The most important sentence in a book is the first sentence. If you don’t like the first sentence, you may not read any further. You could argue that this would be lazy and short-sighted and you might be right, but that is not what you’re going for when you want to sell a book.
Let’s take a look at some of my favorite first sentences:
Guido Maffeo was castrated when he was six years old and sent to study with the finest singing masters in Naples.
–Anne Rice, CRY TO HEAVEN
Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last.
–Sena Jeter Naslund, AHAB’S WIFE
We have been lost to each other for so long.
–Anita Diamant, THE RED TENT
You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter.
This first sentence follows a warning to the reader:
NOTICE
PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted;
persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons
attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
–Mark Twain, THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.
J.D. Salinger, THE CATCHER IN THE RYE
Read these over and think about why they work. Do you want to keep reading? That’s the main question. What are some of your favorite examples? Why did they speak to you so compellingly? What made you want to read on?
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