I talk about the opening to this book repeatedly in fiction writing courses and presentations, so I figured I should write it up here as well.
How many times have you been in a bookstore, a library, or even on Amazon, and you grab a book off the shelf, read the first paragraph, then close it and put it back to keep looking? The book cover grabs your eye, the description on the back sounds intriguing, but it’s the first paragraph that makes the sale.
Opening sentences set the tone of the story and create the voice. They introduce the main character. They can even raise a story question or establish the story’s structure. Most first sentences don’t necessarily do all of those things, but what if they could?
Let’s look at the opening two brief sentences from Alice Sebold’s award-winning novel, The Lovely Bones.
My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.
Now, let’s segue off to various writing topics we’ve covered in previous …
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