The Last Picture Show

 

The first sentence of Larry McMurtry's novel, The Last Picture show, is: "Sometimes Sonny felt like he was the only human creature in the town." 

That comes so close to being a genre sentence! One little change, "Sometimes Sonny was the only human creature in the town," and now he's a lone survivor of a zombie apocalypse! Or change the emphasis a little, and Sonny is one human, surrounded by mythological creatures that only appear human.... 

But no, I've read the whole book, and McMurtry had intended no change from our consensual reality. The clue is in the words "felt like." A character can feel like the most fantastic metaphors and still inhabit mainstream literature. 

With non-mainstream interpretations off the table, what does McMurtry's sentence contain?

We have a character, Sonny. We have the on again, off again time stamp, "sometimes." Sometimes doesn't tell us what the date is or suggest an hour or era. It means partly so, partly not. 

We have a location: "in the town." Town means somewhere smaller than a city, and perhaps more relaxed. It is also not very specific. 

Most of the sentence aims to tell us about Sonny's feelings: "he felt like he was the only human creature." By devoting the most words to Sonny's feelings, the sentence may be showing us that those feelings are the most important matter to the story. 

It doesn't name Sonny's feeling. Instead, it tells us what that feeling is like, being "the only human creature." "Only" sounds lonely – humans don't do well alone for long periods. "Human creature" is strange. Most often, we consider humans and creatures as different categories. What does it mean to be a "human creature?" Maybe Sonny is made into an animal by his loneliness. Although Sonny is not a werewolf, that same set of metaphors, of animals inside and uncontrolled feelings, might be invoked by "human creature." Still, a creature is more small and hidden than a beast or animal. Sonny isn't empowered by being like a human creature. He's reduced. 

Words carry great capes of meaning behind them. We can use them to create new worlds or to paint extra resonance into everyday scenes. With the words "only human creature," McMurtry begins to show us the interior of Sonny, whose exterior might be all we could see if we met him. 

Graphic elements by Ken Silbert

Photo by Courtney Rose on Unsplash

Monkey Around

Monkey Around is Jadie Jang's first novel, and its first sentence sealed my decision to read it: "The guard looked entirely human." That's five words with plenty to intrigue and unpack. Let's get to it!

First, we have a character: "The guard." Guards separate what they protect from the people they protect it from. So the guard isn't the person who has a problem here. Whoever is noticing the guard very likely has a problem. Guards feature in stories of prison escapes and heists. When we see a guard in a story, we expect someone to need to disable or sneak past them. The word "guard" already sets the story up for action. 

Next, we have "looked." "Looked" here means "appeared to be" and when we use it that way, it almost always implies "but actually wasn't." Jang could have written "only looked" and she didn't need to. She dropped the unnecessary word "only" and the sentence is briefer and has more impact for it. 

The fourth word is "entirely." You know this one. "Entirely" protests too much. The real world is mostly or partly or nearly whatever it is – when someone says "entirely" they are exaggerating for effect or implying that they mean "not at all" instead. Both "only" and "entirely" are adverbs (words which describe how something acts or modify descriptions and often end in "-ly") and to use two adverbs in this short sentence would have sounded absurd. The one Jang chose heightens our awareness that how the guard looks isn't how they are. 

The final word, taking all the extra emphasis of last position, is "human." I love seeing "human" there. "Looked" and "entirely" have already set up the final word to be untrue. "Human" arrives as a world-shifting zinger. 

The sentence now contains the meaning, "The guard wasn't human." Our world doesn't feature guards that only look human. This marks the story's genre as fantasy or possibly science fiction. With five words, Jang prepared us for action in another world. What fun! 

The whole book was a lot of fun. It has a fast pace, and a richly seen, fresh setting. I'm glad I saw this on a Big Idea post on Whatever and I'm glad I read it. I will look for more from Jadie Jang. 

Photo by Ningyu He on Unsplash. I chose this one for the intelligence in the monkey's eyes, but it is not the right variety of monkey to match the one in the book. 

Graphic elements by Ken Silbert

Sunshine

The first sentence of Sunshine, by Robin McKinley, is: "It was a dumb thing to do but it wasn't that dumb." 

Someone recommended this book to me. I hadn't read any of McKinley's books before. The situation in the first few pages grabbed my attention and the book gripped me to the end. 

The sentence mentions no names, no time, no location. It does set up a problem. When someone says, "It was a dumb thing to do," we know that whatever it was, it came out badly. When they add, "But it wasn't that dumb," I hear them trying to justify their actions. 

On this sentence, I wondered if many other people would share my associations. I match "dumb thing to do" to teenagers, strongly. Humans whose forebrains aren't yet fully developed are most likely to take chances, discover those chances cause problems, and then call those actions "dumb things to do." I hope that they survive, wiser, to have a second chance. It strikes close to home when they don't. 

We don't yet know who is telling this tale. An omniscient narrator could be telling the story of someone else, which means the person who made the mistake doesn't have to survive to tell the tale. Even a first person narrator could end the story in a very bad place. Writers have their ways. The sentence doesn't promise that everyone or anyone survives. 

Do you hear a stress on "that" when you read, "But it wasn't that dumb?" The stronger that stress is, the more it sounds like someone trying to argue that the "dumb thing" shouldn't have been such a big deal. Try reading this as a sober calculator of odds might say it, with barely any variation of stress. But "dumb thing" is not a good match to a person like that. We expect someone calmly estimating the odds to use more academic language, perhaps, "There was a possibility of an infelicitous outcome, but the risk was within acceptable bounds." "Dumb thing" is a better match to someone young and impetuous. 

Someone has done something risky. They claim it wasn't that risky – but they wouldn't be calling it a "dumb thing to do" if it had gone well. We don't yet know who it was, or what they did... but we want to find out more. 

This sentence draws us in with mystery and tension. It is a hook. 

