with fairies. The most popular are of bright, small, winged, and pretty creatures. Another strand views them as glamorous, dangerous, alien tricksters and warriors. So these ideas are already jostling as we attempt to place the Nac Mac Feegle as a fairy race. We don't associate either of these versions of fairies with "drunk." So the second beat of humor comes by placing that expectation-breaking word in the strong position at the end of the sentence. Vorhaus taught me very clearly that a twist on the final word was an essential comedy technique. Pratchett hits it perfectly here. 

There's another misfitting between the academic tone of "the most dangerous of the fairy races, particularly when" and the word "drunk" as well. We expect a serious, upright lecture. We get a popular word for a situation that very polite company would gloss over. That puncturing of staid behavior may be one of the reasons British humor works well for me. 

I miss Terry Pratchett. The first sentence of A Hat Full of Sky reminds me of some of the reasons, and the promise of laughter – and the mystery of a new group of fairies – would lead me to read on. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

Every Heart a Doorway

 

Today's first sentence comes from the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning novella, Every Heart a Doorway. Science fiction fans vote on the Hugo, members of science fiction and fantasy's professional association vote on the Nebula, and the readers of Locus, the industry-leading journal, vote on the Locus Award. Having all three awards means Seanan McGuire won popular, peer, and insider acclaim for Every Heart a Doorway. 

Seanan McGuire is also incredibly prolific, having published over 30 novels since 2008. 

What's in this very tiny slice of her work? It starts with "The girls" – yet they are not quite in action here. Instead, we see that they are "never present" – so someone else is attending the "entrance interviews." An interview implies someone who asks questions and someone who answers them. So we have three participating groups already – the girls, who are absent, the interviewers, the interviewees. 

Girls are young and vulnerable. Since they are not present, someone else has say over what happens to them. Does this interview determine whether the girls will be able to enter? Would they want to enter? Will they be required to enter, whether they wish to or not? We have people who should be protected having someone else make decisions for them. That can be good, when they have caring and capable guardians, or bad, when those who make the decisions do not have the girls' best interests at heart. Possibly these girls are in danger – this creates tension, to draw us on to see what comes next. 

In one of Heinlein's novels, he mentions that news agencies are forbidden from using words with too much emotional lading. (I believe it was either Stranger in a Strange Land or Revolt in 2100. Drop me a line if you have the reference – I am heavily paraphrasing here.) I spent a while thinking about that, and began a mental file on the strength of the emotional connotations of various words. 

Looking at the words in the first sentence of Every Heart a Doorway, the one highest on the scale is "never." Never is an absolute. Never is ominous on its own – it makes endings and divisions. It reminds me of death and ravens, via Edgar Allan Poe's refrain in "The Raven" of "Nevermore." 

Even so, "never" could be factual. I'd place it about 5 on a 1 to 10 scale of emotionally laden words. The other words are even milder. Entrances and interviews can make people nervous, but generally do not horrify. Girls tug more at our feelings than people or employees, but don't carry the dread of killers or the stronger vulnerability of babies. There are many girls, many entrances, and many interviews, so none of these words have the tight focus of a very specific word. 

In fact, because both "girls" and "interviews" are plural words, this happens more than once. Maybe it happens many times. Maybe girls are left in others' power over and over again. 

This is a modern sentence. It speaks to our time, where we are alert to bullying and abuse that girls may face, and it keeps its language within emotional bounds, as we prefer our fiction to do now. 

It's also more frightening the more I think about it. 

A couple more things – first, Poe would serve as an excellent contrast in style if you are curious about what more laden vocabulary looks like. Second, it's not only the period that determines the vocabulary. Seanan McGuire has studied folklore, and tales of that kind recorded in Poe's century also use more mild language to talk about very dangerous situations. 

I was very eager to read this book after it won those three top awards. The first sentence drew me in and the story is outstanding. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert 

Island of the Mad

 

Island of the Mad is the fifteenth book in Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series. Mary Russell narrates the series; she is the "I" in this first sentence. 

This sentence feels polished and assured to me. Earlier books in the series started with an editor's note, explaining how Laurie R. King had come upon Mary Russell's journals on various cases. By this point, King has dropped that device. She starts right with the story, confident that we will follow. 

Is she right to be? She has crafted a strong hook. We have two characters. One of them is Sherlock Holmes, which will appeal to anyone who appreciates one of the 19th century's most enduring characters. Then she drops the strong, ominous word "corpse" as the last word, where it gains extra emphasis. 

Both the name "Sherlock Holmes" and the word "corpse" place this story in the mystery genre. These two terms start and end the sentence. Interestingly, by placing a man and a woman together, standing "shoulder to shoulder" there is also a lighter call to the romance genre. 

