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