Graphic elements by Ken Silbert

 

 

Ukridge

 

P. G. Wodehouse was a humorous, prolific writer best known for his Jeeves and Wooster books. Born in England, he spent much of his life in the United States, including the last decades of his life. He's part of our comedic novel heritage. Ukridge collects a series of stories featuring the title character, which he first published in 1924. 

As I paged through the library's Wodehouse books, racing against the dread deadline of closing time, this first sentence held my attention. 

Now it's summer, my least favorite season, and part of me is thinking, "What even is comedy? What is word?" But I'll try to rally myself and see what we have here. 

Here's the sentence (external quotes omitted for elegance): “Laddie,” said Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, that much-enduring man, helping himself to my tobacco and slipping the pouch absently into his pocket, “listen to me, you son of Belial.” 

There are two characters in this sentence: the narrator, who's talking of an encounter he had himself, and Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge. There's an interesting device here. The narrator doesn't describe himself, but Ukridge calls the narrator "Laddie" and "son," which suggests the narrator is a young man. He is old enough to have his own tobacco. 

As to Ukridge, the narrator calls him "that much-enduring man" and says he "absently" pockets the tobacco. These are sympathetic judgments. The narrator calls our attention to Ukridge's problems and treats the loss of his tobacco as forgetfulness rather than malice. 

At the same time, Ukridge is calling him "son of Belial" – an insult, although possibly a genial tease. It means "son of the devil" yet the less common term "Belial" lands more softly. "Laddie" could well be affectionate. Is this wit rather than dislike? 

The narrator seems to like Ukridge, and Ukridge may like the narrator as well. Ukridge addresses him familiarly, and makes himself at home with the narrator's tobacco. It seems they are friends, although swiping tobacco and calling names could be unkind. That tension between action and attitude is one source of humor here. 

Another is the name "Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge." It's long and ungainly. Stanley's common enough. Featherstonehaugh sounds strained, with the mismatch of "feather" and "stone" and the odd syllable "haugh" like someone crying out in pain at the end. The first syllable of "Ukridge" sounds a bit like someone choking or gagging. Finally, the name ends with "ridge" a return to a common pattern of having a last name refer to a land feature. The whole name has odd bits sandwiched between parts that make it seem normal, at first. 

Another element of humor comes in the phrase "that much-enduring man." It comes right after Ukridge's full name – perhaps even having that name is much to endure. It also, from the events in the sentence, seems misapplied. The narrator would seem to have more to endure here than Ukridge does. "Much-imposing man" would seem more accurate. To call Ukridge "much-enduring" seems ironic. 

Interrupting Ukridge's statement for so many words suspends time in a rhythm that often goes with comedy. In the midst of saying, "Laddie, listen to me," the narrator has time to tell us that long name and describe Ukridge as long-suffering, and Ukridge has time to borrow some tobacco and swipe the pouch. The action is truly faster than the speech. 

Ah, good, now this sounds funny to me again, in a dry way. There was a period, when I was looking at it, when all the humor fell away, like ether fleeing an electron microscope. Losing the pleasure of smiling at Wodehouse would be a high price to pay for a blog post. But I would pay it, lads and lassies, just for you. 

Graphic elements by Ken Silbert

Photo by Erol Ahmed on Unsplash

A Conspiracy of Truths

 

Today I was thinking about how genre affects first sentences. The classic hook – a first sentence that grabs the reader with suspense – appears most often in mystery and thriller novels. When I started writing about first sentences, I expected to find mostly hooks. Maybe that's because the writing books of Lawrence Block, a mystery writer, were a strong early influence on me. 

Other genres may have other priorities for first sentences. Or possibly it's the other way around: A first sentence may start to build the genre of a story. Revealing genre is a fast way to set a frame around a story. Withholding genre asks the reader to keep an open mind a little longer – and most of the books that do that are literary or mainstream fiction. 

Alexandra Rowland begins her novel A Conspiracy of Truths with this sentence: "The whole mess began in a courtroom in Vsila, the capital of Nuryevet, where I was being put on trial for something stupid." 

The first words of the sentence, "The whole mess began," tell us that the narrator plans to start at the beginning of a problem. They also are informal speech. They are everyday language, without the tradition of "Once upon a time," or the pastoral tones of "In the beginning," or the military precision of "At 2100 hours on the seventh day of the third month...." "Mess," in particular, is a word more often spoken than written. These four words both announce the beginning and begin to build a voice. 

The next few words, "in a courtroom," lets us know that this is a legal tale. We begin to expect lawyers and juries and laws. 

Then we have "in Vsila, the capital of Nuryevet." These are places I have never heard of. The form suggests that Nuryevet is a country, and Vsila its governing city, so these are significant places rather than obscure ones – in the world they belong to, which is not our world and our time. The two place names have a vaguely Russian or eastern European feel to them. For those who remember the Cold War, that feel makes the word "courtroom" more chilling. 

The next words, "where I was being put on trial," raise the stakes. Now the narrator ("I") is not attending the courtroom as an audience member or a lawyer – they are the defendant, and thus at risk of whatever the penalties may be for what they are accused of. 

The sentence ends with these words, "for something stupid." The narrator doesn't respect the charges. In fact, they call them "stupid," which might even show contempt for the charges or the court. 

The narrator has a lot of attitude.

This sentence starts and ends with words that build the narrator's voice. In the middle, it shows that we are in a different world ("Vsila," "Nuryevet"), and puts the narrator in jeopardy ("where I was on trial"). The strong final word underlines that the narrator has a bad opinion of the court, or the law that accuses them. What kind of person dares speak badly of the law? Someone who thinks themselves outside it. 

This is a story of person against the system. Because the sentence is in first person, past tense, we know the narrator will survive to tell the tale about "the whole mess." 

For a clue to the genre, we see that the story takes place in a different world. This suggests fantasy or science fiction. There's no sign yet of magic, which would make this fantasy, or advanced technology, which would make this science fiction. It will take more sentences to determine that part of the genre. 

