In general, do you prefer the beginnings of stories? Or the ends?
The ends, I guess. I've always been fascinated by the way intricate strands of multiple (and seemingly unconnected) plotlines can come together into one satisfying, and often surprising, conclusion.
However, you must have beginnings to get to that denouement, and I do love a great first sentence . . .
Here are the first sentences from the two novels I'm reading now:
From The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb: "They were both working their final shift at Blackjack Pizza that night, although nobody but the two of them realized it was that."
And from Sarah Waters' The Night Watch: "So this, said Kay to herself, is the sort of person you've become: a person whose clocks and wrist-watches have stopped, and who tells the time, instead, by the particular kind of cripple at her landlord's door."
Got a good first sentence to share?
4 comments:
I've read The Hour I First Believed. I liked it more at the beginning than at the end. I'm about to start Picoult's Plain Truth.
You'll like that one, but I can say the same thing about it that you did THIFB--the beginning's better than the end. Let me know what you think!
Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom reazlied it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.
Oh, it's been so long since I read that book, I'd forgotten the first line!
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