/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20212687]

>opener lines for novel
how the fuck do you write these?

ITT give me your best "first lines"

[Anonymous No.20212691]

I hate women.

[Anonymous No.20212694]

>>20212687
"Call me Ishmael."
"It was a pleasure to burn."

[Anonymous No.20212707]

>>20212687
Lolita has my favorite opening. Nabokov was an esl, surely you can write something half as good.

[Anonymous No.20212740]

>>20212687
I write about one short story a week and thinking of their opening lines is usually my favourite part.

Here are some that I recently came up with:

>The rain woke me up around seven. My head hurt in a strangely pleasant way.

>I got Sophia's text as I was beginning to leave, but I didn't open it until I got home. I should have, in hindsight.

>I'm going to kill my boss today. I might kill myself too, but if I do it won't be until sometime next week. Until then I want to ride the high.

>I sometimes wish I had less options. If I didn't have to choose between the two I'd probably really love one of them. In all likelihood, I'll ghost them both and move back home. Why shouldn't I after all.

[Anonymous No.20212745]

pss pss
sound of piss hitting the toilet bowl

[Anonymous No.20212748]

>>20212740
The third and the fourth are pretty good, immediately sparked my interest. Not sure about the other two

[Anonymous No.20212751]

>>20212687
shakespeare's openers were always my favorite. engages the audience/reader

[Anonymous No.20212820]

>>20212687
I'm particularly proud of "It started like this:"

[Anonymous No.20212831]

>>20212740

>I'm going to kill my boss today. I might kill myself too, but if I do it won't be until sometime next week.
like this
>Until then I want to ride the high.
immediately lost interest again.

[Anonymous No.20212864]

I recommend something interesting like an onomatopoeia. also include something unique like pancakes or a golden retriever, for instance.

[Anonymous No.20212865]

I start with a dialogue.

[Anonymous No.20213022]

>>20212687
The dark rider swept over the desert sand.

[Anonymous No.20213072]

>>20212687
you're supposed to write the opening for last

[Anonymous No.20213080]

>>20212740
>less
fewer

[Anonymous No.20213084]

>Today, mom died. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know. I received a telegram from the old people's home: "Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Very sincerely yours." That doesn't mean anything. It might have been yesterday.

[Anonymous No.20213090]

>>20213084
>mom
disgusting

[Anonymous No.20213135]

a screaming comes across the sky

[Anonymous No.20213155]

>>20212687
Gully Foyle is my name, Terra is my nation, deep space is my dwelling place, and the stars my destination.

[Anonymous No.20213213]

>>20212707
>Nabokov was an esl,
He wasn't though

[Anonymous No.20213221]

someone post suttree's

[Anonymous No.20213237]

>>20212820
>*Yep, this is me. You might be wondering how I ended up in this situation."

[Anonymous No.20213248]

>>20212707
Is that a gender?

[Anonymous No.20213267]

You just start the story normally. I hate those pretentious faggots trying to pull the most epic loldeep phrase on line one. Can't stand that shit

[Anonymous No.20213280]

It was a dark and stormy night

[Anonymous No.20213304]

>>20213155
based kickham

[Anonymous No.20213553]

>>20212687
It was a chucky and sneedy night...

[Anonymous No.20213611]

It was a beautiful clear skied morning.
Women were hated
Ishmael burned himself
And Lolita did some writing.

I’m going to kill my boss today
Said the sound of the piss in the bowl
And then a faggot came and shitted up the thread
Until Shakespeare started

Lost faggots recommend onomatopoeia
And dialogue and desert sand
And openers for last

Fewer disgusting screams come across the sky
Where Gully Foyle is my name and Terra is my guy
He wasn’t suttree
Is that gender?

You start the story normally with pretentious faggots
Pulling in the dark night
A based and kicky chucky and sneedy night

[Anonymous No.20213660]

>>20212687
>She cheated, then dismissed me.
Typical. She said I bored her, and anyone that's ever dated knows that women like her dump men like me when they get bored. It's routine. I just wish it felt that way.

You can do it, anon. I just channele. Fitzgerald and shat that out, you can do it too.

