How to Write A Good First Line | 20+ Examples of Great Novel Openings
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 มิ.ย. 2024
- What makes a good first line? I'm sharing my thoughts/tips and a TON of examples, as well as going beyond the literal first line. In many cases, it's actually more a case of a great first couple of lines or first paragraph.
00:00 Introduction
01:19 First lines should be
04:54 Surprising, funny 1st line examples
07:40 Dialogue, sense of place 1st line examples
10:08 Scene-setting 1st line examples
15:21 Deceptively simple statement 1st line examples
18:55 2 thriller examples that demonstrate character
20:44 Prologue vs. 1st chapter examples
24:19 Middle grade examples
20:03 Humor & premise setup example
26:57 Classic/famous first line examples
28:47 Precision of language in great 1st lines
30:45 POV of your 1st line & character
31:30 Prologues & using format to your advantage
32:31 Final pep talk
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This is the opening line of my NaNoWriMo of last year: "There are times when I miss you so much, I wish I could remember where I hid your body."
I like it.
That first line is fire
Great opening! You killed it.
Brilliant
This sentence could be a standalone poem as is
an elite opening:
“In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” (Douglas Adams)
The best part of this is I have the exact same tone of inner voice, so the first time I read it I laughed for like 5 minutes
What lol i was reading this and i was thinking it reminds me of Douglas Adams xd
I love his work!!
Douglas Adams- equal parts Monty Python and Isaac Asimov
Genius. My personal favourite is "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."
Still my favorite first line: "The building was on fire and it wasn't my fault" from the Dresden Files.
Beat me to it.
lmao, I like that!
Yup! I love this line
Thirded! I absolutely LOVED this one.
One of many great novels honestly
My favourite first line is from 1984 by George Orwell
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking 13”
Is it weird to have a crush on a sentence?
@@VincentEdelstein not at all
love that line, love that book as well
With good reason. How does a clock strike 13?
@@jonathanmarks5720 in the military system (the one used by the majority of the world) a clock has 24 hours. The English speaking world uses AM/PM. the others use the 24h system. (13 is 1pm)
My favorite is a humorous one from Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis, “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."
I was about to quote that line! 😂
I once found myself in a bookstore, even though I didnt even want to buy anything, I hadnt read in a long time back then.
I picked up one random book and the first sentence said: "This is where the story begins." Without reading anything more, I bought the book and it was great. The author had a very unique style of writing and using language. By the way, the last sentence of the book was of course: "This is where the story ends."
@@realglutenfree what was the book?
@@Aquiwer The city of dreaming books. Though I read it in it's original language, which is German. I don't know how good the elaborate word play translates into english
@@realglutenfree Not well, I would assume. I didn't grasp that there was any word play when reading your comment tbh :'(
The best first line I think I have read was from Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens. "It wasn't a dark and stormy night, it was supposed to be but that's weather for you. Needless to say, just because it wasn't stormy that didn't mean evil wasn't afoot."
i love the good omens show, can’t wait to read the book!
Probably my favorite book of all time
okay thats a cool one
@@shirakrause8160 Odd thing, probably my least favourite Pratchett book. I read the whole thing and smiled once. Other books fo his have had me snorting in public, or getting too choked up to continue.
@@insertwittyusernamehere3082The book is phenomenal.
“It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size.”
That’s my favorite opening line of any book I’ve read. And I’ve read many.
Woah, what book is this??
@@hawklegs6940 Red Sister by Mark Lawrence.
wow! i am reading prince of thorns by mark lawrence! @@raevar9779
"In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit" is probably the first line that stuck with me the most.
It’s a truly great line. It doesn’t reek of desperation like many of the lines Alexa brings up.
😭 thats my childhood
@@Klopp619 Your superiority complex might be a little more compelling if you used the correct version of “reek” there ;)
@@corndo9 Well, I generally don’t proof read online stuff so close, so there you are correct. But your superiority complex comment is baseless. It’s generally well recognized by critics that overly dramatic opening lines suck, and I agree. I never said I was better than anybody. Alexa gives great advice which is why I like her videos. But her opening line advice is terrible. That doesn’t mean I think I’m better than she is.
@@corndo9 but there, fixed. Thank you!