The first sentence has told us quite a lot about the story to come. It will feature a person with attitude who prevails against the system in another world. If you like that kind of story, this first sentence is telling us, you will like this book. 

I do like that kind of story and I did like the book. A Conspiracy of Truths delivers what it promises from the first sentence. 

Graphic elements by Ken Silbert

Murder in the Marais

 

This week I had the long-delayed pleasure of browsing for books. Murder in the Marais caught my eye with a stylish cover, several sequels shelved beside it, and, of course, an intriguing first sentence. 

That first sentence reads, "Aimée Leduc felt his presence before she saw him." It's short. It's unsettling. It raises questions. Let's look at how the author, Cara Black, pulled me into her story. 

First, we have a person. Her name is Aimée Leduc. That name has a French form. It's not quite enough to prove that the character is French – she could be of French descent, or belong to a different group that now uses French, or named by someone who likes French. It creates the possibility that she is French, and draws in whatever associations we have with France and being French. 

We have a first name and a last name, slightly formal. Aimée means "loved" and Leduc means "the duke," both marking her as valued. 

We have the bare bones of a situation: A man is present. 

Then we have her perception of his presence: She felt him before she saw him. And this is where we begin to worry. 

Normally, we can see much farther than we can feel. It's strange to feel before we see. When would a woman feel a man before she saw him? Here are some possibilities: If he was hidden behind a corner or in shadows and close enough that she could feel his body heat or the movement of his breath. If he had been staring intently at her until the back of her neck cringed. If she was a woman of unusual perceptions. 

All of these options are ominous. The first two put her in danger. In the third case, it is danger that usually calls forth such extra alertness. One way or another, something is not right here. 

One more thing – because we read of what Aimée Leduc feels and sees, we are close enough to her to share those senses. Already Cara Black is drawing us very close to her story. 

I haven't read the book yet. I'm looking forward to it. I can tell the prose is good, and the seventeen sequels show that the books have captured an audience. That's potentially well over a million words for me to enjoy. 

Yet, like all series, it starts with a single sentence. 

Graphic elements by Ken Silbert

Photo by Léonard Cotte on Unsplash

Another Brooklyn

 

Jacqueline Woodson has won the National Book Award, and I found Another Brooklyn on a recommended reading list. The first sentence, "For a long time, my mother wasn't dead yet," intrigued me. 

This morning, with some ideas about what I might say about the sentence, I read the book. The book gives the sentence a different meaning than I'd taken as I considered the first sentence on its own. I'd expected the story of an illness. I took "For a long time, my mother wasn't dead yet," to mean that everyone had known the mother was going to die for a long time before she did. My best guess was cancer or some lingering wasting disease. 

I have a good imagination. I can roll out long stories from small clues. Sometimes I'm wrong. This was one of those cases. 

What the narrator meant could be a spoiler, so I will not tell it here. I will drop the expectation of a long illness and see what's in the first sentence itself. 

There are two characters: the speaker and the speaker's mother. The mother is "my mother" – very close to the person who tells the story. There are markers of time: "For a long time" and "yet." "For a long time" means this situation stretched out. "Yet" marks the end of that duration, and it is a short, sharp clip of a word. "Yet" breaks the long stretch decisively. 

There is also a problem. "For a long time, my mother was not dead yet," is in the past tense. That past tense implies that, although there was a long period before she died, the mother is dead now. 

It's a short sentence, full of short words. The longest is "mother." "Mother" and "dead" are both very strong words, full of associations and emotions. Together, they worry us. 

The part of the sentence that most matches the rest of the book is "For a long time." There is a feeling of suspension, of pending grief or loss that continues throughout the story. Although the first sentence misled me a bit, the tone and the worry of it begin creating the mood that will hold throughout the novel. 

Graphic elements by Ken Silbert

Spoiler Alert

I've enjoyed a number of Olivia Dade's books. She writes characters who often share my interests, and puts them in situations that I can believe. She often includes a bit of humor, which I appreciate. 

Her novel, Spoiler Alert, starts with this sentence: "Between takes, Marcus did his best not to acknowledge the obvious: this was a stupid-ass way to die." 

Let's start at the end this time. The word "die" is here, placed in the strong, final position that gives a word extra emphasis. Normally, this would create high tension, as "die" raises the stakes to life or death. However, this sentence undercuts the tension of the word. "Between takes" means that this is make-believe: Marcus is part of a video production. Worse, "stupid-ass way to die" suggests that it is a badly written death scene. 

Marcus is a character with a problem. It's not the threat to his life that the word "die" might at first suggest. Instead, it is something that takes quite a few more words to describe. He must "do his best not to acknowledge" – that is, he must play his death straight – that this is "a stupid-ass way to die." His problem is not that he is going to die. His problem is that he needs to commit to a scene that doesn't make sense to him.

Now we know a lot about Marcus. He's an actor – that is almost certain to bring with it that he is attractive. In this world, professional actors are very seldom unattractive. He's intellectual – he has noticed that the death scene is a stupid one, and his thinking about it is complex: "did his best not to acknowledge the obvious" is a layered thought with a long word in it. He's a little snarky: "stupid-ass" is a bold and impolite term. Many writers stick to more moderate language. 

Attractive, intelligent, snarky – Marcus has the attributes of a romantic hero. He's also trying to keep a secret – that he knows this scene is bad. 

"Die" is a strong word. The sentence before it subverts its meaning, so that instead of enhancing fear, the strength of the word enhances the humor of the sentence. Marcus does have a problem, but it is an artistic problem rather than a survival problem. The sentence spends most of its words showing who Marcus is in an indirect fashion.

Give me those implications! I really like learning about characters from their thoughts and actions. It's no wonder I keep buying all Olivia Dade's books. 

