A Prince on Paper

 

Suppose you wanted to pack your first sentence with as many story elements as possible. The first sentence of Alyssa Cole's book, A Prince on Paper, is an excellent model to follow. 

Cole starts her sentence with a name: Nya Jerami. Both the first name and the last name fall outside the naming traditions I've seen the most of. That suggests Nya Jerami comes from a different world or culture. By starting with a name, Cole places that person at the center of her story. 

Next, we see Nya take action: "returned her ... seat ... pushed aside her braids." She controls her situation, in at least these small ways. A character who acts is more appealing than one who passively suffers from outside forces. 

The trappings of these actions begin to outline Nya's world. Her seat is "obscenely comfortable," suggesting great wealth. She has "wireless earplugs," suggesting modern technology. "Seat to the upright position" is a phrase belonging to airplane travel. Nya is traveling in style. 

Notice how the punctuation makes this sentence easier to read. The comma separates Nya's two actions, and with "then" clearly shows that Nya completes one action before starting the next. The dash makes a more emphasized break in the sentence. After the dash, Nya is no longer acting – we are seeing the reason for her actions: "no amount of relaxing meditation music was going to make her feel better" so there is no reason for her to leave the ear plugs in to continue listening. 

The very last phrase shows what she is stressed about "returning home to Thesolo." This shows the conflict. Home is often a place of comfort, but Nya feels bad about going there. Where is Thesolo? The specific technology of our world – reclining seats and wireless earplugs – meet the name of a place that doesn't exist in our world. We are in a slightly different world, with elements of fantasy – great wealth and an unknown place – beside elements of reality. 

The strong, final word both shows us that this is an alternate reality and completes the sentence's description of Nya. She is a woman with braids from Thesolo. 

The sentence contains character, world, and conflict, action, feeling, and description. 

Cole could have broken it into three sentences: "Nya Jerami returned her obscenely comfortable seat to the upright position," "She pushed aside her braids to remove the wireless earplugs from her ears," and "No amount of relaxing meditation music was going to make her feel better about returning home to Thesolo." That would have felt like these three concepts were less tightly tied together, and it would also have slowed the readers' arrival at the conflict, as we pause longer at periods than we do at commas or dashes. If the first sentence stops at "upright position," Nya has fewer dimensions. We've only seen her comfort at that point – not her braids, her home, or her sadness. 

The choice to combine those three sentences works here, and Cole's punctuation supports that choice beautifully. The rhythm of the sentence, with mostly one or two unstressed syllables between stressed syllables, also makes the long sentence easier on the ear. 

I have extra admiration for sentences that open a story well in few words. To use this greater number of words, and keep the sentence clear and smooth, and capture this many story elements, is also good writing. 

Graphic elements by Ken Silbert

Milk in My Coffee

I heard of Eric Jerome Dickey's death last month and went looking for one of his books. Milk in My Coffee caught my eye. I liked the first sentence, and I liked the book. I wish I'd heard of him sooner. 

"Before I could make it to the 42nd Street station in Times Square, my damn fingertips were aching." The sentence establishes a specific location: near 42nd Street station in Times square. We could find this place down to the block, and from New Year's Eve broadcasts and dozens of movies, we know this place: New York City. 

We also hear a voice. The mild swear word "damn" intensifies the final phrase and marks the speaker as someone who will break a social expectation. It makes the sentence rougher, bolder, and more personal. It falls in a curious place: "my damn fingertips were aching." It's more common to swear at other people or outside circumstances. Who would damn themselves or some part of themselves? Why be angry with your own fingertips? 

The fingertips hurt. They started hurting "before I could make it" – that is, in a short time. It must be very cold outside. 

So we have a character ("I," a person open enough to swear in front of us), in a location (Times Square), with a problem (very cold). That's three strong parts of a setting. 

The physical cold won't last. But swearing at oneself is a sign of discomfort – perhaps an emotional sort of cold – that could take longer to overcome. Now the story is well launched. 