My FAVORITE first line is from Circe and it will always stick with me!!! “When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist” :)
mine too!
I loved The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin from the first line, "Let's start with the end of the world, why don't we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things."
That trilogy is one of the best things i've ever read
I wasn't a fan of that line 😬 Thought "why start with the boring bits if there are interesting things?"
@@nataliegunnarsson3204 i mean the conceit of the line is that the end of world obviously isn't actually boring, and yet here the narrator is telling you that all the most interesting things happen after this. you're not supposed to read it and think "oh i guess this part is boring" you're supposed to think "wait, if the end of the freaking world is what they're calling BORING, what's gonna be more interesting than that?"
@@cactus2304 I know you're right, it's just not the thought that ran through my head while I read it :)
My favorite first line:
“They’ve never found the body of the first and only boy who broke my heart.
And they never will.”
I will never forget this line. Ever.
It’s by Tricia Levenseller- “The Shadows Between Us” btw
Owshiii I love that
This was the line I was going to mention. Favorite opening that I have ever read.
I've never read that, and before your comment I had never heard of her..but GODDAMN! What a line!
I actually just started that book and so far, I am really liking it!! 🖤
While listening to this, I settled on this for the start of my nanowrimo book this year: " I'd never know my birth parents. No one would. No one should."
I like this!
@@tappkalina thanks :)
Oooooo spicy
Wow! That's loaded!
That sounds great, I hope you have fun with the challenge!
I understand English? No
Am I going to watch 30 minutes of video with this nice woman? Yes
lollll
manoKKKKKK
“I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975.” - The Kite Runner
The entire first chapter of The Kite Runner is beautiful because it doesn’t really have its full impact until you re-read it after finishing the book. Khaled Hosseini has one of my favorite writing styles.
Yes it's beautiful
That book is spectacular.
“It is Important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size.”
yes.
Famous dialogue opening:
"Where is Daddy going with that ax?" Fern asked.
From Charlotte's Web, deservedly considered one of the best first lines of all time.
That quote brings up so many emotions from that book. Such a fantastic opening.
Never heard of it.
Yes! I read it for school when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. It's an awesome first line
I also love the first line of Charlotte's Web! Not to be nitpicky but the actual quote is "Where's Papa going with that axe?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast."
Thank you. It took all of my acting chops to deliver that line.
"The terror that would not end for another 28 years, if it ever did, began so far as I can know or tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain."
Stephen King's opening line from It. Never has another opening hooked me so much like this one.
One of my all tim favorite beginnings is from "Red Sister" by Mark Lawrence:
"It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size. For sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy Convent Lano Tacsis brought two hundred men."
"it was a dark and stormy night" from a wrinkle in time. It's so basic, and at this point it's been done a million times, but when it was written it was such an astounding line, and it went down in history for a reason.
ahhh! i love your profile pic!
Iconic
It was actually taken from a different book, and it became heavily cliche and the original wasn't very good so it got forgotten. But yes it works great in A Wrinkle in Time. Also a great example of calling back other literature in great literature.
Mine was a dark night but not stormy, since for the first chapter to begin it had to be the dead of night.
24:38 -Percy Jackson’s opening line legit blew my fourth grade mind. I wasn’t the biggest fan of reading chapter books before that but this changed everything.
Percy ❤️
Actually, the chapter title is even better :)
@@jonathanmarks5720 I agree
Every chapter title in the PJO series were so entertaining, they were honestly one of the best parts of the books by far
How do you know if a first line is too pretentious? Even in published books, I sometimes think "Boy this author is trying too hard" and it's a couple paragraphs in that they tone down the voice and vocabulary to the level the rest of the book is written at.
IMO, the author is trying too hard to reel you in when the first line isn't true within the story, or it's too exaggerated to be real. A first line should be a strong hook, but you shouldn't have to backtrack and say that you actually didn't mean what you said in the first line. I really like first lines that suck you in with how simple and honest they are - no bells and whistles, just a blunt explanation of what's going on.
"My lady and I are being locked in a tower for seven years." - Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." - The Gunslinger by Stephen King
Great examples. I’ve always been partial to The Gunslinger’s opening line: “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”
I was looking for this comment! The best!
@@britttracey me too!
Damn
Same
Came here to say this!!! What an incredible series.