It's very hot today, and my proofreader is away. Please forgive any typos or reduced clarity. You can tell me about them! And I will correct them later. 

Wishing you all comfort and safety, Anna

Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash

Graphic elements by Ken Silbert

One Hundred Years of Solitude

 

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who would go on to win the Nobel Prize for literature, published One Hundred Years of Solitude in 1967. The first sentence, in English translation, is: "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." 

There's a life-threatening situation in this sentence: "as he faced the firing squad." However, it is placed gently in the middle of the sentence, with words directing our attention elsewhere on either side of it. The opening of the sentence, "Many years later," places the firing squad at a distant time – although the firing squad is deadly, it isn't happening now, which makes it much less urgent. Humans tend to discount future problems. What can be done, now, about something that will happen many years later? 

The last part of the sentence also softens the tension. When faced with the firing squad, the main character doesn't scream or cry or beg or sweat. He "was to remember" – he thought of his past. That could be an escape or a way to grieve what he is losing. It is a mental action rather than a physical action. Remembering can connect to any emotion. It is neutral until we know more. Because it is neutral and internal, it also reduces the tension of facing the firing squad. 

Notice also how the sentence telescopes through time. There are three time periods in the sentence. One is the implied present – a time many years before the firing squad. The second is the day of the firing squad, many years after the present. The third time is "that distant afternoon" when Colonel Aureliano Buendia was a boy. The sentence stretches from boyhood, through adulthood, to probable death. It covers the length of a life. 

"Colonel Aureliano Buendia" suggests a man of power. He holds rank. He receives the respect of a long, full name. Aureliano might tie to Marcus Aurelius, the stoic emperor of the Roman empire. Buendia breaks down into buen dia, a fortunate day. These names, too, suggest good fortune and strength. They are clues that he had a strong prime of life. The stretched time of the sentence suggests his life was long, as well. 

The childhood memory that he will return to is "when his father took him to discover ice." For contemporary North American readers, ice is too common to discover. It is in our drinks and in our freezers since before we retain memories. To discover ice, it must be something the boy had not yet encountered – something rare. If we didn't know ice, what a wonder it would be. This is a good memory: a father taking a child on a wondrous yet safe adventure. Because the boy didn't yet know ice, he may be quite young. The times in this sentence may begin with his earliest memories, cross the peak of his influence, and end with his death. 

I haven't completed this book. The sentences are lovely, and I was feeling too impatient for the wandering strategy of the story. I think, like the first sentence, the entire story wants to embrace a wide view, not only of time, but of character and place. I do think the first sentence shows a very interesting technique. It contains the basic elements of a hook – a character in a high tension situation – and then chooses to look at a much longer period of time, letting the tension slip away in favor of detail and nostalgia. When would this be the perfect entry into a story?

Graphic elements by Ken Silbert

 

The Raven and the Reindeer

 

T. Kingfisher recently won the Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction for her novel, The Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking. That book was outstanding. The Raven and the Reindeer is one of her fresh takes on fairy tales, and the first sentence drew me in. 

She starts the story like this: "Once upon a time, there was a boy born with frost in his eyes and frost in his heart." 

I've had a good, long day helping others solve writing problems. I'm going to indulge myself and try something a little different with today's first sentence post. 

My usual practice is to see how much I can draw out of the sentence on its own. Then I may discover that a single word has so many ties to custom, nature, and literature that it pulls all the universe into my discussion of a single sentence. 

On the other hand, there are sometimes sentences that I decide not to review because they don't fit the rest of the book. I usually read the entire book before I write about its first sentence here. If the first sentence sets my expectations wrongly for the rest of the book, or turns out to be of a different quality or a different tone than the rest of the book, I pass on it. After all, I like to show good first sentences, and part of what makes a good first sentence is that it opens the door to the world of the story. A misleading sentence doesn't serve that purpose. 

How can I talk about the fit between a sentence and the rest of the book, when it takes me paragraphs to discuss a sentence alone? I'll need to take a broader view. It helps that The Raven and the Reindeer is inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's story, "The Snow Queen," which is somewhat well-known and in the public domain, so you can consult it if you wish. 

The sentence starts with a time stamp, "Once upon a time," which puts us in mythic time. Then it gives us a character, "a boy was born," and a possible problem "with frost in his eyes and frost in his heart." That last portion has a lovely parallel construction. 

What does it mean to have "frost in his eyes?" We soon discover that the boy, named Kay, has both pale eyes and eyes that see the world critically. What does it mean to have "frost in his heart?" We have a phrase, cold-hearted, that is similar. It means to have little care for others. The story reveals that this is true of Kay – and he also cherishes snow – so much so, that one day, he approaches a sorceress of snow and lets her take him away, without a thought for his family and friends. 

The bulk of the story follows Gerta, the neighbor girl who is devoted to him, and how she journeys to bring him home again. 

So I could talk about how the words "boy" and "heart" in the sentence suggest that we will look at first love. Does this match the story line of the book? In playful ways, it does, for Gerta pushes herself through great hazards to find Kay. 

Then there's the word "frost," appearing twice. The book continues with many images of frost and snow and ice. It talks about the cold, both of the weather and the heart, and how to survive it. 

"Eyes" in the first sentence begins an entire thread of visions and how people see and don't, continued throughout the story. "Heart," too, is the start of a series on what people feel or don't, and how they act on it. 

"Once upon a time" promises us an enchanted world, and the story generously fulfills it with strange magics and arcane sights. There are gorgeous set pieces here, like the reindeer road and the Snow Queen's castle of ice, that are marvels that still feel an organic piece of this world. 

In short, this first sentence is an excellent microcosm of the story to come. It has been a true pleasure for me to reflect on it and how well it fits with the story it opens. 

Graphic elements by Ken Silbert

Photo by Raisa Milova on Unsplash

Where We Belong

 

I am eagerly looking forward to standing in the library, browsing books for first sentences, and ending up choosing a stack to take home and read entirely. 

