Sarah E. Moffett

“The best way to avoid being picked on by high school bullies is to kill someone” is the opening line to Touching Snow, a 2007 National Book Award nominee written by M. Sindy Felin. Ms. Felin clearly has a knack for one liners. Her first quote in the Washington Post Style article was “I always thought I was destined to be either a serial killer or a mystery writer.” She gets serious bonus points for throwing out that line while she was (is?) pregnant with triplets.

I am not Ms. Felin. And I’m not talking about the lack of a National Book Award nomination. I’m talking about being able to spin one liners. This of course made me wonder if (a) it’s hard for everyone to drill the opening line, or (b) I’m inherently flawed. Seeing as I’m-a-glass-is-broken, let alone half-full, kind of girl, I immediately figured it was (b) via my verbose Irish roots meets legal ramblings, and went on a literary spelunking trip for inspiration.

Of course, this meant I went googling, which took me to the 100 Best First Lines of Novels.

“Mother died today.” ~Camus, The Stranger. Concise.

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” ~Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye. You know Salinger felt this way about his own life.

“They shoot the white girl first.” ~Morrison, Paradise. Only she could say that and get away with it.

“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” ~Lewis, Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I’m still laughing at that line sixteen years later.

“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” ~Plath, The Bell Jar. This about sums up the whole book.

“I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.” ~Smith, I Capture the Castle. Can’t you just visualize it?

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” ~Austen, Pride and Prejudice. And therein lies all of Ms. Austen’s books.

Modern literature was a tad more direct.

“Because Lydia didn’t have arms or legs, she shelled out three thousand bucks to a washed up middleweight named Cap to give her ex-husband the beating of his life.” ~Smith, Psychosomatic.

Some lines are so famous, they constantly get reworked. As AndyGeek noted here, Neuromancer’s opening line has seen many reincarnations. Other bloggers, such as one Mystery Fan buff, circa the Outfit Blog, noted that mystery books have been opening with a bang for some time. As for me though, my research led me to some basic conclusions. The opening line should be authentic, a reflection of the book, indicting of character and foreshadowing of plans…and otherwise just plum impossible.

So I’m back where I started. But as I’ve said before, Rilke works for me. “It is a tremendous act of violence to begin anything. I am not able to begin. I simply skip what should be the beginning.” After all, it’s got to come to me eventually.

Right?

 Do you have a favorite opening line for a book?

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