The Art of First Sentences

When I sat down to write this morning, one topic refused to be ignored.

That topic? First sentences.

I first learned about the magic of first sentences from an essay by the great (and late) SF writer Edward Bryant. If you have not heard of him, it's because he specialized in short stories and anthologies. I aspire to write like him, even though his stories were macabre and his happy endings equivocal. Cinnabar, one of his anthologies, was one of my formative reading experiences in high school.  He wrote wonderful female characters that put Heinlein's accomplished pinups to shame. (Yes, I read Friday, and it scarred me -- sex symbol spy decides what she really wants to be is a mother. Madonna/whore much?)

Anyhow, Edward Bryant wrote an essay about the importance of first sentences in writing. They exist pique curiousity, to suck the reader in, and set the stage for the story. He cites one example from an anonymous author in a workshop that he considered perfect: "Today the Pope forgot to take her Pill." I don't know about you, but I'm angry that that book was never written, because I'll never know the end of it.

The sentence I wore on my arms for Dear World makes for a good first sentence: I wrote a love song to a sparrow". For God's sake, why??? Now you're invested in the story.

I work hard to come up with good first sentences. I don't always succeed. Sometimes I forget that I'm supposed to put work into that first sentence. This morning, I looked at the first page of my WIP, and saw that the first sentence started with "Once upon a time". It made sense in one way, because someone was telling what looked like a fairy tale, but yuck. That sentence is anemic, trite, and uninspiring. The new first sentence?

When the storyteller finally spoke, her voice took on a tone that reached from my past and echoed into my future. 

The beauty of that sentence is that it's the key to the book.

The other beauty of that sentence is that it belies the revelation half a page down that Mom is telling the story and it's supposed to be a child's bedtime story.

But the story reaches into the protagonist's past and echoes into her future.