The great writer from Maine, 500 million copies of his books sold, loves to intervene often on the art of writing and telling stories. And, fortunately, we also had his opinion on the meaning of the first sentence of a novel. In an intervention on "The Atlantic" he dwelt on this topic also talking about his working method and the first sentences that impressed him the most.
We are happy to offer his reflections below.
The opening sentence is an invitation
There are all sorts of theories and ideas on how to come up with a good opening sentence for a novel. Actually, it's a matter
complicated and difficult, even for me who do this job. Because while I'm working on a first draft I don't think conceptually, I write. Being scientific about it is a bit like trying to catch the moon's rays and put them in a jar.
But there's one thing I'm sure of. An opening sentence invites the reader into the story. He should say, “Listen. Come here. Do you want to know what happened?”. How can a writer make an invitation so tempting he can't refuse?
We've all pondered the advice of writing teachers and editors: Start a novel with a dramatic or compelling situation, because that way you'll get the reader's attention right away. This is what we call a "hook" and it works up to a point.
This line from The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain immediately puts you in a specific time and place. Just as if something was happening before the eyes of the reader. The incipit says:
“Around noon they threw me out of the truck. I had jumped into it the night before, right at the border, and just under the tarp, among the hay bales, I fell asleep like a stone”.
Throw yourself into history now
Suddenly, we're immediately thrown into the story — the protagonist crashes a hay truck and is discovered. But Cain creates more than just a tense wait. The best writers can do it. This sentence says more than it says there and then. Nobody jumps on a hay truck because he has a ticket in his pocket. He's basically a drifter, an outcast, someone up for stealing or taking flight from a crime. So right from the start, the protagonist is already framed in three lines of text. And this is where the curiosity starts.
This opening also contains another clue. It is, in fact, a quick taste of the writer's style. Another thing that good sentence pens can do. In “They threw me off the hay truck around noon,” we can see right away that there won't be a lot of flourishes in the novel. There will be a lot of hardness and truth in the language, no convolutions. The narrative vehicle is simple, streamlined (not to mention the fact that the book has only 128 pages). What a beautiful thing! Fast, clean and deadly, like a bullet. We are immediately won over and can't wait to zoom.
Sure, it's a bit like life or death here for the writer. A really bad first sentence can convince you not to buy a book… Because, good God, I already have a lot of books — and a bad style already on the first page is reason enough to give up.
I'll never forget the botched opening lines of AE Van Vogt — a long-dead science fiction writer — who was mad for effusiveness. From his book Slan the film was made Alien — in fact they had stolen it from him and then paid some money to his heirs. But he was a terrible, terrible writer. his story, Black Destroyer, start like this:
Coeurl it was constantly buzzing around!
After reading it you think: my God! Can I really stand just five more pages of this stuff? It makes you gasp.
The opening sentence is a voice
So, an intriguing context is as important as style. But for me, a good opening line really starts with the vocals. People talk a lot about “voice,” when they think it really just means “style.” The voice is more than that. People approach books looking for something. But they don't come for the story or the characters. They certainly don't come for the genre. I think readers come for the voice.
The voice of a novel is like that of a singer. Think of singers like Mick Jagger or Bob Dylan, who have no musical training, but are instantly recognizable. When people pick up a Rolling Stones record it's because they want access to that unmistakable Rolling Stones quality. They know that voice, they love that voice, and their spirit connects deeply with that voice.
Well, the same goes for books. Anyone who has read enough of John Sanford, for example, knows that his ironic and sarcastic voice belongs exclusively to him and cannot be confused with any other. Or Elmore Leonard. My God, his handwriting is like a fingerprint. You would recognize it anywhere. A particular voice creates an emotionally intimate connection, a much stronger bond than one forged, intellectually, through writing.
What kind of storyteller are you?
In really good books, the voice is heard right away, right from the first sentence. My favorite example is Douglas Fairbairn's novel, Shoot, which begins with a shootout in the woods. Here two groups of hunters from different parts of the city meet. A hunter is shot by mistake and as time passes the tension escalates into war. In essence it is a replica of Vietnam. And the story begins like this:
"This is what happened."