I'm not sure why Eric Jerome Dickey hadn't come to my attention sooner. The ways I keep up with publishing hadn't intersected his publicity. I'm spreading my attention more widely since I started gathering interesting first sentences. I was glad to have his portrait of the people and perspectives in Milk in My Coffee. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

The Nickel Boys

 

First sentences are like icebergs: Only a fraction of their meaning lies on the surface. Every word reflects the ways people use it, the places we've seen or heard it used before, the world that we describe with it. The first sentence of Colson Whitehead's book, The Nickel Boys, is the forty-third one I've written about. The underlayments and reflections of first sentences let me continue playing and discovering. 

"Even in death the boys were trouble" is another short, potent sentence – seven words. The word "death" always raises the stakes. All our survival instincts rise when we fear the cutoff of life. 

"Boys" raises the stakes again. It's worse when the young die. We hope every life will be a long one. There is not one dead boy, either – the sentence says "boys," not "boy." Many years of potential life have been lost. When the words "boys" and "death" come together, something has gone very wrong. 

The words "boys" and "trouble" can come together for situations that are light as well as heavy. We have one vision of boys' trouble that is relatively harmless: taking frogs from the creek, hiding comics under the bed, sneaking an extra cookie. We have another vision that is dire: standing watch for drug deals, bringing guns to school, battling with fists and knives. These are our social stories of the trouble boys get into. Who do you see when you call up movies of these playful or threatening scenes of boys' trouble? How do the boys look different? School studies have shown that students tend to meet the expectations their teachers have for them. What a burden it must be to look like a boy we imagine for the worse scenes of boys' trouble. 

While death is the end of our hopes, it is also the end of our responsibilities. The narrator of this sentence still blames the boys for the trouble: "Even in death the boys were trouble." How can this be? What continuing action can the boys take that will bother the speaker? They can't. By saying this, the narrator pushes their own responsibility onto the boys, making the boys the scapegoat for trouble the speaker has brought upon themself. 

(I would put a comma after "death" in this sentence. I strongly prefer to end opening phrases that place the rest of the sentence in a time, place, or situation with a comma. Good writers can disagree on punctuation choices.) 

This first sentence sets the tension for the story very high. It also shows the work of prejudice, as the narrator blames the boys, even beyond death, for trouble. 

That's a lot to accomplish in a handful of words. The many links we have from these words – especially "death," "boys," and "trouble" – to our own experiences make that impact possible. 

Graphic elements by Ken Silbert

The Lincoln Lawyer

 

At Goodreads, Michael Connelly put up a note about how he found the first line of his book, The Lincoln Lawyer. That gives us an opportunity to see behind the curtain. Before we look at what the author said, let's look at what the sentence says.

The first line is: "There is no client as scary as an innocent man." There is no location, no time, and no name in this sentence. Instead of describing a particular moment or person, this sentence asserts a conclusion. From some experience or observation, whoever is speaking believes something about clients, fear, and innocence. 

Who has clients who might be innocent? Most likely, a lawyer does. Who is afraid when they are? Again, a lawyer. The narrator worries the most when their clients are innocent. 

That's a bit of a surprise. We expect that someone innocent is safe and well-behaved; a guilty client could be murderous or violent or scheming. Why does the narrator think innocent clients are scary? That creates a mystery that draws us to read on. 

The words doing most of the work here are client, scary, and innocent. Those three are the most distinct, and the last two set up the mystery. Will we see an innocent and scary client in the rest of the story? 

Michael Connelly heard this line from a lawyer and knew it was his first line and also the thru-line. Connelly wrote that he had been "searching the whole time for the thru-line, the engine of the story." Once he heard this, he "started putting together a story that would prove what the lawyer had told me." Because he had been planning to write a novel about a lawyer, he was spending time with lawyers, and he was ready to catch the line when it came. 

I like the image of a sentence as an engine. When that happens, the first sentence captures the essence of the story. This one promises that we will see an innocent man in a scary situation. It's a strong start to a good story. 

Fabulous Beasts

 

The first sentence of Priya Sharma's story "Fabulous Beasts" is another short, potent sentence. It's a piece of dialogue. Someone – we don't yet know who – is saying, "Eliza, tell me your secret." That quickly, we have two characters: Eliza and the person who is speaking. 

The speaker knows Eliza well enough to address her by her first name. That could be close knowledge or casual knowledge, depending on the setting. In some worlds, only the very closest of relationships allow the use of a first name; in others, the first name is the usual introduction at a party or bar. The speaker also knows enough of Eliza to believe Eliza has a secret. And the speaker has standing enough to command that Eliza share the secret. 

