That Damned First Line

We’ve all experienced it; you are reading a book that someone – perhaps a teacher or a good friend – has recommended to you, but even before the first paragraph has finished your eyes are already wandering down the page, looking for some line of dialogue to break the mundane description, hoping that the story will eventually get exciting. It doesn’t matter that the novel has discovered the universal truth of all humanity; if the writing is not engaging, if it does not grab your attention from the very beginning, you probably won’t read it.

This occurrence, unfortunately, also applies to our own writing. For anything you could ever write – an essay, a short story, a novel, your grandmother’s eulogy – the first paragraph must do everything in its power to force the reader to keep reading. The first sentence can thus be considered the most important sentence of your entire story, more important even than the final sentence. The first sentence must be engaging, but not overpowering; it must be simple, but not mundane. Ultimately, it must perk the interest of the reader and make them want to know more about your story and characters. By the first line they should be asking what Colonel Aureliano Buendía did to merit a firing squad and what was so significant about the discovering of ice with his father (Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude)*. Your first line needs to act as the swirling vortex that sucks your readers in and spits them out only after they’ve been imprisoned for a number of hours and the hunger pains have begun to set in (don’t lie; we all know what it is like to be abducted by a good book). Like the beginning of Beethoven’s Fifth, everything else flows from your first sentence.

The trickiest part of this is that while there is so much weighing on the first line, your reader should never know. A common pitfall of many authors is attempting to accomplish too much in the first line, resulting in the reader being overwhelmed by a tactless pummel of information. Instead, the first line should be so smooth that one doesn’t have time to stop and think about what they’ve read; one just keeps reading. The first line doesn’t need to be about anything extraordinary; a casual statement will do just fine so long as the paragraph backs it up. Below is a perfect example of a bad first line that simply says too much:

Thanks to the adrenaline pumping through his veins Thomas couldn’t feel the bullet passing through his skin, though in his heart he knew that without care he would soon bleed out before getting a chance to see his lovely Josaline again, waiting all alone for him to return to the States at the end of his tour.

Just writing that sentence hurt! Don’t over exert yourself; give your story – and your readers – some room to breathe. Most of the time a simple statement will do more for your story than a poor attempt to astound the audience.

Ultimately, your first line should accomplish two things: it ought to grab the attention of your readers, and set the tone for the rest of the story. By tone, I mean the mood that you wish to begin the story with. If your story is about a single mom bathing her child, the mood will probably be more calm and lethargic than quick and suspenseful. Similarly, if you are writing about a funeral, the tone will probably not be the happiest. Think about where you want to go with your story and how your main character is feeling at the beginning of the scene, this will help you to establish the proper mood from the very beginning.  Whether you are writing a short story, a song, a novel, or even a term paper, the mood should be obvious throughout the story; and it all begins with that first line.

Many people fall into the misunderstanding that in order to grab the reader’s attention, they must begin the story with a good action-packed scene. DO NOT DO THIS. If done improperly (and more often than not it will be) it will only confuse the reader, to the point where they may not want to continue reading. Instead, if you have a great character, introduce him to the audience, or if you are confident that you can describe the setting without being a bore, do so. Both of these techniques will not only grab your reader’s attention, but they are also good ways to establish the proper mood. Once you have gotten the reader attached to your well-thought out character, the plot will fall in line behind him.

To recap, the first line must be simple, it must be engaging, and it must establish the mood for the rest of the story.  If you need some help, try to remember some of your favorite books and their first lines. Or, try browsing through this list of 100 best first lines as decided by the American Book Review.

Now, before you begin to agonize about how your first line is not the way you want it, remember that it is only one line, and can always be rewritten.

Applications for Writers

If you are a frequenter of the Writing Center Blog, you should know that one of the more prevalent techniques for writing that we stress is simply writing often. It doesn't matter how much you write, or even how good you write; writing everyday will do more than improve your writing, it will also cause you to be more confident about writing, and when you do finally get a good idea you will spend less time staring at a blank screen.

I know, we are only human, and many times even when you have a plan to write at a given time every day something will come up, or you simply won't feel inspired. That's why I am writing this blog to inform you of the many useful applications I have found that help me greatly in keeping up a schedule.

The first is a small downloadable program that was given to me as a gift last Christmas. Write or Die is a program that allows you to set a specific word and time goal, then lets you write until either you meet your goal or your time runs out. There are other settings one can choose as well, including how much of a grace period the program gives, and the difficulty level. For those new to the program, I suggest beginning on gentle. For more experienced players, the normal mode will force you to write while playing an annoying sound, and kamikaze mode will actually eat your words if you stop writing for more than a few seconds. On the desktop edition, you can also set it to keep the Write or Die window at the front of your screen and disable saving until the word goal is met. Warning: This program has the potential to give your inner editor a heart attack. When I first played Write or Die, my inner editor's comments changed from "You call that syntax?" to "You missed a - wait, no, you don't have time to go back! Write something, anything, oh my god you're almost out of time! Write!" One last perk: if you are the type of person that enjoys competition, the desktop edition allows you to compete in word wars with other players; the person with the most words after a set amount of time wins. Ultimately, Write or Die can be a very useful resource - while being slightly sadistic - to get one out of the habit of overanalyzing each individual sentence, and into the habit of simply writing.

The second application I would like to mention is a small website I recently discovered called 750words. This website is almost like a blog, except that it is completely private. It was created to encourage people to write at least 750 words every day. Not only will this site keep track of your daily writings, it will also analyze them using two text analysis programs: Regressive Imagery Dictionary (for emotions) and the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. The site organizes the results of that analysis into easy-to-read graphs and charts, and gives comparison charts of what the average writer scores. The site offers monthly contests to see who can actually keep up their word count (750 words a day) for an entire month. I should mention that the idea behind this site is not to write brilliant prose; it encourages you to vomit thoughts onto the screen and clear your subconscious of what may be hiding inside, so that for the rest of the day you are more clear-headed and have already gotten the creative juices flowing. Finally, to add more of a fun, game-feel to the site and encourage continued use, you will be awarded a specific number of points per day depending on how much you write. These points are used to collect achievement buttons - sort of like the achievements one can unlock in Xbox360 games.

Of course, these are only programs that have helped me get into the habit of writing. If they don't work for you, that is fine, I have also found a list of 100 Free and Useful Web Apps for Writers that you may want to dig through. Unfortunately, none of these programs can force you to write, that motivation needs to come from you. They can, however, make writing every day more enjoyable. So check them out, you may find you enjoy the intensity and high-stress of Write or Die, or perhaps you prefer a simple online blog that you can keep completely private - either way, it never hurts to try.

- Michelle