Beginnings

[Blitz]

Have you ever had a book suck you in from the very first paragraph?  The first sentence?  Some people think beginnings are the most important part of a book--the difference between hooking a reader and letting them get away.

I tend to agree with this idea.  Many books that I've looked at were set right back down just because I didn't like the starting paragraph or it didn't interest me.  But some I've read anyway.  A big example for me was Harry Potter, when it first came out.  I read the first page and found myself yawning, and as a result didn't pick the book up again until the hype began.  Thus, the opposite question: does a poor beginning ruin the reading experience?

I've heard that beginnings are "make or break" for a story, and I just wanted to know what people around here have to say about it.  Jim's books usually begin with fantastic first paragraphs, for example.  Can you think of any others?

[Jon Crenshaw]

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

"Call me Ishmael."

"The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault."



A good opening sentence can really hook me in as a reader.

[Dom]

The Dresden books do have killer opening lines, don't they?  I think they're the best I've ever seen.

The exact impact of the opening lines depends on the reader, but you capture a bigger percentage of the readers if the opening is catchy for some reason.  I don't think anyone has ever said, "The opening of the book was so great, I just had to put it down!"  So, it helps more than harms to have a good opening.  Which is obvious, I suppose.  Anyway.

For me as a reader--I tend to keep on trucking for a while, so if the first line isn't near literally on fire ("The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault.") I'll keep going a bit more to see how it develops within the next few pages, but some people won't.

I don't think openings can ruin an entire story, but it can kill a book.  Meaning, if the actual story is good, it will shine despite the opening.  IE, Harry Potter (for some people).  Kushiel's Dart (first 100 pages is a slog to some.)  However, if a person drops a book because of the opening, they'll never get to the story-that-is-good.  So an opening can kill the success of a book.

It's like a little town in a valley.  They might make some killer jam, or crafts, or folk dancing, or hot rods, or something, but if the sign on the main road is too small, or not appealing, people won't be persuaded to make the trip into the town.  They'll pass this great little place by, not ever knowing it was there.  And all the jammeries and hot rodders will close up shop and start new careers in accounting.  Or something.

[Mickey Finn]

Opening lines are very important hooks...not only to grab the reader, but also to set the tone. Chris Moore and Max Barry have bizzare openings, so you know the book is going to be a bit on the zany side.
Jim's books do indeed have great lines. "It rained toads the day the White Council came to town" is another example.

[ToddM326]

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Another board that I read is currently debating the "grammatical correctness" of that first line.

They think that better grammar would be "It was the best and the worst of times."

I think they have too much free time.

[Blitz]

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Another board that I read is currently debating the "grammatical correctness" of that first line.

They think that better grammar would be "It was the best and the worst of times."

I think they have too much free time.

Or, "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times."

Technically it can be broken down into two separate sentences.  So to be grammatically correct, you'd need a semi-colon instead of a comma.  Or whatever.  It's still a good opening.

[Jon Crenshaw]

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Another board that I read is currently debating the "grammatical correctness" of that first line.

They think that better grammar would be "It was the best and the worst of times."

I think they have too much free time.

The thing that they need to consider, is that grammar is constantly changing. What may have been fine two centuries ago, can easily be incorrect by today's standards.

That being said--there's a distinct reason I opted not to finish my M.A. in English--and Another board that I read is currently debating the "grammatical correctness" of that first line. would be indicative of it.

English grad students and PhD's are far too enamored (as a whole) with debating semi-useless arguments to death.

Case in point:  There are whole series of arguments in journals over the tranlation of Two. Freaking. Words. in an old english poem called the Battle of Maldon.

Two.  Words.

The mind boggles.

[Mickey Finn]

Hell, there's been many, many deaths attributed to mistranslations of holy books.

[James]

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Another board that I read is currently debating the "grammatical correctness" of that first line.

They think that better grammar would be "It was the best and the worst of times."

I think they have too much free time.

The thing that they need to consider, is that grammar is constantly changing. What may have been fine two centuries ago, can easily be incorrect by today's standards.

That being said--there's a distinct reason I opted not to finnish my M.A. in English--and Another board that I read is currently debating the "grammatical correctness" of that first line. would be indicative of it.

English grad students and PhD's are far too enamored (as a whole) with debating semi-useless arguments to death.

Case in point:  There are whole series of arguments in journals over the tranlation of Two. Freaking. Words. in an old english poem called the Battle of Maldon.

Two.  Words.

The mind boggles.

Don't forget the biggest gammatic issue of whether it's right or wrong of modern times, "to boldly go where no man has gone before."

[neminem]

So, simply put, yes. I've definitely read enough first-pages-of-books in the bookstore to know that if a first page is boring, I'm probably going to put it down. Conversely, if a first page reads like, well, a page from the Dresden Files, I'm going to drop what I'm doing and continue reading. A lot.

"Of course, forcing modern speakers of English to not -- whoops, not to split an infinitive because it isn't done in Latin makes about as much sense as forcing modern residents of England to wear laurels and togas. Julius Caesar could not have split an infinitive if he had wanted to. In Latin the infinitive is a single word like facere or dicere, a syntactic atom. English is a different kind of language. It is an "isolating" language, building sentences around many simple words instead of a few complicated ones. The infinitive is composed of two words -- a complementizer, to, and a verb, like go. Words, by definition, are rearrangeable units, and there is no conceivable reason why an adverb should not come between them:
   Space -- the final frontier... These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
To go boldly where no man has gone before? Beam me up, Scotty; there's no intelligent life down here." (386)

And Finn is right - the whole killing witches thing? I've always been impressed with that one.

[Jon Crenshaw]

Hell, there's been many, many deaths attributed to mistranslations of holy books.

Hmm...mistranslations, or "creative interpretation to impose one's own shortcomings/neuroses/psychoses" on the minds of others?

Power. Corruption
Absolute Power. Yada, yada yada.

[weever]

Conversely, have you ever been hooked by the first line or page only to be disappointed in the rest of the book?  That is, if you took time to finish it.

[Mickey Finn]

I've had that happen with movie previews, does that count?

How's this for an dual opening:

The book sits on my nightstand, innocent in its trappings: a simple diary, encased in a simple cloth, the muted floral print stained and dirty. The small brass lock is jammed in the open position. The whole ensemble gives the impression of a child's diary, lost in the sandbox in school.
   It scares the hell out of me.

                 The mist comes and we dare not separate. That was how we lost Charles.

It's a story within a story, so both opening lines had to grab the reader.

[novium]

i don't know about everyone else, but for me I generally don't like books that start out with a brief, tantalizing scene, heavy with the "action" of the story, the meat of the story, and then shift into the real (so to speak) beginning, which switches to something else entirely- usually some boring scene in the past.

I think you have to be a really fine author to pull it off. I think you have to be an unbelievablely fine author to pull it off so well that the reader is so sucked into both parts that they almost don't notice. Except for that very rare latter circumstance, I almost always feel like groaning when I come across a technique like that in a book. Even when it works (i.e. grave peril, wasn't it?)

[Mickey Finn]

Grave Peril worked the second time I read it, but the first time, I kept feeling like I missed a book somewhere along the line, where Michael was introduced.