Gods of Jade and Shadow

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spoiler alert: She met my hopes. 

Graphic design by Ken Silbert 

Pride and Prejudice

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

And what makes this sentence bad? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

A Hat Full of Sky

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

Every Heart a Doorway

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Graphic design by Ken Silbert 

Island of the Mad

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

Joplin's Ghost

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

Ragtime

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brown Girl in the Ring

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

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

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

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

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

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

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

Why First Sentences?

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

More first sentences to come! 

The Picture of Dorian Gray

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Graphic design by Ken Silbert

X by Sue Grafton

Sue Grafton starts her 24th book in the Kinsey Millhone series in classic form. We have a character: Teddy Xanakis, whose Greek last name and gender-neutral first name already grant some distinction and interest. We have a problem: "would have to" means it's necessary, unavoidable – there is some reason that makes the next verb a requirement. And we have some attractive precision: steal the painting.

Many delicious heists aim at art. We value art – a single painting or sculpture or manuscript can weigh little and yet be worth millions of dollars. At the same time, taking a piece of art doesn't leave anyone at risk of starving – we can more easily forgive a theft that moves an object of beauty than one that takes food or medicine or even money. Art has glamour to go with its value. Art looks good on film, if the book is ever adapted. Yet, art can be awkward to value and resell, so the thief will need extra cleverness to profit from it.

A plan to steal a painting has excellent possibilities for plot. Within the mystery or thriller genre, we are already thinking of ways we've seen this happen, and ways we've seen it go wrong. If a reader liked those other stories, they might very well want to see what happens in this one.

This first sentence is definitely a hook.

In the 24th book in a series, Sue Grafton might have relaxed the tension of her first sentence. After all, she had an established audience, a world and characters that already drew many repeat visitors, and her reputation and history as a reliable storyteller and bestselling author to draw in her readers. She didn't. By placing a character and a taut problem in the first sentence, she promises that the book will be exciting and tense.

Maybe that's how she gathered the audience that supported her long series.

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

I read The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein the first time I was in college. I looked it up recently, to see if its first sentence appealed to me for analysis.

This one is a blunt instrument. It's a straight-forward statement, in the form that has started many autobiographies. There aren't many words to suggest extra meanings. I thought I'd give this one a pass.

Yet I kept thinking about it.

It's a simple sentence on its own. "I was born" – of course you were, or you wouldn't be writing. "In San Francisco, California" – that has a little more interest to it. Even by 1933, when Gertrude Stein published this book, San Francisco had a reputation. The Gold Rush and the earthquake and fire of 1906, and Mark Twain's writings had all spread news of San Francisco. It was a large city, already, and known for wild and wooly frontier behavior and more diverse than most American cities. Still, born in SF, CA is not as strong a setup for action as "saw San Francisco for the first time," as mentioned in my previous post. When born, we are not yet ready to take action, and don't yet know if we will conform or rebel to the place of our birth.

There is something a little old-fashioned and formal about writing out San Francisco, California, instead of abbreviating either one. So the sentence has established person (I), place (SF, CA), and a little tone. Without conflict, it is not a hook – it is beginning to open a window. Would this draw me on to read more? Probably not – unless I already knew more than this first sentence holds.

In college, I came to this book with a lot of context. The professor set the book in its time and set Gertrude Stein's place in the literary scene she anchored. We looked at the playfulness of claiming to write someone else's autobiography. We compared the voice here to Stein writing in her own voice. Stein is deliberately writing simply, directly, and factually, as a reflection – or affectionate ribbing – of her lover's voice. With such context, "I was born in San Francisco, California" changes from basic to nuanced, and a literature student might continue to read to see what a gifted writer will do with the conceit of writing as a plain speaker.

How much context would a writer want to assume their audience had for the writing? Gertrude Stein sold the first copies to friends and acquaintances. She could assume they knew a lot. A first time novelist might want to assume all their readers will know is the genre... or the language, English... or the great events of the novel's period....

Writers and readers collaborate. We need a shared language to reach each other. How much a shared language contains – only the 600 words of Basic English? acquaintance with Alice B. Toklas? – can vary widely for different books. If you have a first sentence that isn't grabbing interest, it's worth checking how much you expect your readers to already know.

(I apologize that I do not remember which of my literature teachers introduced this book to me. I hope, if they discover this, that they will enlighten me and take some comfort that I remember the book.)

Days of Anna Madrigal

Armistead Maupin's book, The Days of Anna Madrigal, is deep in his series about connected characters in San Francisco. That means that many readers will come to this first sentence already trusting the author, already connected to the characters, already eager to read.

