Craft of Writing: First Lines!

Game Development Writing and Content
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This is something I’ve been taught, read, and thought a lot about over the years, as both a reader and a writer. When done well, I do like books and games that drop you in the middle of action or just convey the main character’s current thoughts and feelings right off the bat. I’ve enjoyed reading everyone’s responses so far.

Seeing as Have Human, Will Travel! is meant to pick up right after the first game, I tried to inject the right back into the action and help convey the MC’s current sense of mid-portal jump confusion with some onomatopoeia, thought to be honest, I’m still playing with it:

WHOOSH!

A powerful pull drags you forward, your eyes squeezed shut against blinding brightness.

Interestingly, although 1984 is one of my favorite books of all time and its opening line of “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen” is fairly iconic, I never felt like it grabbed me right away. Dickens was good with prosey openers. On the other hand, I find Jane Austen in general a really dry read, but "“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” was seemed really funny, so like any classic literature, YMMV.

As for CoG and HG, I particularly liked the openings to the first Lost Heir (“The sky is slashed with jagged tears of fire.”) and Choice of the Deathless (“The sky over the demon world is broken. Lightning licks the strange geometries of cloud.”), though there really are too many good ones to recount them all.

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It’s almost as if Max Gladstone knows what he’s doing!

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“Some people have great trouble dividing kind dreams from cruel but for you there is no complication; she refused to attend a nightmare.” -From the WiP Down Here that I’m currently working on in my free time (which unfortunately isn’t much time at all).

Since the protagonist is asleep at the onset, I wanted to convey that sense of fantastic confusion that we often find in dreams. I wanted the reader to have questions and I wanted them to feel conflicted about the ‘she’ referred to in the sentence: why is she in his/her dreams and why does she ‘refuse’ to be in a nightmare? I guess that answers the tone question as well: curious and maybe a bit foreboding. I don’t know if the line accomplishes my objective or if it dares the reader to put down the store or not. But I hope so.

Would I re-write that line? Probably. I tend to edit constantly as I write, sometimes returning to the very beginning of the story and reading/re-writing through it. Likely that’s the primary reason why my creative writing is so terribly inefficient and depressingly slow.

For a novel, I would have to say that the starting sentence of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is one of the great ones: “It was a pleasure to burn.” It is the exact sentence and sentiment to start that story.

I would say my favorite first line from a CS game would be (as noted also by @MizArtist33 above) from Choice of the Deathless: “The sky over the demon world is broken. Lightning licks the strange geometries of cloud.” The line just sets the mood so perfectly (even with the period the two sentences feel like one thought).

The next lines also work wonderfully to set the tone: “Around you rises the demon-city Akargath, warped crystal and flame, thorns and razor wire. And this is the nice part of town.” So not only does the story start with a great first line, but a rather smashing first paragraph. If Max Gladstone did not waste weeks of work on that stupendous start then I absolutely despise him his talent.

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Since reading and posting on this thread, I have rephrased my opening line about five different times. I can’t stop thinking about it when I have so many other things to write!!! Gah. This is why the forum is both a helpful and incredibly dangerous place to visit when I’m trying to write. @Eric_Moser, I blame you, lol! :sweat_smile::slightly_smiling_face::neutral_face::disappointed_relieved::cry::sob:

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You’re welcome! Just trying to make sure you stay busy! :smirk:

EDITED TO ADD: And this thread was supposed to be an easy one!!

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I think the general idea with these kinds of first lines is to make a first line that allows for a lot of possibilities (wide-angle camera shot) then start going into detail which limits those possibilities (close-up; in focus).

I could be wrong.
@Eric_Moser can explain it. :wink:

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On a sidenote: If I may, what’s your favourite line from your WiP? What’s the thing you think makes people curios of just what the context is?
For me it’s
“And I got you a cookbook! It’s eeeeviiil.”

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If I may add to this, I feel that first lines also need to be aimed at the target audience, rather than just generally trying to pull a reader in.

I’ve been toying around with writing a CS story and the first line at the moment is “The blurred splotches of window light illuminate greying white walls as you hurry across the narrow sidewalk, dodging around inappropriately parked cars, neck suck into your sweater to ward off the bitter morning cold.” Is it hooking? No. Is it original? No. But it constructs a particular atmosphere - I hope - of tiredness and bleak ennui, and the length of the sentence reflects the endlessness and crowdedness that the MC experiences as they hurry along urban streets. I have a very specific target audience in mind: as a sort of prose transposition of Eliot’s poetry, it’s going to be hard sci-fi with lots of technical details that explores the benefits and drawbacks of a ‘biotechnology revolution’. If a reader finds the first sentence boring or can’t even read it, then that’s fine - they probably wouldn’t have been able to engage with the atmosphere of the overall story or the scientific detail anyway.

So the way I see it, first lines also establish the readership you’re looking for, so you don’t waste the reader’s time and you avoid misunderstandings.

As for novels, I agree with dashingdon that Fahrenheit 451’s first sentence was intriguing and set up the conflict in the rest of the novel quite nicely.

