 Horror/Scary: March 20, 2019 Issue [#9439] |
This week: The First Sentence Edited by: W.D.Wilcox  
More Newsletters By This Editor 
 
1. About this Newsletter
2. A Word from our Sponsor
3. Letter from the Editor
4. Editor's Picks
5. A Word from Writing.Com
6. Ask & Answer
7. Removal instructions
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
—George Orwell, 1984 (1949)
I am an invisible man.
—Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)
Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.
—Franz Kafka, The Trial (1925;
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 (1951)
|
| ASIN: B01MQP5740 |
Product Type: Kindle Store
|
Amazon's Price: $ 4.99
|
|
Writing That Opening Sentence
Okay, you're going to write that first sentence of your masterpiece. You know you can do this. You believe in yourself. You stare at the blank page.
We've all been here. You know this first sentence is just as important as the very last one. It's got to catch the reader's interest. It's got to be perfect.
The way I get around this is to read the Masters that came before. What did they do?
This is a learning moment, revel in it . . . .
This is the saddest story I have ever heard. —Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier (1915)
It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not. —Paul Auster, City of Glass (1985)
Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. —William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929)
Mother died today. —Albert Camus, The Stranger (1942)
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. —William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)
All this happened, more or less. —Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
They shoot the white girl first. —Toni Morrison, Paradise (1998)
There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. —C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. —Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall. —Louise Erdrich, Tracks (1988)
It was a pleasure to burn. —Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
It was love at first sight. —Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (1961)
Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person. —Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups (2001)
"To be born again," sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, "first you have to die." —Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses (1988)
He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. —Raphael Sabatini, Scaramouche (1921)
That's how they did it. What are you going to do?
Until next month,
|
Best Openers
| |  | Invalid Item
This item number is not valid.
#2083314 by Not Available. |
|
Have an opinion on what you've read here today? Then send the Editor feedback! Find an item that you think would be perfect for showcasing here? Submit it for consideration in the newsletter!
https://www.Writing.Com/go/nl_form
Don't forget to support our sponsor!
| ASIN: B083RZ2C5F |
|
Amazon's Price: Price N/A
Not currently available. |
|
DEAD LETTERS
Quick-Quill  says,
Love is the strongest motivator for committing any crime. The love of Money, a person, or an object. Maybe greed should replace the word love. Love is strong, but greed drives action. Greed overcomes all conscience of thought that counters decisive action. When one is hit with conscience to not commit a crime, greed over rules. Love is a feeling that results in a response. Greed, is when love moves beyond feeling and becomes control. |
| ASIN: 0996254145 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 12.95
|
|
To stop receiving this newsletter, click here for your newsletter subscription list. Simply uncheck the box next to any newsletter(s) you wish to cancel and then click to "Submit Changes". You can edit your subscriptions at any time.
|
This printed copy is for your personal use only. Reproduction
of this work in any other form is not allowed and does violate its copyright. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