The best first line will always be ‘Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderly again.’ Something about du Maurier’s writing always gets me.
On a side note just watched the Netflix version. Didn’t love it. Was just okay
Great book.
Yesss…
"Before the birthday balloons, and before the accident, before the broken mirrors and the black veins and the dismembered bodies, there was only the Cane sisters."
-Amy Lukavics, "The Ravenous"
I 100% reccomend this book!
My working first line right now is "School clocks ticked slower in the summer time."
Not sure yet if I wanna stick with it, but it was the first line I wrote in my book and I might be a little attached to it lol
I like it. It sounds like a kid got stuck with summer school
thats a good one. Remove the past tense in ticked, though. "School clocks tick slower in the summer time" has much better rhythm.
“People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.” -True Grit by Charles Portis. One of my favorite openings. Great video, as always!
I am just starting my first book at the age of 53. This is the first line that I have come up with. It may need revisions.
“I never thought that I would darken the door of a fortune teller. It was against everything that I was taught. But, I needed answers.”
One of my favorite first lines is from This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab: "The night Kate Harker decided to burn down the school chapel, she wasn't angry or drunk."
“On my first trip to Yellowstone National park, I threw a rock at a dragon.”
-Rory Landon, Of Giants and Ice by Shelby Bach.
I love this series with all my heart and soul and it is THE MOST UNDERRATED series ever.
This line? It makes me want to read that book.
@@hedgehogshill3522 I highly recommend the series! (There’s 4 books total) it might not be for everyone since it’s a middle grade series and I know a lot of people might think it a little childish but I personally love it so much and each book gets better and better!!
I'm so glad you brought this up! My salty opinion is that I hate first line critiques because they put WAY too much emphasis on the first line. I don't think anyone reads only the first line and then drops the book if it's not good enough. So many first lines need the context - it's meant to be taken on it's first paragraph.
I prefer first chapters which have a full novel carry on and have a strong link to the ending chapter 😊
@@emilyrafter6460 You should make your own writing or reader’s tips videos on your channel, because that’s really good advice. I hope to be an author/illustrator some day myself & that was something I hadn’t thought of yet.
@@mischiefmakerstudios9900 Thanks sm! Though I don't think I have any better advice than Alexa 😂
Though I can see your point, I do drop books on the first line alone. I usually make an effort to read a little into the first page or even tid-bits further along (if it's not a thriller or a mystery) to get a better feel of the overall book, but - truth be said - when the first line doesn't work for me, I will very rarely find "redemption" further in. And often, when I sort of stretch it, by picking up a book despite a "bad" first line, I regret it. Seriously. I find myself thinking "I knew it. That first line, I knew it, why did I do this?"
Yes, they need the context, but first impressions do matter.
@@pipitameruje True, but at least you have the option to continue. With first line critiques, very often the only thing they look at is the first line, entirely on it's own. I don't mean to imply people can't quickly judge either, or that it makes their opinion invalid. I do think a lot of people will know or not within the first paragraph if a book is for them. But if you're judging on first line alone, your opinon is also likely as much subjective as anything. One good line for you is another person's bad line. To overly focus on if the first line - taken completely on it's own - is good enough beyond the objective quality of the grammar, it's just not as fruitful I think as a first page critique.
All that being said, I still think they are immensely fun to watch! And I'm glad to have met that there are people that do go y the first line. :)
“We all want to do the right thing, we just end up doing it the wrong way”, Anthony thought as he pulled the box cutter out of his side.
Oh my 😳👉👈
Your video was very helpful.
Germans really like long sentences, hello from Germany.
A few of my own favorite original first lines. :)
"Have you ever seen the dead dance?"
"The god of dawn was my favorite idol to carve."
"We do not go into that dark night, although its voice is disguised in sweet delight."
"I've always loved bringing the dead back to life."
"It is an interesting thing to no longer be seen as a fellow being."
Mine is:
"My brother's watch had always moved at double the speed of my own."
Thoughts?
Remove the word had. 🤓
I'm intrigued. Raises lots of great questions.
Love it
Remove had and at.
