Here's another round of first lines for you (I know, I know, you're probably getting sick of them. But humor me once more, please):
I felt like I was trapped in one of those terrifying nightmares, the one where you have to run, run till your lungs burst, but you can’t make your body move fast enough. -- Stephaenie Meyer, New Moon.
I was thirteen when my dad caught me with Tommy Webber in the back of Tommy’s Buick, parked next to the old Chart House down in Montara at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night. -- Sara Zarr, Story of a Girl.
I taped the commercial back in April, before anything had happened, and promptly forgot about it. -- Sarah Dessen, Just Listen.
On January 1, I made two wishes. -- Lauren Henderson, Kiss Me, Kill Me
There are places where kids like me go. Rachel Ward, NUM8ERS.
So Mom got the postcard today. -- Rebecca Stead, When You Reach Me.
There were only two kinds of people in our town. -- Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl, Beautiful Creatures.
I have had more than a dozen so-called mothers in my life. -- Ashley Rhodes-Courter, Three Little Words.
Julia was killed on Labor Day on her way home from a party. -- Jennifer R. Hubbard, The Secret Year.
One more rainy season and our roof will be gone, says Ama. -- Patricia McCormick, Sold.
Later, I would think of it as crossing over. -- Joyce Carol Oates, Freaky Green Eyes.
When I look into a mirror, it is her face I see. -- Ellen Hopkins, Identical.
Some of these work for me, and some of them don't. An blah-looking first line won't keep me from buying a book if I'm excited about the storyline, but if I'm only so-so, the writing in the first paragraph has a huge effect on me. What about you?
