THOSE DREADED FIRST SENTENCES

"The opening's not everything.  You can start off with Call Me Ishmael and still lose your reader down the line if you're not careful.  But your opening has to be good - or the rest of the story won't have a chance because nobody'll stick around to read it."  Lawrence Block

For the last few years I have attended the annual James River Writers Conference.  The opening session is  called "First Pages" where brave souls submit the first page of something they are working on for evaluation.   The page is read aloud by an actor and then a panel of agents give reasons why they would or would not continue reading to the next page.  This is always an astounding experience for me.  They expect so much from the first sentence or two - not just the first page.  Often I have felt their comments were unreasonable and harsh - but what do I know...I am just a lowly writer.

The opening sentences for my first novel, Tell Me That You Like It , are: "Lila Hawkins' hands trembled as she lit another cigarette.  She had a decision to make.  A decision that could get her killed."  Okay - that starts the action quickly I think.  The reader doesn't know the story - but hopefully they want to know what kind of decision someone would have to make that could end in murder.

The opening sentences for my second novel, Where No One Can Hear You Cry, are:  "Lenny knew the gun was in his hand.  He could see it and feel it, and yet his mind struggled to accept the reality of what he was actually about to do." Another acceptable opener that hopefully hooks the reader to continue.  Still, I feel like it is an unreasonable expectation by an agent to discard a submission because the first few sentences may not be packed with action.  Sitting in on these opening sessions with agents, I sometimes felt like they enjoyed being the cynic.  After all, I think it is easier to criticize something than it is to create it. 

The novel I am currently working on begins: "Countless times over the years, she had fantasized about killing her husband.  She lulled herself to sleep by visualizing graphic images of hitting him with a baseball bat or slipping poison into his beer. But when she stood over his lifeless body lying in a sticky pool of blood, she realized that she never could have imagined this."  Did that grab you?  Would you read the rest of the page?

There's an old song with the lyrics, "It's not how you start, it's how you finish."  Well, writers apparently don't have that luxury.  We have to start big just so the reader will care how we finish.