Removing Had and At would make it look better in my opinion
"When the bones of creation refuse to stay buried, there will always be a sacrifice to keep the balance" - The Owl.. My book :)
Pantsers may want to do their fist lines only when they’re at least halfway through their first draft. By then, they’d at least start to know what the story is about 😅
Haha omg the accuracy of that! I am 55 pages into my first draft and decided to kick out my first two pages and replace them with another scene haha
@@ebru2582 i can relate to your pain, fellow pantser
Me, with over 50k words written for a WIP that doesn't even have half its structure figured out: I feel personally targeted.
I know where I start, I know where I'll end, I sort of know what I want to happen in between. I know what my opening scene will be, plot/story wise, but do I have it? Nope. Have I written several possible versions without finishing a single one? Yep. Do I have entire scenes and half chapters and single lines that I will have to painfully edit and perhaps completely rewrite or even eliminate? Absolutely. But do I have the gods damned opening? No, ma'am, I do not. I'm sort of waiting for it to "come to me" while I write something else completely or my brain is otherwise engaged with RL things, like working, cooking or shopping for groceries. Because who needs structure when we have phones we can frantically type in for 15 minutes straight while in the middle of a supermarket isle?
@@pipitameruje haha I feel this so hard. Especially the part about frantically typing into to your phone. Been there, done that
@@pipitameruje at least you know how you want the story to end! That’s more than what us who are writing in the dark can ever ask for
Favorite first line will always be from Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone.
“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”
i will honestly never forget that line, it's so iconic and simply perfect, i love that so so much
Yes! Such an interesting beginning that makes you laugh a little.
The best first paragraph I think I’ve ever read:
“One of Eve's earliest memories is similar to probably most people:
Her mother cradling her gently her in her arms, singing to her softly as she rocked her too sleep. A happy memory to most.
Except she'd added an extra part to the lullaby about how if Eve didn't sleep, she'd wrap her fingers around her throat until she did.
Perfect to set the mood for the rest of her childhood.”
(Whenever I read it the voice in my head is Wednesday Addams)
gave me goosebumps
Best tip I've heard about writing first lines - write your second line first.
Second lines paint in the scene, what and how your character feels, which gives you a tone to go with. Just write what you see in your mind and go with the flow from there.
The first line, you can always come back to it (thank you modern technology). And you'll know when you have it.
‘Individuality is a crutch that the unsuccessful cling to.’ Is mine
My favourite first line
"Before the beginning. there was the end." and like that I was hooked
The Talon of Horus
Black Legion Book 1
I am with you, my first lines never change. I can't get into writing my story until I know my first line and sometimes the first line comes before I have the story plotted (I'm a planner). I am currently prepping for Nano and out of nowhere got my first line, since then everything has come more easily for me with plotting and world-building... the first line, "For god's sake, he's a six-year-old, there's nothing to be afraid of!" Thank you for another great video!
Omg I have moments where i am going like that and they are usually the strongest starts into writing i have
"Not everyone wants to be a hero, and nobody plans on being a vigilante killer. So no matter your view on this man we read about in the papers, know this; he never wanted any of it."
First two lines from my first (and current) project.
You have my attention! I want more! ;)
@@r.t.6775 Thanks!! Coming to a B&N near you soon. (Hopefully)
How's it going?
@@DEATHCHICKEN1337 I made the mistake of making my main character too strong, without external threats. So I shelved it to work on something else while my subconscious churns over a solution to that.
I also made him a loner. This created problems because there were concepts that were difficult to get out to the reader without dialog. This one i already mentally corrected for the do-over. I am working on another now that has a great first scene but the first sentence is not that amazing.
"Mal's eye stung as the sweat dripped in from his brow. He had been this scared before"
OOH I WAS ABOUT TO ASK WHAT BOOK IT WAS FROM
Here's the opening paragraph of my latest novel. Thoughts? ^^
It wasn’t raining on the day they died. In fact, the weather was positively delightful when it happened. The full moon (which
was always full these days, as the setting was jammed) shone softly on the city of Ishtar, and the sky was clear, bright and sprinkled generously with stars. The warm wind moved the tree branches, and you could hear owls hooting somewhere in the distance. Nothing about it was nasty or even slightly inconvenient. It was as if the planet’s atmosphere was trying to make a point of the day’s events being entirely inconsequential. How unkind of
it.
