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| from "Lord Valentine's Castle", 1979, by Robert Silverberg |
The first line is always a killer. It has to be a
killer to capture a reader, but can often be the death of the writer struggling
to come up with it. Sometimes, like the occasional title, it comes ahead of
everything else. Even if it comes easily, it often changes once I get rolling.
It happens with blog posts all the time.
One of my favourite opening lines was written by
Robert Silverberg to begin Lord Valentine’s Castle. It yanked me into
the book so fast that I was practically whiplashed. Aside from the story itself
being a good read, I learned a lot from the author as a result of that first
line. It opened me up to the world of fantasy; without Silverberg, I might have
missed GRRM and thus, perhaps, might never have taken my own crack at it so
many years later. More importantly, it confirmed that no matter what the
setting, the characters make a story. It helped that Valentine was an amnesiac.
Right away, I was compelled to find out who he was and what had happened to
him, but if not for that first line …
Joe Abercrombie (author of Best Served Cold,
among countless other fantasy novels) made me laugh out loud when he was asked
to name the hardest part of writing. “That bit between the first line and the
last line,” he said.
Amen, brother.
I am a firm believer in this rule and sometimes drive myself straight to wine and chocolate trying to write a good first line. Now that I have re-read this entry it makes me wonder if maybe that's the reason I'm struggling so much with the story that I have on hold. The first line is a dud.
ReplyDeleteYou can always change it, but if it doesn't grab you as the writer, it might not be worth saving, kid.
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