What about the remaining words? There is something a little strange there. "Gazing down sadly at the tiny, charred" has a slight twist to the situation. It's not usual for the famous detective to pause to gaze sadly – we expect more dramatic action from Sherlock Holmes, such as examining or taking samples. We also expect him to contain his emotions. Then this corpse is "tiny, charred" – a burnt baby? Without stirring greater attempts to solve the mystery? We have a direct hook from beginning and ending and a more subtle one from the misfit in the second half. The sentence invites our curiosity in two ways. 

Another way to look at a first sentence is as a promise. Genre is a promise, too. Elements of mystery promise us a puzzle and its solution. Elements of romance promise us a chance to watch two characters developing their relationship. By naming Sherlock Holmes, King promises that I will have more time with a character I already like. 

All these promises appeal to me. This sentence draws me in to see if the rest of the book can keep them. By book 15 of the series, I trust it can. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

Joplin's Ghost

 

I thought it would be interesting to follow Ragtime with another book that had Scott Joplin as a touchstone. Tananarive Due published Joplin's Ghost in 2005, thirty years after E. L. Doctorow published Ragtime. She notes in an afterword that the stories a curator of Joplin's house shared with her became the kernel of the book. Due has won the American Book Award and the British Fantasy Award. Like Doctorow, she is a professor. Due, like Joplin, is Black. We have books from different times, different authors, and different genres with one composer and performer as a common element. 

A small detour into titles: Ragtime points at Joplin indirectly, by mentioning the musical style largely associated with him; Joplin's Ghost includes his name, a direct target. 

I'll let you draw any further comparisons yourself. Feel free to look back at the previous First Sentences post. I'm eager to dig into Due's specific words.

Here we have one and possibly two people, a very specific place, two uncommon verbs, and a situation that is curious at minimum and possibly quite ominous. 

First we have the new arrival. He is confined to a wheelchair, yet active enough to move himself. He is in a hospital – not just any hospital – Manhattan State Hospital on Ward Island. Notice the words "State" "Ward" and "day room" – I don't know the history of this specific hospital, but these words suggest confinement, inability to pay bills, and perhaps mental illness. These very exact words tell us that the author has a place in mind – she has done some research and filled out the world of her story. 

Then we have a dead wife. Is a ghost a person? Or could she be a hallucination or delusion? There are already signs the mind of the new arrival may not be clear. The ghost casts his state in further doubt. She walks beside him, in itself a benign activity – but we have trouble trusting the dead when they remain. And "always" also seems worrisome, on second thought. To say you'll stay by someone always is romantic in the abstract – to remain, constantly, beyond death, crosses the line to creepy. 

He whispers to her, as if he has something to hide. 

"Wheeled" is the first uncommon verb. "Whispering" is the second. They share the starting "wh" sound, a poetic touch. Look at the other words that start with "w" – Ward's, wife, walked. Both "wh" and "w" are rich on the lips, and the shared starting consonants – alliteration – ties these two sets of words together. 

For all the new arrival may be the haunted inmate of an asylum, the sentence remains fairly detached. No adjectives or adverbs express emotion or sensation. If the new arrival is afraid, or angry, or chilled, we do not know it. If the day room is gloomy or ominous or seems to press upon the new arrival, that remains unsaid. What's here could be simple facts – the wife is dead, she is always there, the man wheels through this particular room in this particular hospital on this particular island, whispering to her. We are left make our own interpretations of these facts – and left to wonder what will come next. 

Tananarive Due's sentence opens the door on a curious scene. I'm ready to step through into her world. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

Ragtime

 

Ragtime won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1975 and E. L. Doctorow continued to receive prestigious awards, up through the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction in 2014. He had the acclaim most writers only dream of. 

What do I see when I look at the very narrow sliver of his work that is the first sentence of Ragtime?

We have a time, a place, and two people. We have strong implications of prestige. We have rhythm choices that echo the music named in the title. Let's take them one at a time. 

1902 is the named time. However, the narrator mentions that "Father built" then – which means we are looking back at 1902, with the house complete and the child of the builder grown enough to look back. We don't yet know how far into the past 1902 is. 

Similarly, we have two people – "Father" and the narrator – one observed, and one observing. 

Every word after "built" adds more dimension to the location. "A house" is broad enough to allow many different buildings. "At the crest of the Broadview Avenue hill" places the house on a commanding rise. Broadview Avenue suggests a wide and stately road. In most cities, the homes with the best views – and the ones displayed by rising on the heights – belong to wealthy citizens. I was not familiar with New Rochelle, New York – but the French ending "-elle" suggests refinement. A quick search shows that in 1902, families from New York were moving there to have more spacious homes. It was an early suburb, and, for people who lived in the area, that flavor of wealth and escape would resonate as reflexively as the knowledge of which are the wealthy areas of one's own town. 

"Father built a house" shows that he had the money and power to make his dwelling to his liking instead of buying someone else's design. Compare this to "Dad bought a home." Doctorow's version is cooler and more formal. Father is more distant than Dad and house is less loving than home. 