Did that allow the author to open the door to his story with less urgency? This I cannot know. However, I will note that the first sentence of the first book of the series, Tales of the City, contains a person and their circumstance in more classic first sentence form: "Mary Ann Singleton was twenty-five years old when she saw San Francisco for the first time."

So Maupin knew the form and chose to do something else here.

Let's see what we have here. He starts with the weather! He makes the bold choice to start with the most widely shared topic of conversation. Weather is a polite topic. Everyone experiences it, everyone has some interest, and yet no one becomes exercised over it. So we can kindly exchange a few words about it, extending a social interaction, at very little risk of acrimony.

Weather, in other words, unless extreme, is the opposite of dramatic.

The words up to the comma are common. Summer temperatures do vary, and, as averages have been trending hotter, there's nothing unusual about a summer that's warmer than usual. This is an ordinary observation, that any acquaintance might express to another.

Do we feel bored by that? Or do we feel at ease with it?

After the comma, the language becomes stronger. "Heat" is more than "warmth" and "throbbed" is more intense than either. It's a distinctive word, seldom applied to weather. I'm quite a bit less likely to tell my neighbor "Throbbing day today, isn't it?" Throb is a word associated with pain or passion – my neighbor might find that question odd or laden with innuendo.

Then there's the poetic phrase "coaxing pale fingers of fog." That's four uncommon words in a set of five. "Coaxing" is normally something people do, as "fingers" are something people have – this makes it as if both the East Bay and the fog are human. At this point, we've left the direct, commonplace language of the first clause entirely.

Any self-assured city might be "the city" to those who live in its orbit. Adding summer fog and "the East Bay" outlines San Francisco.

Altogether, this sentence gives us a location, starts conversational, and moves into poetry. It's promising the pleasures of company and language. Instead of grabbing, it seduces.

Red, White & Royal Blue

Another term for the first sentence is the hook. The idea here is that a first sentence must capture the reader and draw them in. The most obvious hook is a person facing a high-stakes conflict. There's none of that here.

Nonetheless, Casey McQuiston has written an intriguing sentence, and Red, White & Royal Blue was a bestseller, won a Goodreads award, and appeared on multiple best-of-the-year lists.

There's more than one way to draw in a reader, and problems are not the only pleasure of fiction.

What this sentence does have is narrative, description – we might even call it world-building – and music. Authors of previous centuries could more often capitalize words. Whenever they did, that word gains an emphasis. Three terms gain that stress here: White House, Promenade, Solarium. The last two fall at the end of their phrases, and White House near the end of its phrase, creating three sections ending in heavier beats. It's a lovely waltz.

The White House is a potent symbol. Knowing that the story takes place there adds some intrigue. Then, there are carefully chosen details in savory words to bring that location into brighter focus. Notice how specific "tucked" and "loose paneling" are. Plus, I didn't even know the White House had a Promenade and a Solarium. These facets of the scene add the pleasure of vicarious travel.

Finally, there's a small contrast between "White House" and "loose paneling." There's a bit of mystery in why the most prestigious address in the nation would need a small repair. That might imply someone who loosened the panel or someone who needs to fix it – and bring in the person with conflict – but those possibilities remain in the background.

I'm hooked. I want to read more pleasurable sentences and discover what else I will see in this powerful location.

Photo credit: Peter Griffin, CC0

Miranda in Milan

Katharine Duckett has laid the strongest word at the end of this first sentence, giving it extra emphasis. Monster carries danger and wrongness. It's interesting here to have someone find herself to be a monster. Why did Miranda not know until she came to Milan? Or was it only the gaze of the Milanese who found her monstrous, when she had been innocent before? The conflict here is Miranda versus Milan – and perhaps Miranda versus herself, as, now that she's found she is a monster, she must choose whether to embrace that or try to stop being one.

For those who are familiar with Shakespeare, the three words "Miranda," "Milan," and "monster" will strongly recall his play The Tempest. All of these words are uncommon, and important in the play, so finding the three of them in close company here is enough to tie this work to the play. Duckett further ties her story to The Tempest by including two quotes from it before the story begins. The play ends with Miranda expecting to go to Milan. So the author is also placing this book after and responding to Shakespeare's play.

The sentence has one intriguing meaning without knowing the play, and adds another level when connected to the previous work. Duckett has offered the drama of "monster" to draw the reader in and the promise of reflecting on Shakespeare to attract those who dabble in literature as a conversation over the centuries.

Angel's Island

Walter Mosley is most known for his detective fiction. He also ventures into science fiction, and this first sentence comes from one of the stories in his collection, Futureland.

