I want to talk about opening lines!

[lettered]

Whenever I think of first lines I think of Melanie in the Gone With The Wind movie. At one point she starts reading David Copperfield, and it goes something like this: "To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I am born."

That's actually the second line. The actual first line of David Copperfield is this: "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."

I bring this up because one of my actual favorite first lines is: "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probablywant to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." Which is from Catcher In The Rye. I quite like Catcher, but it is not my favorite book. But I do love this line, and remember very distinctly picking up the book in the bookstore and reading this line. This was my reaction:

1. I did not know you were allowed to start a book in that way!
2. He said crap!
3. Geez I really want to read this now.
4. Geez, I also really want to read David Copperfield.

. . . I was a conflicted child.

Anyway, here are some questions I thought up, because I'm interested in first lines, and want to know what first lines people think of when they think of first lines, and what first lines people like!

What are some first lines to novels/stories/fanfic that you like?
What are some first lines to novels/stories/fanfic that you remember off the top of your head?
What's your favorite first line you've written?
What's the first line you've spent the most time on?
What's your least favorite first line you've written?

Also, here is a first lines of English "classics" quiz!

There are more similar quizzes for other genres here. Which ones did you pick? How did you do?

Here's text to put in comments so you can answer more quickly:
<b>What are some first lines to novels/stories/fanfic that you like?</b> <b>What are some first lines to novels/stories/fanfic that you remember off the top of your head?</b> <b>What's your favorite first line you've written?</b> <b>What's the first line you've spent the most time on?</b> <b>What's your least favorite first line you've written?</b>

Comments

[crazydiamondsue.livejournal.com]

What are some first lines to novels/stories/fanfic that you like?
LIT:

Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. [Middlemarch]

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort. [The Hobbit]

FIC:

Grief should be ugly. It should pull all the beauty out of people and leave them withered and ugly and deflated. That’s what it did to Giles. It made him old. It made Anya brittle and cold and unreachable. It made Willow and Tara drawn and hollow. It made Dawn small and faded.

But it made Spike beautiful. It softened his hard lines and made dead eyes alive with pain. Grief made him shine, and it made me want to soak it up like the heat from a raging bonfire, made me want to stand too close and get burned. [29 Linear Moves by yin_again]

Angel and Spike are race car drivers. Stop laughing.

Angel and Spike are race car drivers. No, listen.

Angel and Spike are race car drivers and neither of them have figured out that the track is a loop.

And so they go on. [Race by Dodyskin]

What are some first lines to novels/stories/fanfic that you remember off the top of your head?
I suck at remembering (verbatim) first lines from either lit or fic. I'm better with standout lines, such as: "And now the old story has begun to write itself over there," said Carl softly. "Isn’t it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes for thousands of years." from O Pioneers! or, you know, that thing about medals and eyes and hardness.

What's your favorite first line you've written?
Almost *all* of my stories begin in the middle of something, typically in the middle of a conversation or an argument. I like opening the story with the reader being thrown off balance, having to catch up. That's great until you're me and you do it EVERY time. But I love this one, possibly my favorite single opening line of all time:

Xander opened the door to a trio of mismatched party hats. Looking into the shame-filled faces to which they were attached, he did what anyone would do the morning after a forgotten birthday. He opened his mouth to offer a stinging, day-late, cake-short rebuttal. Unfortunately, that simply allowed the straw from the beer-hat he was wearing to plop onto his chest and bleed his t-shirt into a deeper shade of orange. [Better Together]

What's the first line you've spent the most time on?
Oddly, this little bit of Spike/Angel from ...There's Fire. It was originally heading straight for purple-prose hell:

“Been a while since I’ve seen you do that,” Spike said as his fingers left his lips, sending streams of smoke to twist and spin, blending in the air with Angel’s. He dipped his head, his lips curling slightly. “Sure the soul’s okay with it?”

What's your least favorite first line you've written?
I thought I was SO clever, opening the sequel to Rodeo at the end of sex scene. Cliché! Cliché! It's soooo been done:

Xander’s hands fisted in dirty white sheets, his body shuddering as he heard Angel groan and fall against him, their skin pressed warm and close. Then a rough hand was pressing down on his back and Angel was rolling away.

*sigh* All of my fic is so old. Hi, you!

[yin-again.livejournal.com]

Bless your sweet heart. *loves*

[tkp.livejournal.com]

I obviously need to read some of those fics!

I also need to read Middlemarch. It's on my list for this year.

HEE. The medals and hardness line is THE BEST.

I do love that O Pioneers! line! Awesome.

Don't think I've read Better TOgether. Obviously I need to!

I like when things start in the middle. I HATE when stories start all Sound of Music-y, with random nature shots, and then finally a zoom in to one little person. It's all very well for movies and graphic novels, but in text it makes me want to throw things. I do forgive classics, though, for starting that way. I think it's because I think about the Brontes on the moors, and how they probably didn't have access to internets and libraries full of books. Whatever books they got were precious, and read, and they were not always assaulted by millions of things to read. So a gradual introduction was like being sucked into that world. But now, because I always feel like there's a constant barrage of things to consume, I want to be IN IT ALREADY, so I can decide whether I like it or whether to chuck it. I used to never chuck anything I had started, which made it worse, because I'd start a book and not even know what it was ABOUT 50 pages in and know I had to read it anyway.

Well, *I* like the opening line to Rodeo ;o)

Hi hi hi! I'm so glad you're coming to Seattle! Lemme know your plans, and we can totally have some fun times.