We now know Eliza's name and that she may have a secret as well.

Secret is a strong word, and gains more strength in its position as the last word of the sentence. It means something is hidden – and "tell me" shows that someone wants to know it. That creates tension. We'd like to know the secret. What is it? Will Eliza tell? Why does the speaker want to know? 

If knowledge is power, then Eliza's secret is her power, and the speaker is hoping to gain it. There is a conflict there – if Eliza wanted it known, it would not be a secret. Eliza and the speaker want different results. 

In what situations do we hear someone say, "Tell me your secret?" Some of them are low-stakes: How did you make these cookies come out so well? Where do you buy your shoes? Some of them are high-stakes: Where did you hide the gold? Who is the traitor? Some of them carry emotional weight: Who kissed you? How did you get that bruise? From this sentence, we don't yet know what the impact of Eliza's secret may be. But because it starts a story, we expect it will matter for that story. There's no reason to tell a tale that starts with a secret if the secret doesn't have an impact. By starting with the secret, Priya Sharma is suggesting that what it is and what it means is the center of the story – the secret has importance and consequence. As readers of many stories, we understand that.

A secret, like a dead body, pulls us into a mystery. This sentence is a hook. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

Hench

I read Hench just a few days ago and liked it so much I wanted to tell everyone about it. I flipped to the beginning, checked the first sentence, and then reread the whole book. Natalie Zina Walschots crafted this book well from beginning to end. 

Her first sentence falls naturally into three parts. The first part, "When the temp agency called," sets the time and situation. The second part, "I was struggling" gives us a character, "I" with a problem, "struggling." The third part, "to make the math work," adds more detail both to the problem and the world. 

(Why three parts? The comma and the word "to." The one comma separates the first two parts of the sentence. The word "to" – a single, hard-working syllable often used to relate some words to others – starts the third part.)

Let's dig into each section a little more. "When the temp agency called" starts the story at a precise moment – as the phone rings. "Temp" is a modern, informal word. It suggests the speaker is someone contemporary. It also suggests that the narrator needs work – any work – as temp agency jobs are less prestigious than, say, headhunted jobs. The call may bring an opportunity. So right away, the narrator faces a choice. 

"I was struggling" – this means "I" was having a hard time. "Struggling" is also what we call people who are unemployed and desperate for income. With "temp agency," "struggling" picks up both those meanings. 

The last part, "to make the math work," is another way we talk about too little money for expenses. It also gives a sign that "I" thinks in terms of math and making things work. The narrator, while struggling, does have some skills and education and willingness to try. Most of us have been there or can imagine being there. So we empathize with the narrator's situation and begin to feel drawn to their side. 

It turns out that Hench takes place in a world where superpowers exist, and there are many systems to manage them. This first sentence doesn't clue us in on the story taking place in an alternate world. That information follows quickly on the page and the cover art and book descriptions also show it. For anyone counting, this is one vote against having your first sentence signal that the story takes place in an alternate world. 

Don't blame Ken Silbert for the Comics Sans font, shading, or color choices. He designed the frame and "First Sentences" cartouche. The rest is on me. 

Foundation

When I was young enough that I had never had a favorite author before, I found Isaac Asimov, and he became my favorite author. I was in sixth grade, twelve years old (which Peter Graham called "the golden age of science fiction"), and I went on to read all of Asimov's fiction I could lay my hands on, and all the books in the half-case section of adult sf in the very small public library of our town of 300 citizens. 

At twelve, I was innocent of any theories of writing or of how writers should conduct themselves. In fact,  I would be married and living in a larger city before I realized that Isaac Asimov was Jewish. 

Now some of Asimov's behaviors bother us. Don't put your hands on other people without their consent. I don't recommend that we take his life as an ethical guide and I hope we continue to learn kinder, more inclusive, and more equitable ways to behave. If the world goes well, fifty years from now, some of what I do may appall our descendants. There are some possibilities I suspect – I can imagine them floored by burning fossil fuels – and there may well be others I haven't even imagined. 