For CoG/Hosted games, I particularly liked the one in Grand Academy for Villains: “The walls rise before you, vast and wrong.” Here you get the sense of being in awe over a prestigious institution and an undeniable turning point in your life, whilst also recognising the humourous tone that permeates the rest of the story.

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The first line of my WIP is:

“Nothing but pitch-blackness surrounds you as you stumble your way down the tunnel, barely enough light present to see your way forward.”

The line is meant to convey a sense of confinement, confusion, and a light sprinkling of helplessness, setting up the somewhat grim tale that I currently have planned. As far as whether or not it dares the reader to put down the story, I can’t say for certain, but I think it does well enough.

I’ll likely re-write it eventually, but as it stands now, I’m content enough with it that it’s low on the priority list.

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Another great topic @Eric_Moser
I think a lot of good opening lines set the tone for the rest of the book and say a lot in a few words, and/or drop the reader into an action sequence. So they either intrigue the reader, or get them caught up in action long enough to keep reading past the first page.

Comment below with the first line of your WiP or a story you’ve already written! Analyze the first line; what does it accomplish? What tone does it set? Does it dare the reader to put down the story?

“The shock of freezing water presses in from all sides, weightless but at the same time crushing and enveloping you in a cocoon of dark blue.”
I guess I’m trying to set a darker tone and get the reader to be curious enough about what is going on to keep reading. It’s kind of why I decided to start it here, rather than at the “real” begining which gets mentioned later.

Would you re-write the first line if you have the chance or are you happy with it?

I’ll probably leave it but, if I can think of something better I might change it :slight_smile:

Comment with an example of an AWESOME first line from a novel, comic book, etc that you think should be shared.

There’s lots of great openings. I think these ones do a good job at showing the overall tone of the book and being interesting enough to draw the reader in.

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.”
-Hitchhiker’s guide. (It’s quirky, and it’s like, I can guess which star he’s referring to, wonder why it’s being brought up like that?)

“The building was on fire, and it wasn’t my fault.”
-Dresden Files, Blood rites. (Anyone who’s read this series knows why that line is appropriate :D. Even if you haven’t though, it’s kind of like. Ok so a building is on fire. Wait. Why would you think it needs mentioning that its not your fault this time?)

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
-1984 (I actually like that one @MizArtist33, each to their own :grin: Also I think that the Author of Superlatives might be channelling Austen for the first line. I got a giggle out of it. “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young man or woman of Superlative talent must be in need of a mask.”)

I’ve always liked Wheel of Time’s opening (although it really needs to be read as a paragraph to make sense.)
“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.”

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Okay I wrote a new opening line.

“Staking out a criminal hangout would be dangerous enough even if your teammate was sober.”

Then I move into the description of the actual scene.

So does anyone think this is better/worse than starting with, “Crook points to a pair of gang members staggering from a dive bar below.”?

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Better. Really encapsulates the CCH vibe.

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I could also see something like…

“Easiest stakeout ever. I found the Crook. He’s drunk. He’s also my teammate.”

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So much better! Tone, drama (‘Crook’ doesn’t mean anything to a newcomer to the series…but ‘criminal stakeout and my sidekick is drunk???’ absolutely does), multiple conflicts (you vs drunk partner, you vs criminals, potentially you vs hangout full of criminals…)

Also ‘two criminals at a dive bar’ is not as compelling as ‘criminal hangout’ to me…because it could be a criminal hangout, the first option, but it could also just be two criminals at some perfectly legit (if generally sketchy) dive bar.

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Love the new line.

(+Effing Discourse)

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Both @Fiogan and @Havenstone said it - the new line is better in tone and in pace.

Love it for conveying the sense of danger at the onset.

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Thanks everyone! I feel like I learned something from this thread, and that’s a great feeling! I hope others feel the same!

If anyone else ends up changing their first line, even if it’s weeks down the road, let us know! This thread isn’t going anywhere. I hope these Craft threads can be resources we can add to and update from time to time.

@Fiogan, as usual, great analysis. Yes, I think it’s a much stronger line that will entice new readers, or even just readers who haven’t picked CCH in over two years. They don’t need to know/remember anything about the prior story.

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Welp, since we’re sharing, here is the current state of our new opening line, which may or may not get changed another ten times, depending on how much more I obsess over it. :sweat_smile: Actually, let’s make it the opening paragraph, for a bit more context/the whole picture:

WHOOSH!

A powerful suction propels you onward, spiraling into the vast unknown, eyes reflexively squeezed shut. Dancing, purple sparkles fill the darkness behind your eyelids. Your body is lighter than air, then overwhelmingly heavy, followed by eight seconds of the most extreme, mind-bending nausea you have ever experienced. Suddenly, everything stops.

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Quite right. Crook was not always the most central to the story, so even casual fans who read the first may not immediately remember who he is. And anyone who doesn’t could potentially be thrown by his villainous-sounding name, despite the context.

For now, I have changed my opener to “Like everything else, surviving extinction is a learning experience.” I will have to see if I can come up with something better though, but I think this already improves upon a dry introduction of the setting.

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That’s a good opening paragraph. But with all that going on, would the MC really know that the nausea lasted for precisely eight seconds? :stuck_out_tongue:

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