Notes on Craft | Jonathan Lee | Granta
I’m an obsessive collector of other people’s opening lines. With my phone I take photos of the good and the bad. When I find one I really like, I scribble the writer’s first sentence down in one of those Moleskine notebooks people always give me for Christmas. Translated into my handwriting, the line becomes less legible, but I can see more clearly how it works.
The first sentence of a novel is an entryway. An open door. But how many doors have you seen in your life that you’ve actually wanted to walk through? It takes energy and trust to cross a threshold. You may have to take your shoes off. Stop fidgeting with your phone. Prepare. Be alert. Some clumsy fool with a baseball bat could be waiting on the other side, ready to clobber you to death with his unsubtle story.
Often the visitor turns around and walks away; the first line is frequently the only line a reader reads. If that opening sentence tries too hard, or holds no special friction, the book slips from its holder’s hands – back onto the table, or the shelf, ready to be replaced with a magazine, or a snack, or a screaming child. Knowing this fact makes an opening sentence extremely difficult to write. It is like the shirt you will wear to the most important first date of your life – except the date could be with anyone, and you have no way of guessing at their taste, and you have to choose between all the imaginable shirts on earth.