So I am inclined to grant Asimov grace enough to look at one of his sentences. 

Foundation was published in 1951. Its first sentence shows a young man taking that same trip from country to city that I would: "His name was Gaal Dornick and he was just a country boy who had never seen Trantor before." We don't know where Trantor is. But it is a place a "country boy" hasn't seen: very likely a city. 

Who is Gaal Dornick? A "country boy" with an unusual name. He's someone young, untraveled, and in an entirely new place – which means he can see Trantor at the same time as we do. He will have the same kinds of questions about it that we would if we were there. His name and the unfamiliarity of "Trantor" suggest that we are in a different world. Yet someone fresh to that world will help us enter it by puzzling his way through it as we would have to. 

The young character suggests we may see Gaal grow up; his arrival in a new place promises the pleasures of a travelogue. Gaal will need to find his way around, a source of conflict. This first sentence begins to open a world, a character, and a conflict for the story in eighteen simple words. 

As a small town girl myself, is it any wonder I wanted to see what happened next? 

I like the rhythm of the sentence, too. Try reading it aloud. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

The Cracked Bell

 

Now that I've made 38 posts about first sentences, I thought I'd take a look at one of my own. 

Uh oh. 

Well, I now know more and would have more ability to do better. But let's take a look and see what's working and what isn't. 

We start with a name: Jehaima. It's not a name in common use in our world. It has a form similar to female names of our world, in three syllables and ending in a, like Jemima or Katrina or Lucinda. So it suggests a female in another world or another time. 

Next, we have "could feel the distant hum" – there's a bit of sensory confusion here. "Feel" usually refers to the sense of touch, but hums are more often heard than felt. There's also something unusual about "distant" – touch only works at very close range, and hums are usually quiet, so having either one noticed at long range is odd. 

The hum comes from a duel. Somewhere, two people are fighting, and Jehaima knows it from a distance. This brings some conflict into the sentence. 

The next few words, "in her farsense," confirm that Jehaima is female and that this is an altered world. "Farsense" is not in the dictionary. It is a made-up word. "Far" goes with "distant" and "sense" goes with the mixture of touch and hearing from the words "feel" and "hum" earlier in the sentence. Farsense appears to be something Jehaima experiences a bit like touch and a bit like hearing, but that works at a distance. Jehaima has a power that people in our world don't have, and there is a word for it that we don't use. The word "farsense" by itself would signal that we are in a fantasy or science fiction story. 

So far, the sentence has given us a clue to the world, a protagonist, and the tension of a fight in the distance. This opens a story fairly well. I might have been well-advised to stop there, on the intriguing word "farsense," and give the reader a moment to engage. 

The next part of the sentence does not work as well. "An ongoing discordance" brings in some long words and the more difficult time stamp of something that is continuing to happen. "Discordance" is uncommon and awkward without being as interesting as "farsense." "Normally melodic" is another phrase that is hard to speak, with many syllables, a rough rhythm, and uncommon words. It also creates three time spans in the sentence: the current moment, shown by the simple past "Jehaima could feel," a slightly wider span created by the duration word "ongoing," and an even wider span indicated by "normally." That's a lot to convey in a single sentence. 

Finally, the sentence ends with "sounds of the kingdom." These are four words that don't carry as much information as they could. "Sounds" are more generic than any of these other words: songs, voices, rattles, barks, drumming, heartbeats. "Of" and "the" are extremely common words, that serve a function but do not add flavor. "Kingdom" does tell us that we are in a world with countries governed by hereditary leaders, which makes this more likely to be fantasy than science fiction – but what kingdom is it? Does it have a name? How large is it? "Kingdom" is almost generic for the location of a fantasy novel. It's not precise or flavorful or surprising enough to take advantage of the strong last word position in the sentence. 

The last half of the sentence is trying too hard, to do too much, and cover a wide span of time, and it lets the focus of the first half of the sentence dribble away in tongue-tripping phrases. 

I do like the abundance of hearing words in this sentence: hum, discordance, melodic, sounds. That suggests that Jehaima approaches the world through what she hears, and that sound will play a large part in the story. However, these words play against "feel," undercutting the idea that "farsense" is part touch, part hearing, and only "hum" is specific and strong. It might be better to change "feel" to "hear," leaving "farsense" entirely related to hearing. 