Hm. I like the first line, but launching immediately into a paragraph of weather description would be a huge turn off for me. Especially since it is just typical weather.
Like. Maybe,
It wasn't raining on the day they died. In fact it was a deceptively pleasant night. How unkind of it to tell such a lie.
Snappier and less wordy.
if you didn't have that parenthesis, i'd put it down, but because of that, i want to keep reading.
this sentence is grammatically correct, but it’s wordy, and hard to read
tbh i love the mood, i would keep reading
I really like it, it describes everything, but it doesn't feel wordy, because it's like the narrator is doing it to express frustration, it estabilishes a tone, and the last line of the paragraph is funny, but it needs the paragraph to build up to it
Re: books with dialogue as the first line, Megan Abbott's "Dare Me" starts with, "'Something happened, Addy. I think you better come.'" as part of the prologue. This also delves into what you said about first chapters having much stronger first lines than prologues, because her first chapter line is actually, "After a game, it takes a half hour under the showerhead to get all the hairspray out." Which is super evocative of what the book is about.
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number 4, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. The start to a mystical world I often wished to live in. That is my favorite first line.
Some of those make me wanna read the books soooo much! Those authors nailed them.
ive always been in love with the first few lines of A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab: “Kell wore a very peculiar coat.
It had neither one side, which would be conventional, nor two, which would be unexpected, but several, which was, of course, impossible.”
the first sentences of my nano project this year were “The three years that I spent at the Boys’ Academy were, respectively, the best, strangest, and worst years of my life. In many ways I was very well suited to life there, having exceptional skills which allowed me to perform very well. In many other, perhaps deeper ways, I may have simply been destined to fuck it up as spectacularly as I did.”
I first briefly heard of Shades of Magic on TH-cam and decided to go check out the first page of the Amazon preview on a whim.
I cried. I read the first paragraph and I cried. It happens sometimes when I read writing that is unexpectedly too good, if that makes sense? I cried compulsively for like 15 seconds and then abruptly stopped.
Will never forget that. (also I bought all three books that day)
I knew you’d get to Rebecca eventually! One beginning I love is from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams: “The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” My favorite first line I wrote was dialogue: “Nothing bad ever happens to anyone here.”
Douglas Adam's wrote a lot of memorable lines but that one is my favorite.
“Mr and Mrs Dursley of number 4 Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal people, thank you very much.”
The GOAT
"Father, I will not marry a bastard." is the opening line of The Conqueror's Lady. Then the book dissolves into a routine telling of Matilda marrying William the Conqueror.
Margaret Mitchell read this and she decided she could write just as well herself.
a line that i think is cool: “Marley was dead to begin with.” -Charles Dickens
Dang, these really got me thinking about my first lines of my stories. Really inspiring!
Funnily enough, I struggle way more with a good last line than my first lines
This is what my first chapter currently has
"Teaching children is a dangerous job. When I signed up to teach kids for a living, I didn't think I'd end up running across rooftops or teaching kids how to hold guns but eh, that's life isn't it?"
This is amazing :)
That one's definitely raising questions.
You might think of not reñeating teaching childre or kids three times in the first patagraph!
A while ago I looked through a few books and found this first line: "Ein Leben beginnt gewöhnlich mit der Geburt - meines nicht."
Roughly translates to "A life usually starts with birth - not mine." From Walter Moers book The 13/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear
AAAHHHH RIGHT!
I love that book!
"Hey you, your finally awake, you were trying to cross the border right?"
i might start with this just for the laughs
I feel like this was from harry potter -wait w hat am i saying its from a minecraft youtuber cant remeber his name though .I knew i had heard this somewhere!
@@mohammadrahman3296 its from skyrim lol
I will remember that dirt smudged Nord face forever lol
I really love the reassuring fact that you say it doesn't all have to be hinging on the first sentence. We can build up to the big intro... love it.
Speaking of Gillian Flynn, the first line of Dark Places is so good and forever burned into my brain:
“I have a meanness inside me, deep and real as an organ.”
In fact that whole book is one of my favorites of all time, Libby Day just has so much depth and veracity as a character. She’s so real, but it’s a shadow version of relatability; the traits and feelings we share with her are ones we’d gloss over when narrating our own stories.