For me, this has always been the quintessential opening line. It is as flat and clean as an affidavit. He embodies exactly the kind of storyteller we have before us. Someone willing to say: I will tell you the truth. I'll tell you the facts. I'll cut the bullshit out and show you exactly what happened. He also suggests that there is an important story behind it, and he says to the reader: "Do you want to know it too?".
A statement like, "This is what happened," doesn't really say anything—there's no action or context—but it doesn't matter. It is a voice and an invitation that is very difficult to decline. It's like running into a good friend who has valuable information for you. It's someone, who says they can provide entertainment and maybe a way to look at the world with new eyes. In fiction, this is irresistible. This is why we read.
The viaticum of the writer
We've talked a lot about the reader, but it shouldn't be forgotten that the opening sentence is also important to the writer. That is, the person who is boots-on-the-ground. Because it's not just the means to draw in the reader, it's also the writer's viaticum. And one has to find a port that fits both. It is for this reason that I only start writing my books after I have an opening sentence. I write that sentence first, then when I'm happy, I start developing something.
When I start a book, I write in bed before I fall asleep, I lie in the dark and think: I'll try to write a paragraph. The opening paragraph. And over a period of weeks, months, and even years, I write and rewrite until I'm satisfied with what I've written. If I get that first paragraph right, I'll know I've got the book in my grasp.
Because of this, the first few sentences stick with me forever. They have been a door that I have passed through.
The opening sentence of the 23.11.63 is:
"I've never been a man prone to tears."
The opening sentence of The nights of Salem is:
"Most of them thought the man and the boy were father and son."
Do you see? I remember them!
The opening sentence of It is:
“The terror that was to last for twenty-eight years, but perhaps even more, began, as far as I can tell and tell, with a small newspaper boat going down a sidewalk in a swollen trickle of rain.”
This is an incipit that I've rewritten countless times.
The best opening sentence possible
But now I can tell you that the best first line I've ever written — and I learned it from Cain, and I learned it from Fairbairn — is the opening of Precious things. It's the story of a guy who goes to town and uses dormant grievances and animosities to turn his neighbors against each other. And so the story begins with a 20-point opening sentence that alone takes up an entire page:
"You've been here before."
All there, alone on an entire page. Invites the reader to proceed immediately! It suggests a family history. But at the same time, this rather unusual attack projects the book out of the realm of the ordinary. And that, in a way, is a promise of what's to come. The story of neighbor versus neighbor is the oldest story in the world, yet this novel is (I hope) strange and somehow different. Sometimes it's important to find that kind of sentence: one that encapsulates what's going to happen without being a spoiler.
However, I don't have many books where the opening sentence is poetic or beautiful. Sometimes it is totally ordinary. You go looking for something crucial, anything as long as it works out in the end. This approach is what I have attempted in my recent book, Doctor Sleep.
I wanted to make a time jump, from that of Shining to that of the present, taking today's presidents without using their names. The president who came from a peanut factory, the president an actor, the president who played the saxophone, and so on. The sentence is:
“On the second day of December of a year when a Georgia peanut farmer was engaged in his White House trade, one of the most prestigious hotels in Colorado burned to the ground.”
The incipit of Doctor Sleep
This incipit does three things. It places you in time. It places you in the place. And winks at the end of the book. I don't know, though, if it will convince people who have only seen the film, because the hotel in the film doesn't burn. This incipit is neither grand nor elegant: it's a can opener, it's a table setting. I drew on a number of major events, related to presidential administrations, to set the stage and begin the story. There is nothing "big" here. It's just one of those finishes that you try to introduce to give some balance to the narrative. But… it also helped me find the crux of the matter.
Look, you can't live on love alone, and you can't build a writing career on just the first few lines.
A book won't hold up and will fall solely on the first line of prose. There must be the story. This is the real job of the writer, to create the story. Yet a good first sentence can go a long way in modulating the voice. It's the first thing that catches the reader, that makes him anxious, that he starts enlisting him for a long march. So there's incredible power in the first sentence. It is as if you are whispering: “Come here. Do you want me to tell you about it?”.
At that point the reader starts listening.
And it's done.
