Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by sara selznick on January 23, 2012 at 11:02am

I love this line.

Sara

Permalink Reply by Laura Rae Amos on January 23, 2012 at 11:08am

I love this too!

Permalink Reply by sara selznick on January 27, 2012 at 7:39am

The reason I love it:it tells me instantly that this is a literary novel about growth and pain. The voice brims with confidence--that the writer has verbal chops, a poetic sense, and that she is absolutely certain what her story is.

Sara

Permalink Reply by Danielle Boonstra on January 27, 2012 at 7:47am

thank-you Sara :) That is really invaluable feedback!

Permalink Reply by Rhiannon Hopkins on January 24, 2012 at 9:11am

This is form one currently in cold storage, awaiting a descion about its fate:

'Our dear sister here departed ..."

Who's sister has departed? Sylvia wanted to ask.  Where has she gone, did my mother go with her?

Permalink Reply by sara selznick on January 27, 2012 at 6:39am

Hi, Rihanna,

I like this one. I get a sense of child struggling to understand and I tend to like those kinds of story.

Sara

Permalink Reply by Sue Ann Bowling on January 26, 2012 at 12:34pm

I've been trying for several years to rewrite the first chapter of the first novel of a trilogy I'm working on (finished in draft form) and I think I finally have it. How's this for an opening paragraph?

Roi Laian jerked upright on the interface lounge. “Oh, no,” he gasped aloud. “He can’t be that stupid. The Council can’t. Is he trying to start a revolution?”

Permalink Reply by Marilyn Bostick on January 26, 2012 at 3:28pm

Hey that's good! Good job! I like it. :)

Permalink Reply by sara selznick on January 27, 2012 at 7:32am

Hi, sue,

These first sentences can be so hard. We have to hook the reader into the what of the story while we attach them to the who of the story.

What I get from this sentence is all what and no who. Who is roi lain? What are his values? What matters in his life? Obviously, you can't put all that in a first sentence, but you can hint it. For this reader, once I'm attached to that who, I will wait a bit for the what. So, I'd rather see roi at work for a sentence or two, know if he's the boss or the underling, powerless, powerful or somewhere on the continuom. What's at stake for him in this interaction? What is his world that is about to be upturned?

Sara

Permalink Reply by Jennifer Vail on January 26, 2012 at 10:29pm

At this point, I have changed the beginning chapter of my YA novel BAITED umpteen times. Here are the current first lines.  Would love to know what you think.

The plan to escape my life had nothing to do with my dateless existence or my ability to read people’s intentions (the art of knowing the only boy who’d asked me to the junior prom, was trying to make his ex-girlfriend jealous). These were realities I’d learned to live with.

What I couldn’t live with, I thought, nervously tapping my nail bitten fingers against the steering wheel, was the paranoia…and the guilt.

Permalink Reply by Carolyn Haley on January 27, 2012 at 5:12am

Doesn't work for me -- too long. The sentence up to the parentheses is gripping but then I had to put too much effort into following. Can you break it up? Or set it up in a more parallel construction, as my mind was instinctively seeking?

For instance:

The plan to escape my life had nothing to do with my dateless existence or my ability to read people’s intentions. Instead, it had to do with ...

Permalink Reply by sara selznick on January 27, 2012 at 7:36am

des,r Jennifer,

I like this narrator. She's an intellectual teenager, which you don't see often. And while I agree with my fellow reader that that is one long, run on sentence, I'd go with her if you show me, with humor, that this intellect stuck in a pubescent body in high school, tends to go think in elliptical folds like this.

Sara

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