Prov: you start reading he comments and the openings are so good that you can't stop scrolling
The*
The opening of the prologue from my NaNoWriMo sci-fantasy this year:
"The Stars contemplated the path of fate in the dark, where no one except the cold expanse of space could hear their decision."
Andy Weir's The Martian has an amazing first line, and it's one of the first I ever think about when people talk about good first lines.
Mine -
"It's time to wake up, Ashley... You wouldn't want to miss the end of the world."
I’m already hooked!
Oooooh i would read it!!
that’s so cool !!
Amazing!
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.” -Lolita by Nabokov
The most beautifully written book that you'll never want to read again.
You’re so right with the sentences in German! My English teacher always tells me to break up my sentences while in German my sentences sometimes run on for many lines and nobody has an issue with it 🙈
Ha yeah I took a whole class on German translation in college and it broke my brain once or twice to have a "sentence" from a German novel that was OVER A PAGE LONG and we had to translate it to English while preserving the integrity of the original. (It was a fun class honestly) Though the comma whore in me ADORES how German can rock a sentence with a million commas.
I found it really hard to come up with my first line, and ended up rewriting it dozens of times. This was the end result of the first line of my prologue: “All of the world's colors were replaced with different shades of reds and blues.”
First line of the first chapter: “Ellie splashed cold water over her pale skin, trying to scrub away the crimson red liquid that coated her cheek.”
Election mode?
@@leoniesykes6899 XD
My first line "I was walking down the aisle when I realized that I had lost my right arm." What do you think?
I like it! Jags one to the questions 1) how the hell did you not notice sooner? 2) howd you loose your arm anyway? 3) whY ARE YOU SO CASUAL ABOUT IT" over all id say a solid 8/10.
not bad but "was walking" is pretty weak and id suggest changing it to something more informative. also the aisle... is very vague. maybe change that, too. is it a wedding aisle or the aisle of a grocery store? more distinct language would make the question of why the narrator has a missing arm pop out more.
I know it's been months, but: the way you wrote it makes is sound like the start of a joke.
"100 cattle were slaughtered in the square."
We later discover that "cattle" is what the king calls the ladies of his harem.
What book is this from? Is it your own? If so, what's it called?
@@Wince_Media Yep, my own. A work in progress :)
oh shit. That got dark
me: “if it doesn’t make you go ‘huh,’ it’s shit. yep got it, taking notes.”
After watching the video I have come up with this for my book The Land Beyond Nod;
“In all the books in the multiverse few tell the truth of dreams-
Or death for that matter.”
I read a story the other day that made fun of a bad novel starting with the line;
"It was a dark and stormy night...." and it occurred to me that it was such a cliche for a bad opening line, I should look up just how many novels actually started with that line.
The answer is apparently "Three".
However the FIRST was the novel where this EXACT line began was "Paul Clifford" penned by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1830.
Considered a prime example of "Purple Prose" it has, indisputably attained literary immortality.
For it to be so cliche however, I'd have expected it to be far more prevalent.
I enjoy reading murder mysteries. and one of the most famous cliche's of that genre is "The Butler Did It", However, having read hundreds of mystery novels, and of course watched hundreds of murder mystery movies, i have only ever seen ONE where it actually WAS the butler that did it [It was an Edgar Wallace movie].
These images are virtually universally known cliche's but their actual frequency in the genre's is extremely low.
Doesn't take much to make a meme does it?
Tomorrow, I will die in a car I will not be driving.
Here is the opening paragraph from my book Manic Wars: "When the ambulance attendants approached, I didn't resist. A subconscious part of me realized it was time to visit the Bradley Hospital for the mentally ill." (Thank you for making such an in depth videos. I learn so much.)
I adore this! It's really cool to zoom in on well-crafted writing, and just appreciate a darn good sentence!
One of my favorite openings
Pop quiz, when is having a beautiful, naked woman chasing after you a bad thing?
A) when she's your ex
B) when she's there to kill you
Or C) when she's an angry vengeance goddess?
Sigh. Why do I have to be an all of the above type of guy?
reverant tangent omg what book is this from?
@@ccstopmotionproductions739 I don't precisely remember. It is from the Ravirn series by Kelly McCullough. I know that it's not the first book in the series.
