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/lit/ - Literature

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11879831 No.11879831 [Reply] [Original]

Why is the opening sentence the hardest part of any novel, short story, novella, etc.?

>poetryfags need not reply

>> No.11879889

1. June came around again to fill the cracks of the pavement with her squirt.

2. I am fucking a comatose prostitute in a favela alley while kids let of firecrackers around the corner.

3. Aliens die easy; almost as easy as commies.

4. When I decided to kill myself it was mostly to prove a point than to win a bet.

5. Her tits were like two scoops of vanilla come-fuck-me and that was exactly what I intended to do.

6. Punching a hole through a man's head until your wrist shatters on the concrete below can teach you surprisingly a lot about the intricacies of Marxism-Leninism.

7. Rebeka I am so sorry.....PSYCHE!


See. You can just shit these lines out like nothing. Your problem is you are a coward.

>> No.11879940

>>11879889
Those are all terrible. They sound like something a try-hard 16 year old would write.

>> No.11879967

>>11879831

It's really not. Don't buy the bullshit that your first sentence has to introduce the entire gist of the novel. It simply has to hint at a setting (location OR time) and give the reader *something* to easily imagine:

>The last time Uncle Robert stopped by, I remember hiding in the back yard until he left.

>When I woke up I could hear the coyote howling out behind the barn.

>The coldest day of the year - February 20th - we all shuffled out behind the church, wincing from the wind, and said a short prayer. Then my mother was lowered into the frozen earth.

>> No.11879991
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11879991

>>11879831
>The virgin opening line versus the chad opening paragraph

>> No.11880058

>>11879991

What translation is that? I always remember it as:

"I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man. I am an ugly man. And my liver hurts."

>> No.11880091

>>11879831
Because you are setting up a mood, a setting and a scenario simultaneously. Heck, maybe even a character or two and an attitude.

>> No.11880209

>>11879940
Total and massive cowards like you will never make it.

>> No.11880263

>>11879831
The ending is harder. It is the last moment that will be left in the reader's mind, your last opportunity to sprak, it is the apocalypse of the story and a return to reality.
Beginnings can be completely ordinary, their function is very overrated by amateur writers.

>> No.11880268

>>11880263
To speak*

>> No.11880292

>>11880209
Incompetent people like you will never make it, buddy.

>> No.11881524

What novel has the longest opening sentence?
"Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus Teutsch" has a very long one but I'm sure there are longer ones.

>Es eröffnet sich zu dieser unserer Zeit (von welcher man glaubet, daß es die letzte sei) unter geringen Leuten eine Sucht, in deren die Patienten, wann sie daran krank liegen und so viel zusammengeraspelt und erschachert haben, daß sie neben ein paar Kellern im Beutel ein närrisches Kleid auf die neue Mode mit tausenderlei seidenen Bändern antragen können oder sonst etwan durch Glücksfall mannhaft und bekannt worden, gleich rittermäßige Herren und adlige Personen von uraltem Geschlecht sein wollen; da sich doch oft befindet und auf fleißiges Nachforschen nichts anders herauskommt, als daß ihre Voreltern Schornsteinfeger, Taglöhner, Karchelzieher und Lastträger, ihre Vettern Eseltreiber, Taschenspieler, Gaukler und Seiltänzer, ihre Brüder Büttel und Schergen, ihre Schwestern Nähterin, Wäscherin, Besenbinderinnen oder wohl gar Huren, ihre Mütter Kupplerinnen oder gar Hexen, und in Summa ihr ganzes Geschlecht von allen 32 Anichen her also besudelt und befleckt gewesen, als des Zuckerbastels Zunft zu Prag immer sein mögen; ja sie, diese neue Nobilisten, seind oft selbest so schwarz, als wann sie in Guinea geboren und erzogen wären worden.

>> No.11881549

>>11879889
two of these are funny, one is so bad it's funny, the rest is simply awful.

>> No.11881612

>>11879889
>5
alright, that one was good. i can imagine the protag of a black and white noir narrorating that as he's about to clap some cheeks

>> No.11881627

>>11879831
Shut up.
You alredy made three threads you anime posting cur.

>> No.11881646

>>11881627
This is an anime image board, you wretched redditor.

>> No.11881659

>>11881646
Grow up

>> No.11881701

>>11881659
>he says, arguing about an anime picture posted on an anonymous anime imageboard

>> No.11881719

>>11881701
Yes, grow up