I published The Cracked Bell in 2014. I'd learned about self-publishing, and when I reread the book I'd finished some years before, it struck me as good enough to share. I gave it a light edit and sent it into the world. 

Graphic design and cover image from The Cracked Bell by Ken Silbert

I Was Told It Would Get Easier

 

Abbi Waxman breaks a rule in her first sentence. The rule is "Don't mix metaphors," and its purpose is to make writing clearer and avoid unintentional absurdities. 

What does it mean to mix a metaphor? It's when a writer begins by describing something as one thing and ends by describing it as another. In this case, Waxman first compares her day to a bull – that is what we "take ... by the horns" and ends by comparing it to a scarf. The result is that we imagine the narrator throwing a bull over her shoulder, horns to either side of her neck, legs and torso draping down her back. 

Writers can break rules. In fact, when they want the effect that breaking the rule brings, breaking them is good writing. With careful word choices, Waxman has made her sentence clear, despite the mixed metaphor. She intended the absurdity of a bull draped over her narrator's shoulder. 

Absurdity is one form of humor. Waxman may also have meant this sentence to be funny. Notice that the central mixed metaphor is softened by phrases before and after it. Look at what happens if we trim this sentence down to the absurdity: "I took the day by the horns and threw it over my shoulder like a scarf." To me at least, that is funnier. Taste in humor varies widely. Waxman's original sentence might tickle some readers more than the condensed version. I am more likely to laugh when the sentence is briefer and ends on the word that makes the unexpected contrast. 

So what happens when we add back in the words I took out? The first phrase, "I left the house this morning, determined to..." places the action in a specific time and place: "this morning," leaving "the house." Now her action is unusual, perhaps something she has only tried once or a change from what happens in other places and other times. "Determined to" is self-conscious. The narrator is observing her own emotions. The words of this phrase are bland, diluting the vivid image of the bull-scarf to come. 

The final phrase, "if necessary," casts doubt on whether everything before it will happen. The narrator is leaving herself an out. She might not take the day by the horns. She might decide she doesn't need to. 

The final effect is one of anxiety. The narrator wants to do something bold, and she has hedged it on both sides as uncommon and unlikely. 

The self-observing, somewhat funny, somewhat anxious female narrator places this book in the company of books by Helen Fielding and Sophie Kinsella. This sentence suggests that if you like the company of women like the narrator, you will enjoy spending more time with her. Many readers can empathize with feeling a little anxious, and like to spend time with people with a sense of humor. So the sentence calls to that audience specifically. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

The Sign of Four

 

Sherlock Holmes is a figure of enduring popularity. He was one of the first literary characters to gain a fandom. He hold a Guinness World Record as the most-adapted character. The name has only gained appeal and resonance in the one-hundred and twenty-nine years since his first appearance. 

In other words, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories about Sherlock Holmes are canon – or if not part of some universal canon, certainly an ancestor to wide swaths of stories about detectives and companions, intelligent men with abrasive personalities, and applying insight instead of force to resolve crimes. 

When I went to check for first sentences, I found the stories drew me in. The writing holds up.

What clues does this first sentence hold to the lasting appeal of Sherlock Holmes? 

The Sign of the Four is the second story Conan Doyle wrote about Sherlock Holmes. So the name Sherlock Holmes would have attracted readers who enjoyed the first story, but would not yet have had the widespread recognition it has now. "Sherlock Holmes" is a distinctive name. Neither the first name nor the last name are common. Together, they are very likely to mean one specific person. The name sticks in the mind better than a more common name might, and by its oddness, suggests the character will also be particular. 

There are other very specific details: "mantlepiece" – the shelf above a fireplace, "hypodermic syringe" – at the time, a fairly new piece of medical technology, "morocco case" – a fitted container covered in a specific style of leather. These details are like the clues that the mysteries will hinge on. They are precise, meaningful, and observant. 

At the time of the book, no law forbade a private citizen from having a syringe and a bottle of narcotic. Some people had developed addictions. In the following sentences, John Watson, a doctor, worries about Holmes' use of the drug. 

Reaching for a bottle and syringe, then, like now, showed that Sherlock Holmes had a flaw.  He was a closely observed character with both outstanding skills and significant weakness. 