Doctorow doesn't need to say "my father was a wealthy man." The details show it. And then we wonder, how does the narrator relate to that father, and what has happened since 1902? The motion of the story begins subtly and slowly. 

Two parts of the rhythm particularly grab my interest. First, I would have put a comma after "1902." Doctorow is adept enough to have put one if he wanted it. Without it, the sentence has less of a break there, and the words roll together until the only comma, after "Rochelle." So we have one long string until "New Rochelle, New York." Prepared by the title of the book, I hear the final two words, "New York," as the final two notes in the iconic phrase of Scott Joplin's ragtime hit, "The Entertainer." The long stretch of words followed by the quick two syllables reflects the rhythm of one of the most likely songs to come to mind when someone hears the word "ragtime." What fun! Joplin wrote "The Entertainer" in 1902. 

Did Doctorow intend that connection? I'm unaware of him having said so, and without his statement, we can only infer his intent. Such puzzles are one of the pleasures of reading – and are also one aspect of more literary writing. Even this one sentence has clues to Doctorow's many awards. 

Thank you to Sasha Eileen Sutton for suggesting the sentence and to Ken Silbert for graphic design. 

Brown Girl in the Ring

Nalo Hopkinson started Brown Girl in the Ring with a true hook. The stakes are high: a viable human heart means someone's death. The problem is urgent: both "as soon as" and "fast" point to hurrying. We have a character, Baines – although he is giving someone else – "you" – the problem of finding a human heart. Baines has his own problems. He blurts out his speech, which shows he is anxious. 

We don't know much about the location. The room could be large or small, furnished or empty, new or crumbling – that's not important now. We need a human heart. Hopkinson made a good choice on which details to include and which to leave out. 

How did she choose those details? By selecting which words are precise, and which ones are generic. "Room" is generic. "Viable," "human," and "blurt" are specific. 

She has also used alliteration to emphasize the most important words. There are two pairs of words that start with the same letter: "Baines blurted" and "human heart." The first pair shows Baines possibly making a mistake and the second pair sets the stakes to life or death. 

The rhythm of the sentence also shows that she paid attention to how it sounded as well as what it meant. Just looking at the commas, we see a long phrase, then a short phrase, a long phrase, and a very short phrase. Try reading that aloud. Do you hear how the short phrases have extra emphasis? That single last word, "fast," is like a punch to the gut.

Brown Girl in the Ring caught a lot of attention when it came out. I remember liking it. A close look at the first sentence has raised my awareness of its craft. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

Why First Sentences?

I've published an article at Medium about what I'm learning from paying close attention to first sentences. Here's a link that will let you past their paywall: What I Learned from Studying a Dozen First Sentences.

More first sentences to come! 

The Picture of Dorian Gray

In the nineteenth century, the novel was young. Authors were wordier, readers allowed the time for it, and we hadn't yet created the theory that the first sentence of a book should be a hook.

The Picture of Dorian Gray became a classic, and I enjoyed reading it in high school. What remains in my memory is a delicious frisson of decadence and cruelty.

The first point that catches my attention now is that I'd definitely put a comma after "garden." Training as an editor will have that effect – my eyes are optimized for noting places to correct. One goal I have in the First Sentences series is to give myself a chance to savor a few words at a time.

Apparently, punctuation standards have changed. The original editor (or Oscar Wilde himself) may have preferred the older rule that every sentence should use commas in only one way; I find that the need to separate an opening clause from a main clause is more important than that rule. Thus, I'd add a comma.

Now that I've appeased my inner editor, I can stop and smell the roses – and the lilacs and the pink-flowering thorn. How audacious it seems to start a novel with three different scents! Very often, smell arrives only as an afterthought. At some point, well past the opening pages, a novel may contain a brief mention or two of scent. Future lovers notice each others' unique fragrance, past lovers mourn by sniffing abandoned clothing, detectives tense against the blood in the air marking a crime scene. Smell is the most visceral of senses – faster to call up memories than sight or hearing, broader than taste, sometimes even surpassing touch for the physicality of our response to it. Here are three flowers to evoke our senses, plus the wind to stir across our skin.

Wilde's sentence calls to the sense of smell first, with touch in the breeze and the implied heat of summer. Sight comes in through the named details and the word "pink," while the wind may also arouse hearing. Altogether, this is a strongly sensual opening.

There are no characters yet. A studio hints at an artist, so far unseen.

And what do we find as the freighted final word? Thorn. The most dangerous part of a flower gains the extra emphasis of coming last, and brings an edge and a warning to the heavily perfumed scene.

Well done, Mr. Wilde! That is an attractive, polished sentence, give or take one comma. (And I do appreciate the hyphen.) I'm eager to see what else your story offers.

Graphic design by Ken Silbert