#book openings

[vexedhearts]

Recently changed my Instagram Bio, ifykyk

[sophielovesbooks]

Book Openings

Guys, I honestly love a good book opening so much? 

Last night I had to decide which book to read next and I read a few openings and so many of them were so intriguing?

To the Power of Three, by Laura Lippman: “People would want to know what she was thinking, the night before. They always do, or think they do – but in her case they would have been disappointed. Because by the night before, the thinking was long over and she was preoccupied mainly with logistics.”

Like, what logistics? The logistics of kILLING SOMEBODY?! DID SHE KILL SOMEBODY??

Liars, Inc., by Paula Stokes: “I don’t make to-do lists, but if I did, today’s would have gone something like this: 1. get drunk, 2. get laid, 3. go surfing (not necessarily in that order). Noticeably absent from the list: get arrested. And yet here I am, spending my eighteenth birthday with my back against the wall of the Colonel’s hunting cabin, two FBI agents prowling the dark with their guns drawn, both trying to get me to confess to the murder of my friend Preston DeWitt.”

WHAT? What happened?! And he’s a surfer, too? Count me in! 

(I started reading “Sadie” anyway, though, because of the good things I’ve heard!)

[rosecorcoranwrites]

10: Favorite opening line in a novel

So there I was, tearing through the woods at top speed, a gang of murderous bandits hot on my tail.–from Slayers: The Ruby Eye by Hajime Kanzaka 

The whole opening is great:

[sunbreakisland]

Starting Your Book: Three Blocks to Smash

Starting Your Book: Three Blocks to Smash

TMI! Don’t let too much advice about book openings stun you into silence! Starting your book today smashes the blocks!

        The idea of starting your book is often held at bay by three simple blocks. Avoid them!

Panic.

Don’t Let panic keep you from starting your book!

This means

don’t look up 5 million Google listings on how to create a famous opening line

don’t chew your fingernails over…

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[navinkoke]

In the spring of her 22nd year, Sumire fell in love for the first time in her life. An intense love, a veritable tornado sweeping across the plains - flattening everything in its path, tossing things up in the air, ripping them to shreds, crushing them to bits. The tornado's intensity doesn't abate for a second as it blasts across the ocean, laying waste to Angkor Wat, incinerating an Indian jungle, tigers and all, transforming itself into a Persian desert sandstorm, burying an exotic fortress city under a sea of sand. In short, a love of truly monumental proportions. The person she fell in love with happened to be 17 years older than Sumire. And was married. And, I should add, was a woman. This is where it all began, and where it all wound up. Almost.

Haruki Murakami

[when-i-grow-up]

You know, come to think of it, Little Women might have one of, if not the most well-executed opening of any book I've ever read.

I mean, seriously. Just... 

Within the first page, purely through dialogue and action taglines (and no actual plot advancement), before the narrator takes over the story-telling, we learn about the girls' poverty, their disgust for their position in life, their parents, their hobbies, their jobs, their inter-character relationships, a few of their mannerisms, and their greatest personal trials/flaws - all laid out for the reader through dialogue. With one possible exception (IMO), nothing feels like infodump. The conversation progresses in a natural, comfortable, entertaining manner. Before we even know what these girls look like, we already have a basic understanding of their lives and personalities. How did Louisa May Alcott accomplish this, exactly?

She introduced the characters right in the middle of a complaining fest. I mean, of course we'll hear all about their lives - between the sisters commiserating over how sucky their common situation is, trying to one-up each other on whose individual situation is worse, Jo and Amy insulting each other, Meg and Beth trying to smooth it over, and Jo's reaction to Meg's lecture, how could we not?. And they all complain in just a quirky enough manner to make us love them at once and be excited about hearing their story, even though they're starting  on a negative note, and to establish some character, which is actually pretty much accurate and informative for the rest of the book. It's fun and we're SPARED A NARRATION INFODUMP.

Louisa May Alcott was a genius.

[paleshadesofnothing]

When I take a long look at my life, as though from the outside, it does not appear particularly happy. Yet I am even less justified in calling it unhappy, despite all its mistakes. After all, it is foolish to keep probing for happiness or unhappiness, for it seems to me it would be hard to exchange the unhappiest days of my life for all the happy ones. If what matters in a person's existence is to accept the inevitable consciously, to taste the good and bad to the full and to make for oneself a more individual, unaccidental and inward destiny alongside one's external fate, then my life has been neither empty nor worthless. Even if, as it is decreed by the gods, fate has inexorably trod over my external existence as it does with everyone, my inner life has been of my own making. I deserve its sweetness and bitterness and accept full responsibility for it.

Gertrude by Hermann Hesse