I like the opposition here between "hypodermic syringe" and "neat morocco case." The syringe is dangerous, novel, and piercing. The case is tidy, traditional, made from animal skin, and enclosing. The tension between these items reflects the concern that the character who has them will harm himself. Wanting to see what happens creates a subtle hook. If I know the name "Sherlock Holmes," this sentence is also a promise that I will learn more about a character I like, and that there will be more close observations and exact details. 

This sentence works on many levels. 

Background leather texture by Felipe Santana on Unsplash, graphic elements by Ken Silbert

Empire of Wild

 

Cherie Dimaline, a First Nations author, fills Empire of Wild with details of a Métis community, perhaps similar to where she grew up. She starts making the world of the novel specific and unlike the community where I grew up from the first sentence. 

The first two words take on a less common meaning already. "Old medicine" on its own might mean "an expired bottle of Tylenol." The next words, "has a way" treats the medicine like a person, something that has habits and will of its own. This medicine is also capable of haunting the land – that gives it a spirit, like a ghost. Medicine that has will and spirit is powerful and shamanic. This is medicine in the sense of Native American knowledge. This word doesn't belong to me. Dimaline uses it to begin placing us in her world. 

Look at the phrases "being remembered" and "was laid." They both imply that someone remembered and someone laid the medicine. But while the medicine directly "has a way... of haunting" the people who remember and lay are pushed out of sight by the passive verb tenses. It feels as if the medicine has more control than the people do. 

These are words in the sentence that, rightly or wrongly (and Dimaline will ask us to consider this in the novel) we associate with indigenous people on this continent: old, medicine, remember, land. Each one in the sentence strengthens our association. Words sometimes work by bringing in connotations, drip by drip, until they add up to an impression, like spots of color added to a Monet painting. Artists can create effects from a single splash of an intense color, or from several points of less intense pigments. A writer also can choose several slightly associated words – rather than one strongly associated word – from a field to give readers an association with the field, creating a blatant or subtle effect. 

I see another set of words in this sentence: old, haunting, laid. These words draw from the language we use for cemeteries, ghosts, and horror. The sentence would point even more to horror if "laid" was changed to "buried." We use "buried" for the dead and "laid" for the inanimate and the sleeping. Do you taste how "laid" is a little softer and more ambiguous than "buried?" "Laid" also gives the alliteration with "land," which might be worth more to the sentence. 

Both "haunting" and "medicine" are strong, specific words. With the rest of the sentence, they build both place and sense of foreboding. This sentence is a hook. 

Two Roads

 

The prolific Native American author Joseph Bruchac starts his novel Two Roads with one of the most seductive of all American scenarios: the road trip. Roads remind us of freedom and travel. The words he uses here make this road all the more inviting. 

Let's start with "us": two letters that mean the narrator is traveling with at least one other person. Travel in company tests and refines relationships. Having someone with you – who can argue, laugh, watch your back, suggest detours, and more – makes a trip a richer experience. 

Next, there's "red." Red is the most attention-grabbing of colors. Red roads are far less common than black roads. "Red" is another short word that sets this road apart. The sound of "red road" is lovely as well. The words have both their first and last consonants in common, a pleasant close match of sounds. And both words are strong, accented syllables, making the two of them a pair of strong drumbeats. 

"Stretches out before us" calls us forward onto the road. There's room to move ahead. Since animals stretch, that verb makes it almost as though the road is placing itself for our attention. 

The red road stretching out before us is also easy to visualize. All these words are well-tied to the physical world. We can see red, roads, and stretches, and place them before us in our mind's eye. 

With "a long ribbon of light," the sentence turns a little more abstract. It repeats the idea of "long" that was in "stretches out" and the flat, parallel edges of a road are like the shape of a "ribbon." But "light" is not quite a match for "red." Light is more often white than red. So "light" doesn't simply repeat what the first of the sentence described in other words. It adds to or changes the picture. 

Light is also attractive. So the final word of the sentence adds another pull to move ahead on that road. 

I like the structure of this sentence. The rhythm is varied enough to reward reading aloud. The many Rs bring the sound together. And while many authors avoid repetition, the way the words after the comma echo the meaning of the words before the comma, and then add a twist, is reassuring without becoming stale. 