In the meanwhile, my list of ready-to-blog sentences was running low. In honor of Pride month, I decided to browse Wikipedia's list of LGBTQ authors for inspiration. I was happy to find Catherine Ryan Hyde there, like an old friend. Where We Belong is the first book of hers I read. I've gone on to read a dozen more. 

The first sentence of Where We Belong by Catherine Ryan Hyde is: "By the time I was seven, I had twenty-two packs of playing cards." 

This one is a seduction. It doesn't have the tension of a hook. Twenty-two packs of playing cards is unusual – a bit of mystery – but not dangerous. It isn't a promise – I don't detect another book it references or a strong marker of genre. There are poetic techniques to create beauty. 

The first part of the sentence has four long "i" sounds: in by, time, I, and I. They come quickly. It's a long vowel sound, creating a bit of suspension in the rhythm of the opening. Try saying it aloud: "By the time I was seven, I...." These long vowels are hard to rush over. They ask us to slow down and savor. 

The next portion of the sentence contains a number with three quick "t" sounds: twenty-two. It's the most alliterative number under fifty – I counted through them to check. Then we have two "p" sounds for another quick alliteration: "packs of playing cards." I almost always call these "decks of cards." Hyde made the choice to include "playing," which she could have left out, and to use "packs" rather than "decks." 

The stressed syllables of the sentence do not fall into a regular pattern. I hear the first section as falling in triplets, then the second section in irregular pairs. It's a rhythm that catches attention without monotony. 

Poetic devices like repeated sounds and ear-catching rhythms most often go with sentences in my seduction category. 

Within a few paragraphs of this first sentence, there are events that could have created high tension. Hyde chose to start more quietly. 

The sentence contains one character, "I." "Before I was seven years old," places the sentence in the formative past – here is an early childhood situation that influenced the character. The situation is "had twenty-two packs of playing cards." That's unusual. Twenty-two is more packs than most people need, especially at seven years old. We do wonder why the narrator had so many cards, so young. That's a call to our curiosity, rather than to fear or excitement – a gentler invitation to read on, which is another reason this sentence seems a seduction rather than a hook to me. 

But maybe Hyde knew hooks could be gentle. After all, I read this book and twelve more of hers. I do seem hooked enough. 

Photo by Klim Musalimov on Unsplash

Graphic elements by Ken Silbert

All Quiet on the Western Front

 

The United States observes Memorial Day today to remember those who have served and fallen in war. It seemed a good day to look at Erich Maria Remarque's enduring novel of life in the trenches during World War One.

The first sentence of All Quiet on the Western Front is, "We are at rest five miles behind the front." 

Many of the elements we've seen in effective first sentences are here. There is a subject, someone to focus on. In this case, it is "We." There is a situation, "five miles behind the front." There is a word that raises the stakes in the strong final position, "front." "Front" means the leading edge where one side of a war meets the other, and brings with it the deadly violence and and risk not only to life, but to one's entire country that comes with war. 

One interesting choice that Remarque makes is to start the story "at rest." This is not the point of highest conflict. It is a break, instead: a moment of relative peace and safety. The story begins a little more softly than if it started mid-battle. The point-of-view character can reflect on the situation. 

The degree of safety is "five miles." Whatever knowledge we have about this kind of war will influence how much shelter we feel that distance creates. 

"At rest" is another military term. With "front" to offer it the context of war, it gives us an additional clue about who "we" are – a group of soldiers. 

Another interesting choice that Remarque makes is to write the sentence in present tense, using the verb "are" instead of "were." Although present tense is common in certain current genres, past tense is more common, and it was even more the default in the 1920s when All Quiet on the Western Front was first published. Present tense draws us closer to the events. We don't have the distance of knowing that someone is telling us of something that happened before. With "are," Remarque creates the illusion that the narrator is talking to us as the events happen. It places the action of the book in an evolving now – and doesn't allow the narrator the implied safety that telling the tale later (which means they lived to tell it) would. 

By starting with a fragile moment of rest, instead of a battle, Remarque saves himself room for intensifying conflict. He also allows some time to consider what war means rather than immersing us in the experience immediately. The perspective on war, in addition to the depiction of war, helped make All Quiet on the Western Front a book that continues to speak to us a century after its events.

However you observe Memorial Day, please grant a moment to remember the lives lost to war. 

Graphic elements by Ken Silbert

Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash

The Heiress Effect

 

The first sentence of Courtney Milan's novel, The Heiress Effect, is: "Most of the numbers that Miss Jane Victoria Fairfield had encountered in her life had proven harmless." 

This sentence introduces us to one character, the precisely named "Miss Jane Victoria Fairfield." Her name already speaks of a particular time and situation. "Miss" means unmarried, and probably from a past time and a social group where people address each other formally. "Jane" is a common name, simple. As a first name, it suggests a woman without pretension – unlike "Victoria" which is long, flowery, and invokes Queen Victoria. The middle name suggests a much more powerful and high status person than the first name – as if the plain first name is a cover for a more assertive center. "Fairfield" sounds simple, again – the combination of two common, pleasant words, easily pronounced and both starting with "f." 

If you imagine a woman named "Jane Fairfield" and another named "Miss Jane Victoria Fairfield," how do they differ? The two extra words show Courtney Milan's attention to detail, and they change my view of the woman described significantly. 

There are other signs of attention to detail in this sentence. The two uses of "had" show careful ordering of events. "In her life" is almost too precise – where else, after all, might Miss Fairfield have encountered anything? "In her life" could be omitted – but leaving it in, if we read this as a close reflection of how Miss Fairfield thinks, shows her as fussy and particular. If we read it as what to expect from the narrative to come, it tells us to count on clarity and fine focus. "Numbers" and "had proven" are words from science or mathematics – they also suggest careful, rigorous, detailed work. 

