Thank you for this interesting and insightful post. Like you, I have a soft spot for opening lines, but you have expanded my understanding of their value. I tend to think of them as opportunities to engage the reader with something striking and clever, but I take your point that they also should give the reader a sense of the voice and tone. You say, "The opening line also contains a little foretaste of everything you will find in the rest of the story." Yes! I have struggled over the opening lines of my novel (not yet published), striving to get them just right. I'm happy with most of the rest of the novel, but I keep revising the opening.
Anyway, I will mention one famous opening line that did not appear in your list: "Call me Ishmael." For most people, I don't need to explain that it is the opening sentence of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. That says something about its fame. As for its effectiveness as an opening line, I appreciate its brevity, which gives it punch. As an imperative sentence, it also engages the reader as literally the subject of the sentence. The allusion of Ishmael carries in meaning outside the text (as allusions naturally do). Finally, the line slyly conveys that we do not know--and perhaps will not know--the narrator's true identity, as he is giving us a name to call him, not his real name.
Your post has inspired me. For my Mind Travel newsletter, which appears weekly here on Substack, I am going to write a post on great lines that are not opening lines. Look for it in August. Thanks for the inspiration!
This is a good post - I've been pondering opening lines recently. I hope to use this someday for an opening line: "Honey, can you please get me a butter knife so I can pry the golf ball out of the shower drain?" This is something I had to ask my husband a few years back, as I was getting ready to go to a family gathering. I think it's all the better because it's true.
Thank you for this interesting and insightful post. Like you, I have a soft spot for opening lines, but you have expanded my understanding of their value. I tend to think of them as opportunities to engage the reader with something striking and clever, but I take your point that they also should give the reader a sense of the voice and tone. You say, "The opening line also contains a little foretaste of everything you will find in the rest of the story." Yes! I have struggled over the opening lines of my novel (not yet published), striving to get them just right. I'm happy with most of the rest of the novel, but I keep revising the opening.
Anyway, I will mention one famous opening line that did not appear in your list: "Call me Ishmael." For most people, I don't need to explain that it is the opening sentence of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. That says something about its fame. As for its effectiveness as an opening line, I appreciate its brevity, which gives it punch. As an imperative sentence, it also engages the reader as literally the subject of the sentence. The allusion of Ishmael carries in meaning outside the text (as allusions naturally do). Finally, the line slyly conveys that we do not know--and perhaps will not know--the narrator's true identity, as he is giving us a name to call him, not his real name.
Your post has inspired me. For my Mind Travel newsletter, which appears weekly here on Substack, I am going to write a post on great lines that are not opening lines. Look for it in August. Thanks for the inspiration!
This is a good post - I've been pondering opening lines recently. I hope to use this someday for an opening line: "Honey, can you please get me a butter knife so I can pry the golf ball out of the shower drain?" This is something I had to ask my husband a few years back, as I was getting ready to go to a family gathering. I think it's all the better because it's true.
Blessings to you and yours,
Melisa
As I wrote in my previous comment, your post inspired to write about “middle lines.” The first of the two-part series is on Substack now . . .
https://open.substack.com/pub/mindinclined/p/meet-me-in-the-middle?r=44ohic&utm_medium=ios
As soon as I saw the the title of this post, my mind recited, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."
Thank you for the fun read!
Yes! I had to include it. It’s iconic. ☺️