By the end of the book, I knew much more about who "us" was and what the roads they traveled would be, and I was happy to have taken that trip with them. 

The Four Profound Weaves

A novel is a world. Even when it takes place in current times, in the country where the reader lives, a novel opens a new perspective. For a while, a reader shares a narrator's vision, a narrator's priorities, a narrator's moment-by-moment passage through their experience. The change may be as subtle as moving a camera two inches or as vast as awakening to a pterodactyl's cry. 

In either case, the world of the novel is not the world of the reader, until they begin to read. So we readers need a doorway or a bridge to reach the world of a narrator. 

I love this opening sentence from R.B. Lemberg. It's not a hook – it doesn't strain with danger. It's not a promise. There's no weight on where the story goes next. The word "alone" suggests that "I" may stop being alone – or may not. The word "in" holds the possibility of "out" but doesn't coerce that next step. There's no giveaway to the genre of the story – an old goatskin tent could be historical or contemporary, realistic or fantastic. 

I have a third type of first sentence I consider: the seduction. First sentences are seductions when they promise pleasure. I started looking at this sentence, and I wasn't sure what pleasure it promised. Would I need to make a new category? "I sat alone in my old goatskin tent." 

No, as I looked longer, I saw the pleasures here. 

First, there's the pleasure of travel. I have never been in an old goatskin tent. Here's a chance to see what that is like. The precise detail – "old goatskin tent" – is rich and concrete. The narrator who sees that detail can bring me to their world well enough for me to see it, too. 

Then, there's the pleasure of autonomy. Whoever this narrator is, they have the independence to sit alone in their own tent. This "I" will control their own destiny, at least to that extent. I like spending time with people who make their own choices. 

The pleasure of clarity comes next. This sentence has no ambiguous or wasted words. 

The last pleasure I'll note is the pleasure of rhythm. I read the sentence with accents on the syllables I'll follow with apostrophes: I sat' alone' in my old' goat'skin' tent'. Would you drop the accent on skin? That creates a very steady rhythm, as "in my" rush together. But "skin" is so visceral, I find myself slowing so I can make the last three syllables all strong, hard raps. Either way, the rhythm adds music to the sentence. 

This sentence drew me when I first read it in a sample. This morning, with the whole book in hand, I smiled at the sentence again and read the entire short book before I came to write about it. 

Graphic Frame by Ken Silbert

Background vector created by Layerace - www.freepik.com

Trail of Lightning

 

Rebecca Roanhorse starts Trail of Lightning with a five-word sentence. That's short and fast. She also uses one word that, by itself, creates tension: "monster." So right off the start, we are rolling into the story and engaged with what happens next. 

How about the other words here? "The" suggests this monster is the only or most consequential one in the area. "Has" is present tense, which brings the story into the moment. Look at the difference a single letter makes between these two versions: "The monster has been here." "The monster had been here." "Has" is closer and more urgent. Also, because most of the stories we see in the present tense are also told by "I" – that is, in first person – "has" suggests that the narrator will be telling this tale directly. "Been" is neutral. Like all forms of the verb to be, it links other words with minimal shading of its own. The monster did not stand or rest or shred or kill or act in any more distinct way here. It existed here – which is worrisome enough. Finally, "here" is another word that brings the action of the story close to us. In this location, where we are, there was recently a monster. The monster might not have gone very far. 

A first sentence with tension or suspense is a hook. "The monster has been here" is definitely a hook. A first sentence can also be a promise – a sentence that creates an expectation about a story that the rest of the book needs to fulfill. With the word "monster" and the implied narrator, we have two characters. Monsters are usually villains and protagonists who tell their own stories are usually heroes. A villain plus a hero sets up a conflict. So this sentence suggests that the narrator and the monster will eventually face each other and fight. That is a promise. 

The word "monster" also suggests the genre of the story. Monsters appear in fantasy and horror, and can only belong to realistic fiction as metaphors. This sentence is blunt and straight-forward. There's nothing to suggest that this is a figurative monster. While the monster could still turn out to be, for example, an abusive father, an author who wanted to use "monster" in that way would usually give a clue in voice or other details. Instead, Roanhorse has surrounded the fantastic detail with ordinary words, a strategy used by authors like Stephen King to add reality to supernatural situations. 