When it comes to creating tension, the first and last words here do a lot of the work. "Most" implies "but not all" – put "most" together with "harmless" and we hear that while most are harmless, some are harmful. What harm has come to Miss Jane Victoria Fairfield? 

And what is that harm due to? "Numbers." Here is an intriguing mismatch of expectations. It's not numbers that we expect to do harm. How can such abstract concepts hurt someone? Nor are "numbers" the problem we expect a "Miss Jane Victoria Fairfield" to grapple with. "Suitors," perhaps, would have been the term that fit with that name. 

The melding of two unexpected fields – an upper class woman of a previous time and mathematics – adds some mystery to the sentence. If all the words had come from only one of these fields, the story would have tighter bounds. Instead, with at least two fields in play, the story begins with a bit more surprise and complexity. 

This sentence is a hook, because it creates tension with "most" and "harmless." (Those are two words that remind me of Douglas Adams when combined, although his exact phrase is "mostly harmless." However, separated as they are, and without more pointers, I wouldn't call this a reference to him.) It is also a promise, because the name "Miss Jane Victoria Fairfield" is exactly the kind of name found in historical romance, and because the careful words suggest that if I like complexity and attention to detail, I will like this story. 

Did that sentence lead me to read on, and did the book fulfill its promise of an experience I'd enjoy? Yes, reader, they did. 

Background and frame by Ken Silbert

This Close to Okay

 

This Close to Okay gathered many recommendations. Leesa Cross-Smith starts her fourth book with this sentence: "Tallie saw him drop his backpack and climb over the metal railing, the bridge."

Here we have two characters, "Tallie" and "him." We have a life and death situation: When someone climbs over the railing of a bridge, they make suicide possible, as well as fatal accidents. Tallie has a choice to make – intervene or leave him to his fate? With suspense, tension, and high stakes, this sentence has all the elements of a hook. 

Yet I find it fits my "seduction" category even better. 

A first sentence that works as a seduction draws the reader in with beauty. There's a strong rhythm to this sentence. I read the stresses as almost alternating, like this: Tall'ie saw' him drop' his back'pack' and climb' ov'er the met'al rail'ing, the bridge'. The even rhythm of the first seven syllables breaks just as he begins to climb – when he crosses out of safety. "Metal railing" returns to that rhythm – the even pace matching the safety feature. Then, the only comma makes a gap, and the rhythm turns upside down, creating uneasiness and extra emphasis on the word "bridge" – even stronger than the usual weight on a final word. 

The comma marks a hitch in more than one way. We pause a little when we read a comma. Did Tallie's breath also pause there? And there is a break in the wording. We expect extra words to fall between "the metal railing" and "the bridge." Strict grammar would add a preposition there to show how the words are connected, such as "the metal railing on the bridge," or "the metal railing of the bridge," or "the metal railing at the edge of the bridge." Those words are gone.

The missing words leave "the bridge" on its own, a little detached from the sentence. They create some ambiguity – now we have less guidance as to how the railing relates to the bridge. Do the words "the bridge" redefine "metal railing" so that the railing is the bridge? Is "the bridge" an exclamation? Or is "the bridge" like the state and "the metal railing" like the city, so that "the metal railing, the bridge" is like "North Tonawanda, New York?" 

To leave out the small, dull words and create multiple possible meanings is a poetic device. So is paying attention to rhythm. This sentence has a kind of linguistic intensity that draws me in to savor the words, as much as the tension of the situation does. 

Both tension and linguistic intensity continue through the entire book. The first sentence proved a good taste of the story to come. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

Autonomous

 

Annalee Newitz' first book, Autonomous, was nominated for multiple awards. The first sentence is a classic hook: "The student wouldn't stop doing her homework, and it was going to kill her." 

Newitz presents a situation and raises the stakes. "It was going to kill her" means that life is on the line. We have a crisis – can anyone save the student's life? 

We have one character, the student. As a student, she is likely young. We also know, by her pronoun, that she is female. Both these character traits mark members of society we often feel more protective of, which raises the stakes again. 

What else do we know about her? She is doing homework. In other words, she is following the rules, which are part of a system we hope will keep our children safe. 

Instead, "homework" is the "it" that "is going to kill her." A normal activity is somehow placing her in danger. 

It's another surprise that she "wouldn't stop doing her homework." We expect students to resist doing homework, to put it off, or to rush to finish it so that they can go on to something else. How has it happened that this student won't stop? That's a mystery. 

This sentence grabs the reader by creating tension and suspense. Something is wrong when a student won't stop doing homework and the situation is even more critical when the homework threatens the student's life. This sentence is an archetypal hook. 

When I started writing about first sentences, I expected to find many hooks. As I went on, I found that a good proportion of the sentences that drew me in offered other enticements. In my mind, I now have three categories, which sometimes overlap. A hook draws me in with immediate conflict. A promise invokes other stories and suggests that if I liked those, I will like this one. A seduction draws me in with its sheer beauty. It's my personal division of a wide world of first sentences. Time will tell whether I still like these categories after another fifty sentences.

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

Graphic elements by Ken Silbert

Lovecraft Country

 

Matt Ruff's novel, Lovecraft Country, came out in 2016 and the HBO series based on it arrived in 2020. I had read one of Ruff's previous novels and liked it, so I picked up  Lovecraft Country around 2017 and liked it even more. 

It was right up my alley. There's a literary reference in each of the title and first sentence. "Lovecraft" refers to early twentieth century horror author H. P. Lovecraft. "Atticus" is a name most likely to call to mind Atticus Finch, the noble lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird. These two references bring in the ideas of horror and justice. 

How many times have we seen someone make it almost to safety before something happens? Enough times so that when we see "was almost home" it brings a sense of dread. "Almost home" is not yet home, not yet safe. 

What happens when Atticus is almost home? "The state trooper pulled him over." For some of us, this is a concerning but not life-threatening event; for others, including people of color, this is much more tense and dangerous, possibly lethal. How much danger is Atticus in? Is he Black? 

