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First Lines

edited February 2015 in - Reading
I noticed today that the nations favourite opening line is;

"ALL children, except one, grow up." from J. M. Barrie's, Peter Pan.

It's a corker, that's for sure.

My favourite (at the moment, they have a habit of changing like the weather) is from Chris Hadfield's 'An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth'

"The windows of a spaceship casually frame miracles"

It had been a while since an opening line "hit me for six" and that just blew me away (I have a love affair with everything to do with space, so I guess I'm slightly biased)

What would you choose as your favourite? Do you have any opening lines you have written that you are particularly proud of?

Comments

  • edited February 2015
    I can see why you were struck by that opening line - it's brilliant!

    I have several favourite openings that I've written.
    'It all came to a head the day the mongoose ran down the supermarket aisle' and 'e' are two of them.

    Edited out the second one as this isn't a private thread and that story hasn't been published.... yet!
    Will fill in the blank later. :)
  • 'It all came to a head the day the mongoose ran down the supermarket aisle'
    Who wouldn't want to read on after that! Brilliant, Claudia :)
  • Love that, Claudia!
    'e'... not so captivating ;))

    Not sure that what follows is entirely relevant, but as it has a tentative connection, I hope it's all right to post it here.

    A reviewer has just written quite a long blog post about one of my children's books and has quoted the first line before beginning his comments (the first lines of which follow):

    “Jake knew it was finally time. Time to grow up. Time to take responsibility.” (p.1)

    From this short opener, Glass Dreams wastes no time disrupting the main character, Jake’s world, sending us along with it. However, despite the immediate disturbance, no scene is left dashed or poorly drawn. It is written with an unbelievably terse and efficient style. There is not a single word that does not add just enough to the picture without weighing too heavily. Many authors lay on far too many adjectives or descriptive paragraphs dragging out the plot, drawing it to a standstill. Here, Laycock does not. Even her brief scene of the orphanage to which Jake is subjected is just long enough for us to understand that life there is not good. If its occupants don’t pick on you, the caretakers forget you.

  • Wow, It must be fantastic to hear reviews like this after all your hard work!

    Love the opener, TN. It's one of those that makes me go 'I have to know why!'
  • edited February 2015

    'There was a god awful cock up in Bologna.'
    Publisher; Pan
    Author; Francis D.
    Title; The Danger

    ... I like the implication, that the author is a man of the world, with a sense of humour, who knows how to use anticlimax. In other words he's one that we feel comfortable with.




  • 'It all came to a head the day the mongoose ran down the supermarket aisle'
    Who wouldn't want to read on after that! Brilliant, Claudia :)
    Actually, you can read it if you're interested.

    http://www.discoverwildlife.com/competition-article/travel-writer-year-2012-winners-revealed

    Mine is the third one down. :)

  • I have a couple of my own that I quite like:

    "I’ve always found the senior citizens cinema show on Wednesday mornings to be an ideal venue for widow-shopping"

    "On her thirtieth birthday Augustine ran away from home to look for adventure, and as she waited for the 37A bus on the High Street, someone pinched her bottom."

    Although now I've posted them, I'm not so sure...



  • They're great, SM. I particularly like the second one! :)

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