I've read and enjoyed the entire book. The monster is literal and powerful. 

Could any five words have this much impact? No. I make a habit of choosing the first sentences that interest me. Only a tiny percentage of books start with a sentence that hold my interest enough for me to write about them, and very few of those are this short. Rebecca Roanhorse has written an excellent hook and promise. 

Solar Flares

 

Linda Hogan is an award-winning author, the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, and currently the Chickasaw Nation's author in residence. When I look for first sentences, following the tracks of others' respect often leads to interesting choices. I haven't yet read any of her books, so I am coming to this sentence as someone first opening the book might. 

That's not to say I am coming to the sentence with no preconceptions! In September of 2019, I marched, and "I hear the voice of my great-grandmother" was a line in one of our chants. Even though Hogan's sentence dates from 1995, I'm meeting it now, so I hear it flavored with the joint action and care for the world I associated with the march. 

This is the fate of anyone who speaks a language. Every sentence carries echoes of similar sentences, of how the words have been used before, and who has used them. If it were not so, the words wouldn't carry meaning from one person to another. 

Within the sentence itself, we have two characters: "I" and "my great-grandmother, Agnes." There's no particular conflict. The only verb, "hear" is neutral, nor are voices or great-grandmothers particularly threatening. Perhaps we'd feel a shiver if this seemed to be a ghost story, but there are no words to suggest a worrying or uncanny situation. "Hear" may simply refer to remembering. 

The most precise word is the name "Agnes." Agnes is a name once more popular than it is now. It seems a match to a great-grandmother. 

The most unusual part of the sentence is its location in time. "Hear" is in present tense. "Sometimes now" is complex. "Now" means currently, and often implies a very short period. "Sometimes" means only off and on, which requires a longer period so that the hearing has time to both happen and not happen. Together, "sometimes now" seems to mean in the current period but not before ("now") I intermittently ("sometimes") hear my great-grandmother's voice. The narrator uses two words to define the time, yet each of them has loose boundaries. The result is a slippery sense of when the sentence is happening – "now" but extending some amount into the past, "now" but maybe not this precise moment, only "sometimes."

"Great-grandmother" extends the timeline into the past. A great-grandmother must have existed well before her great-grandchild. The voice of the great-grandmother comes from the past, into the present, blurring the time mark even more. Although "hear" is simple and present, the words "sometimes" and "great-grandmother" stretch the current "now" farther and farther into the past, suspending "now" over a long period, like a vision of eternity. 

Hogan's sentence doesn't describe a danger. Instead, it shows memory and heritage. It promises that the narrator will grapple with the influence of the great-grandmother's voice – an appealing offer to readers who have their own family history to understand. 

Silver Sparrow

 

Tayari Jones starts her novel Silver Sparrow with a crime. A bigamist is someone who takes a second spouse without legally ending their first marriage. 

The speaker uses formal language to tell us of this crime. It's a curiously detached way to speak of it. "My father" is a distant way to speak of that relationship. Calling him by his full name is also unusually precise. That name, "James Witherspoon," has an English flavor, which we often read as more stiff, and also sets this in a legal context where bigamy is a crime. Then "bigamist" is the legal term, also cool and indirect. 

The two commas create pauses that add to the impression of speaking rationally and reflectively. The narrator's father has committed a crime – a shocking crime within that culture. But the narrator also speaks of this as distantly as possible. 

From this one sentence, we expect the story to unfold the consequences of this crime through close observation and muted feelings. 

How much differently would you expect the story to go if the first line was, "My pa Jimmy has two wives?" Would you be more or less intrigued if there were more emotionally laden words added to the sentence, such as, "My dad, James, is a lying, two-timing, worthless oath-breaker?" 

As it is, the two characters in the sentence – the narrator and the father – stand apart from each other, and the narrator looks at the father more to think about the situation than to feel it, at least on the surface. The crime in this sentence creates tension. The tone of the sentence suggests how the story will approach that problem. 

The more a reader likes that voice, the more drawn they will be to continuing the story. The sentence promises to think about a difficult situation. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

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