Some elements of the sentence suggest he might be. The name Atticus isn't drawn from the most common pool of names for White males. Troopers are more likely to pull over people of color. And we know, as readers, that a big danger is more likely to start a story than a small one. 

This is a literary sentence, not because it is flowery or obtuse, but because it connects to other works that add to its resonance. Reminding us of To Kill a Mockingbird sets a mood, even as a man stopped by a trooper sets up a character and a problem. It's elegant writing to offer tension for any reader and even more to readers who hear the echoes of other works. 

Photo by Pat Whelen on Unsplash

Graphic elements by Ken Silbert

Night School

 

Night School is the twenty-first book in the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child. Its cover proclaims it a #1 New York Times Bestseller, and the publisher's website calls it the eleventh straight global bestseller in the series. Lee Child's books have gained a significant audience. 

The first sentence of Night School has a lovely parallel structure: "In the morning they gave Reacher a medal, and in the afternoon they sent him back to school." "They" do one thing to Reacher in the morning, and do another to him in the afternoon. 

We don't yet know who "they" are – some group of people who have authority over the named character, Reacher. We might know who Reacher is. By the twenty-first book in an extremely popular series, people who pick up this book may have good feelings about reading more about the series' main character. This is a series dividend: Readers become invested in following the character. Those readers may have some opinions about what Reacher deserves. 

What's interesting here is that the two actions "they" do to Reacher are oddly different. Usually, someone gives a medal to a hero, someone experienced and accomplished. Usually, someone sends another person to school when that person is lacking in experience or judgment or knowledge. So which is it? Do "they" admire Reacher and want to reward him or disapprove of Reacher and want to retrain him? In this sentence, it is both, and that sets up a mystery and some tension. 

Placing "school" in the strong, final position lets the sentence end on a surprise. Until the word school, they could have sent Reacher somewhere that would have expressed more approval: back to work, back to his hotel, to the parade, home, to the front. Think about how each of those hit differently. "Work" would add an edge of "the work never ends," "his hotel" lands almost trivially, "to the parade" doubles the celebration, "home" suggests either a well-deserved rest or a dismissal, "to the front" suggests duty and sacrifice. The word "school" is precise, suggestive, unexpected. That one word matters a lot. 

All in all, it is a tight, graceful sentence that lets us know Reacher might be in trouble, with his bosses if nothing else, and has us wondering what will happen next. The sentence seems very likely to inspire someone who read it from the rack to pick up the book and buy it. 

P.S. Yeah, I'd probably add a couple more commas. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

Honey Girl

Last week, I looked at a book from 1868. This week, our first sentence comes from a book published in 2021. Morgan Rogers' book, Honey Girl, has already made a half-dozen major reading lists. 

Here's the first sentence: "In Las Vegas, they sell cheap replicas of the love locks from the Parisian bridge for twenty-five dollars." 

When I started writing about first sentences, I thought considering a single sentence in isolation would be a nicely bounded topic. The more I look at them, the more I see how they call upon a great deal that exists outside of them. This sentence is especially dependent on cultural references to create its meaning and its associations. 

Take "love locks." This is the relatively recent practice of fixing a padlock to a public monument to symbolize a romantic commitment. There have been news stories and movies featuring these in the last decade or so. If you've heard of them, the phrase brings the image of a padlock to mind, perhaps thoughts of lovers wishing to make their connection permanent, or perhaps more stories of how city councils need to remove the padlocks when they threaten the beauty, structural integrity, or ease of passage of a bridge. All these stories bring a fascinating mix of personal hope versus public nuisance or permanence versus quick removal into the sentence's associations. If you haven't heard of love locks... then the phrase still holds associations from "love" and "locks" and their pleasant, alliterative combination, but the other resonances don't reach you. 

Then there are the two cities the sentence refers to. "In Las Vegas," starts the sentence; "Parisian bridge" brings in Paris; "cheap replica" falls between the two. Morgan Rogers could have chosen two other cities to link. There are many places besides Paris where lovers have placed love locks and many places besides Las Vegas where businesses sell them. She made a conscious choice to imply that like the love locks for sale there, Las Vegas is a cheap replica of Paris. Las Vegas includes a hotel with the theme of Paris. Romantic stories about Las Vegas often include hard liquor, bright lights, Elvis impersonators, and quickie marriages, while romantic images of Paris more often include wine, twinkling lights, long dinners, conversations, and wedding proposals. The images of the two cities, especially from movies, makes the words "cheap replica" gain extra depth here. 

The sentence ends on "twenty-five dollars." The price holds the emphasized, final place. To know if this price is high, low, or appropriate, a reader needs to know what a padlock costs, what a dollar is worth at the time of the story, and how much less a cheap replica would be than the original. 

The words of the sentence gain much of their impact from a dense foundation of cultural knowledge. Decoding this sentence with a dictionary definition of each word would miss the joint meaning of "love locks" and the associations we hold for Las Vegas and Paris. 

There's one more very important implication in this sentence: Who is it about? The only people we see mentioned are the vendors of the replica love locks. Will this be a book about merchants in Las Vegas? No. Again, because we know the forms of stories, instead we expect that whoever is central in this story bought one of those love locks. We don't yet know if that central character will go by "I," "he," "she," or "they" in this story. We begin to suspect they bought one of these replica love locks. 

That means that protagonist faces all the uncertainty of a cheap replica of a love lock bought in Las Vegas. Will the commitment the lock symbolizes last? Will the love be real or fake? Those questions, only present indirectly in the sentence, create the tension to draw us into the story. 

The first sentence of Honey Girl rewards sharing the author's culture. The language is lovely and the meaning is indirect. The sentence promises more culture, indirection, and beauty to come. That's a strong draw to a reader who enjoys savoring and understanding a subtle story. 

