Grabbers
A good story should really grab you. My favorite opening line is:
"Remember, no matter what your gravity is when you go through the door, the enemy's gate is down." --Orson Scott Card, from the original Ender's Game short
My mother's favorite is: "Duck!" --Robert Heinlein. Sorry, I don't know which story.
But as much as we like to harp on first lines, being writers, it goes deeper than that. I read a book last week, Charles Stross's Glasshouse, that had me so emotionally involved that the protagonist's nerves were making me nervy. On one particularly bad night, I was up reading until three in the morning, because somehow I just couldn't put the book down until I knew that Reeve was out of immediate danger. There aren't a great many books that grab me that hard.
Even rarer, on just two occasions, I've been so deeply ensconced in a book that I've looked up and actually been surprised to be where I am. Because I wasn't there. I was off executing flying kicks in the middle of a revolution or plotting against the artists' council. Grabbed. Hook, line, and sinker.
"Remember, no matter what your gravity is when you go through the door, the enemy's gate is down." --Orson Scott Card, from the original Ender's Game short
My mother's favorite is: "Duck!" --Robert Heinlein. Sorry, I don't know which story.
But as much as we like to harp on first lines, being writers, it goes deeper than that. I read a book last week, Charles Stross's Glasshouse, that had me so emotionally involved that the protagonist's nerves were making me nervy. On one particularly bad night, I was up reading until three in the morning, because somehow I just couldn't put the book down until I knew that Reeve was out of immediate danger. There aren't a great many books that grab me that hard.
Even rarer, on just two occasions, I've been so deeply ensconced in a book that I've looked up and actually been surprised to be where I am. Because I wasn't there. I was off executing flying kicks in the middle of a revolution or plotting against the artists' council. Grabbed. Hook, line, and sinker.
posted by Journey | 6:57 PM
3 Comments:
I'm proofreading my friend's first novel. The opening goes like this:
.
"Darrel Crowley labored at his shovel. Like generations of gravediggers before him, he was finding the digging to be tough going."
.
Morbidly inviting.
.
--durangodave
Hmm. Doesn't tell me anything new and exciting. But I'm biased as an sf/f reader. Most genres don't expect new and exciting in the first sentence.
And I love "morbidly inviting" as a description. :)
Exactly! It tells you something anyone would know if they thought about it: that digging graves the old-fashioned way is damn hard work. But almost nobody stops to think about it. It reveals the obvious.
.
OK, its not amazing.... But his book is quite entertaining, so far....
--durangodave
Post a Comment
<< Home