Today I thought I’d share some opening lines:
‘Someone’s coming,’ Taji yells. I reach Taji first. Not because I’m the fastest. I’m good at many things but running isn’t one of them. (Samuri Kids by Sandy Fussell)
‘Stay with Aunt Kat!’ Ash looked at his mother in disbelief. ‘No Way!’ (Crazy Kat by Marg McAlister)
It’s so quiet. I don’t know what the time is, maybe two o’clock, three o’clock. I think I’ve been asleep for a couple of hours; I’m not sure. (Checkers by John Marsden)
The previous body shop manager at Marcus Ford- ‘The Best Deals in Dixie’-was fired for wearing a coffee-stained shirt to work. That the stain hadn’t occurred until after he’d been on the job for two hours didn’t matter. (At All Costs by John Gilstrap)
Ryan was nearly killed twice in half an hour. He left the taxi a few blocks short of his destination. (Patriot Games by Tom Clancy)
At liftoff, Matt Eversmann said a Hail Mary. He was curled into a seat between two helicopter crew chiefs, the knees of his long legs up to his shoulders. (Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden)
True love came to me one crisp late autumn morning when the sky had lost the faded blue of the long hot summer and taken on the deeper colour of winter yet to come. (WHITETHORN by Bryce Courtenay)
Ok. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. It’s only a VISA bill. It’s a piece of paper; a few numbers. I mean, just how scary can a few numbers be? (Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella)
I love opening lines in books, and often it is the first page that determines if I will read more. During my school writing workshops, one of my favourite activities is to read an opening paragraph, and get the students to re write it with their opening lines showing three ways of starting a story. Speech, action, description.
Do you have a favourite opening line of a book?
DJ