Housekeeping note: For those of you who receive updates on these posts by email, the provider of that service has let me know that they will stop sending email updates on July 1st. The last year has left me all too aware of the limits of my energy, so I may not be able to implement any new solution that asks more of me than that one did. I do post notices at Twitter and Pinterest when these posts go up. It may work well for you to follow me there: 

https://twitter.com/AnnaParadox or https://www.pinterest.com/annaparadox/first-sentences/ 

You may also reach out to me at anna [at] annaparadox [dot] com and I will see what I can do. 

However you come to my blog, I truly appreciate your reading my posts. Thank you for joining me in this exploration of writing and meaning through the narrow lens of first sentences. 

Photo by Nicola Tolin on Unsplash

Graphic elements by Ken Silbert

Little Women

 

Louisa May Alcott published Little Women in 1868, three years after the end of the American Civil War. It sold well immediately, and has been continuously in print ever since. 

The first sentence reads, "'Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,' grumbled Jo, lying on the rug." Are there any clues to the book's longevity in the first sentence?

The sentence contains a character, Jo, and implies someone to hear Jo's complaint. Jo has a worry – that there won't be any presents for Christmas. That's conflict: Jo wants presents and she fears she won't get them. 

What else do we know about Jo? She grumbles. She is willing to express herself. She is lying on a rug – while there may not be presents, her home has at least that much comfort. And who is more likely to receive presents and to lie upon the floor? Children. Jo is probably young. 

Youth could also explain her willingness to grumble, and her focus on presents as what makes Christmas its essential self. So we have a young person with a problem. It's not too dire – the lack of presents suggests some poverty, but the rug helps us see that she is probably not at risk of homelessness or starvation. There's enough tension to draw us in without scaring us too much. 

Many of the books that have been most loved by large numbers of people have been books for children or youth. Until recently, the marks of a book for children or young adults were: shorter length, simpler language, young main character, and world that was kinder than our own. More recently, books in these categories often have worse worlds than ours, and may run to many words. This sentence, with Jo's youth and her problem that is concerning but not life-threatening, fits the older form. 

One last point: Jo doesn't say outright that she wants presents. She argues instead that Christmas needs presents to be Christmas. It's an argument from someone who has learned that principles – such as what Christmas should be – are a better way to persuade than stating what she wants. In a very simple way, Jo is beginning to make her way in the world of words and ideas. She might be smart. That attracts young readers who want to be smart, too, especially girls. 

The first sentence of Little Women creates some tension and begins to build a character that young readers can connect to. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

Big Magic

Elizabeth Gilbert starts her memoir about creativity, Big Magic, like this: "Once upon a time, there was a man named Jack Gilbert, who was not related to me – unfortunately for me." 

My very first post in this series featured a sentence that referred to fairy tales. This one does, too. The words "Once upon a time" start many of those stories. It's a curious phrase that we seldom use for anything but starting a fairy tale. Look at how the pieces of the phrase don't quite hold what the whole phrase does. "Once" means this was a unique happening. "Upon" means placed on top of something. "A time" means one point in the past. That makes the whole phrase add up to "A unique happening posed on top a particular past moment." That's not completely off-base from what we understand when someone says, "Once upon a time...." yet the four classic words in the phrase also bring with them associations from every other story we've heard that starts that way. Not in the meaning (denotation), but in the associations (connotation), we hear, "I'm about to tell you a story that happened sometime, in the world of stories." 

Fairy tales take place in a mythic past. It's not a specific date – it's a time, that could have been recently or long ago. In that time, birds may talk or trolls guard bridges – "once upon a time" is not history, it is archetype. 

Gilbert starts her non-fiction book with the opening of a fairy tale. She places a specific, named person into mythic time: "Once upon a time, there was a man named Jack Gilbert...." The fairy tale opening makes Jack Gilbert seem like a mythic figure – a hero – it burnishes him with the same respect we hold for storybook characters. Jack Gilbert lived specific dates. With this opening, he seems to live during every time and no time. 

The next phrase is "who was not related to me." Here, the author Gilbert brings herself into the story as well. We need to remember her name and know that people with the same last name are often related for this phrase to make sense. If we remember her name, and if we know that people with the same name are often related, then we might have thought she was talking about a relative. The phrase "who was not related to me," clears up that misconception – and also draws our attention to the possibility that they could have been related. 

How much of language relies on shared assumptions! If our experience shows that people with the same last name are often related, then we might have wondered if the author and Jack Gilbert were related. The author then parries that question. It's not a question that everyone would come to. A Chinese friend once asked me, "Why do only related people have the same last name in the United States?" There are a scattering of people with my last name, Paradox, and, as far as I know, none of them are second cousins or closer to me. 

The final phrase is "unfortunately for me," a bit of humorous self-deprecation. Jack Gilbert is mythic – Elisabeth Gilbert is not related, unfortunately, implying she would have been better off if she had been related to him. She is less. She could have turned it around into a classic boast, "unfortunately for him," which would have suggested he would be better off if he were related to her, placing her higher than his mythic status. She went the humbler route. 

The word in the strong, final position is "me." Humble or not, she takes the last word. 

This sentence uses three techniques from the post-modern toolkit. The first is remixing – taking other works from the past and reusing them consciously. The second is self-reference: Elizabeth Gilbert calls out herself and her own work within the sentence. The third is humor, and I find post-modernism without humor almost unbearable. Remixes and self-reference without humor read arrogant and grabby to me. With humor, they take on a pleasant playfulness. 

Other critics differ from that conclusion. 

It's the playfulness in this first sentence that most leads me to want to read on. I like the punctuation very much. The commas and dash add lightness, emphasis, and places to breathe. I'm also curious about the mythic character, Jack Gilbert, and why the author wishes she were related to him – a minor mystery to solve. 

All in all, it is a playful and intriguing first sentence. 

Graphic elements by Ken Silbert