The main driver of this first sentence is subtle wrongness. At first take, this is a straight-forward description. Then, wait – in what circumstances would six naked men walk in together? That's not a feature of most homes or workplaces or public venues. Nakedness, in our society, is mostly reserved to private rooms with only one or two people in them.

Next, there's a weak circle of light. To see a weak circle of light, we need a very dark background. The circle would disappear without contrast. On a stage, we see very bright circles show up against moderate lighting. Is this a stage? If so, why isn't there more light around the circle? What does it mean that the light is weak and surrounded by darkness?

Then there's "a corner of the great chamber." This weak circle is part of a large room. Many eyes could be hidden in the rest of the large chamber. These naked men are subject to the view of others they can't see. This is a subtle placing of them at the bottom of a hierarchy. They don't have the protection and celebration of standing on a stage. They can't see who might be watching them. And they are unshielded by clothing.

Look at the three adjectives: naked, weak, great. That progression, too, shows the men as unprotected and powerless and surrounded by something large and unknown. This sentence begins to outline a conflict between individuals and the system around them.

Finally, the sentence has lovely grammar. The basic subject and verb elements which create a sentence are complete in the first four words: Six naked men walked. Then, a series of phrases, each starting with a preposition, adds rhythm and motion. I'll divide the remainder of the sentence with dashes to show those breaks: into the weak circle – of light – in a corner – of the great chamber.

Walter Mosley can break the rules of grammar when he wants to. This sentence shows that he knows them and can take advantage of them as well.

The Lake

If I had been imagining the textbook form of a first sentence, it might have come out like this.

At its core, a story is a character with a problem. Tananarive Due establishes both character and problem in a single sentence here, and adds a location as well.

We have Abbie LaFleur. The name tells us a little already. She's young enough to prefer the -ie ending to the -y ending. That's a mark of informality. LaFleur has me wondering – is she of French descent? Or is the author signaling that she is in someway like or unlike a flower?

Next, we learn her family has been in Boston for three generations, and she is newly arrived in Graceville. Graceville sounds like the southern U.S. to me – possibly due to echoes of Graceland and Louisville – it's a place different from Boston, and clannish enough that the people there see the new arrival as an outsider.

The hyphen in third-generation shows some thought. It's a small detail, and makes the grouping of those words with "Bostonian" easier to follow. As an editor, I appreciated the effort. These bits of craft add up.

Finally, there's the word "warned." It points to a danger that someone should have warned Abbie LaFleur about, and didn't. Since we are working within the genre of horror, failing to warn could have been a sin – the type of moral failing that leads to someone dying gruesomely. Abbie has a problem, and she doesn't know it yet.

In one sentence, the story is wound up and ready to spring.

"The Lake" is one of the stories within The Monster's Corner, edited by Christopher Golden, as well as the first story in Due's own collection, Ghost Summer, and available online at tor.com.

Go Tell It on the Mountain

This time, I'm looking at a first sentence without having read the rest of the book. That's just what a potential reader would do! What has James Baldwin already set up, in one sentence?

We have a person, John. He hasn't grown up yet. John is a common name, and the name of one of Jesus' apostles, so it fits as the name for the son of a preacher. (James, the author's name, shares the first letter, the popularity, and the connection to an apostle as well.)

We also have the people who surround him. The narrator calls them "everyone" and they share a single opinion; the word "always" implies a long history and no breaks; "preacher" places him in a religious community; and finally, we hear his heritage: "just like his father."

That's one John against the full weight community, history, and family. James Baldwin is already promising me the story of how John rebels or finds himself against these forces. I'm interested.

I like the rhythm of this one, too. Try reading it aloud. It rolls.

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Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand

I read Samuel R. Delany's Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand in college, and I remembered it as a wash of gorgeous language with interstellar travel and struggles with one's own desires. Today, looking for a strong first sentence, I reopened it and found this absolutely chilling line.

Delany clearly knows the extra weight a word gains at the end of a sentence. This entire opening hinges on the word "slave." Almost all the other words are simple, work-a-day, single syllable words that we use in many contexts until they are worn to neutrality. "Honesty" is a little less common, and usually refers to a virtue. "Of course" is a relaxed way to say something is normal. So here we have normality and virtue hitting the appalling concept of "slave." All the apparent banality suddenly turns into horror.

And now we have questions. Who could so casually tell someone they will be a slave? Does the person called "you" have any choice here? Why would that person find themselves at this bleak point? What happens next?

I was drawn to reading on, and continued several pages before I remembered I only came for the first sentence.