I LOVE this!!!
Omg! You're making such good points AND I'm obsessed with this outfit/makeup look with those glasses! Such beautiful color combos!
Read many books with great opening lines since, but this one is still my favourite:
“It was a pleasure to burn”. 🔥
Fahrenheit 451
The first line of the first draft of my very first book was 'The time was 8:36 PM.'
Makes me laugh (and cringe) every time I think about it.
The time was 8:36 PM.
In the morning.
I slam my hand on top of the table, a scowl on my face.
My clock was broken and wouldn't get fixed until my brother got fed up with his stupid pranks. So far, there had been 10 in the past week.
Of course, I got my revenge for each of them. But when you want to be on time to work at least once in your life, getting pranked is not the way to go.
It is not bad, it's just setting the time for the next line.
@Vivi That's a good way to make it work!
how about - The time wasn’t 8:36pm.
I loved this and it's perfect timing. I was just tweaking my first line for a 2nd book in my series. I'm actually listening to The Bone Houses right now and loved that first line.
From Matilda (God, I love Roald Dahl so much): "It’s a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful."
My favorite first line ever is from Jay Kristoff's Nevernight: "People often shit themselves when they die." I was immediately like "OMG".
This was so helpful!!! And I love the School for Good and Evil.
Loved hearing your take on these!
Example for opening on Dialog is Game of Thrones!! (aka the first book of song of ice and fire)
and it’s one of my favourite first lines (in English that is) it’s:
“We should start back” -
Followed by an argument, about unreliable information, experience/ intuition versus class and self serving reason. I love it so much (even though I don’t know if I like Martins... habit of killing Prologe characters)
Martin's prologues are amazing. Not just the opening lines, but the prologue as a whole. I love that very first prologue, and the way he just names things and drops them, never really explaning anything, just luring you in.
"Let's dance".
His habit of killing them could make for an amazing overture if it happens to be one of the "main characters" POVs. Imagine picking up one of those books and reading Tyrion on the prologue, or Petyr, or Jaime. Heck, say Stannis, or Davos. Just the impact of that would have us flying through those first pages.
I love your videos. They're very informative. I find myself binge watching. You're also very photogenic.
I love first lines! One of my favorite things to do is analyze them and figuring out just the perfect one for my stories. My personal favorite is one that hints at deep themes without stating theme at all. This is so comprehensive and helpful too!
The best first lines in my fanfics was (translated from German): "Around was perhaps the most beautiful chaos anybody had seen."
And with my newest idea of a story, I want to turn that of Harry Potter onto the head. "He didn't like to be normal."
Good examples of first lines! I actually put one of these books on my want to read list.
“just like any good college story, it starts with a rumor.”
that’s my first line and i don’t i’ll EVER change it
Now I know where I went wrong XD I tried to do all of these in one line and it ended up being too long. I'll just pick one or 2.
YESSSSSS my favorite first line was your very first example. I remember reading that and loooving it as a young teen. It's part of what inspired me to start writing!
You have no idea how badly I need this video. 😩
Alexa, this is my favorite video you've done. I listen to it often. You should make a few more 😁
My first first line:
"You have someone inside your head too, right?"
Nice profile pic ^^
I actually really like that it’s cool, I’d keep reading
This video has been so helpful. Thank you Alexa!
One thing I like about your videos, apart from learning something, is that you make excited about writing. I just changed the opening of my novel because of this, thanks.
🤩 Excited!
Wow! You just blew my mind. Thank you for enlightening and inspiring me. Really awesome video!
I appreciate your positive advice no matter how “critical”. Much needed.
This was super helpful! I know I personally struggle with opening lines and will be thinking about these whenever I write!. I rewrote my first list for a short story after watching this and I think it turned out a lot better with the advice in mind.
I am very intrigued by the opening lines from all of the books you chose, especially Brightly Burning, I think I've found my reading material for the rest of the year.
My favorite opening line is from the prologue of Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris
"THE DOOR TO DR. HANNIBAL LECTER'S memory palace is in the darkness at the center of his mind and it has a latch that can be found by touch alone"
I had heard that the book wasn't very good but I gave it a shot anyway, and just at the beginning it drew me in. The book quickly turned out to be great and one of my favorite books