[Anonymous No.20213668]

>>20212687
"One cannot raise walls against what has been forgotten.
The citadel of Ishuäl succumbed during the height of the Apocalypse. But no army of inhuman Sranc had scaled its ramparts. No furnace-hearted dragon had pulled down its mighty gates. Ishuäl was the secret refuge of the Kûniüric High Kings, and no one, not even the No-God, could besiege a secret.
Months earlier, Anasûrimbor Ganrelka II, High King of Kûniüri, had fled to Ishuäl with the remnants of his household. From the walls, his sentries stared pensively across the dark forests below, their thoughts stricken by memories of burning cities and wailing multitudes. When the wind moaned, they gripped Ishuäl’s uncaring stone, reminded of Sranc horns. They traded breathless reassurances. Had they not eluded their pursuers? Were not the walls of Ishuäl strong? Where else might a man survive the end of the world?
The plague claimed the High King first, as was perhaps fitting: Ganrelka had only wept at Ishuäl, raged the way only an Emperor of nothing could rage. The following night the members of his household carried his bier down into the forests. They glimpsed the eyes of wolves reflected in the light of his pyre. They sang no dirges, intoned only a few numb prayers.
Before the morning winds could sweep his ashes skyward, the plague had struck two others: Ganrelka’s concubine and her daughter. As though pursuing his bloodline to its thinnest tincture, it assailed more and more members of his household. The sentries upon the walls became fewer, and though they still watched the mountainous horizon, they saw little. The cries of the dying crowded their thoughts with too much horror.
Soon even the sentries were no more. The five Knights of Trysë who’d rescued Ganrelka after the catastrophe on the Fields of Eleneöt lay motionless in their beds. The Grand Vizier, his golden robes stained bloody by his bowel, lay sprawled across his sorcerous texts. Ganrelka’s uncle, who’d led the heartbreaking assault on Golgotterath’s gates in the early days of the Apocalypse, hung from a rope in his chambers, slowly twisting in a draft. The Queen stared endlessly across festering sheets."

[Anonymous No.20213685]

>>20213668
This is fucking terrible. How can you possibly think this shit is good? Read a book or two.

[Anonymous No.20213688]

Whats behind your eyes? An unknown entity.

Saw that on lit sometime ago sounded gud

[Anonymous No.20213705]

Hitler was a sensitive man

[Anonymous No.20213737]

>>20213685
This is literally the opening to a published book

[Anonymous No.20213748]

>>20213685
people who read fantasy lap that shit up

[Anonymous No.20213762]

>>20212707
I don't know what an esl is.

[Anonymous No.20213767]

>>20212831
Agreed. Listen to this guy.

[Anonymous No.20213770]

>>20213737
That just makes it even worse. How did this garbage get published?

[Anonymous No.20213784]

>>20213770
If it makes you feel any better, the author who wrote that got dropped for his publisher because his series was that terrible.

[Anonymous No.20213785]

>>20213668
kek classic

[Anonymous No.20213886]

>>20213785
Yeah, it's pretty terrible. Makes me wonder who can ever enjoy that shit.

[Anonymous No.20214327]

>>20212687
The sun almost ignited the dry hot air, while the leaves of the trees that lined up around the graveyard showed their darkest green. Today, X thought, I will ...

[Anonymous No.20214349]

A shot rang out.

[Anonymous No.20214350]

>>20213237
*record scratch*
*freeze frame*

[Anonymous No.20214368]

>>20214327
My butthole had never been so enflamed. They said the peppers would feel the same coming out as they did going in. They lied. It's worse.

[Anonymous No.20214371]

>>20212687
The merry month of May has always been famous for its propitious influence over the voluptuous senses of the fairer sex.

[Anonymous No.20214394]

Ass-creaming came across this guy.

[Anonymous No.20214413]

>>20212687
The calamities that have since plagued my life from the start of the year began, as most misfortunes so often do, with a woman.

[Anonymous No.20214436]

>>20213135
Kino

[Anonymous No.20214441]

>>20213135
A scream rent the air

[Anonymous No.20214451]

>>20213668
copy pasted this quote into google and a thread about the best prose from r/fantasy showed up.

[Anonymous No.20214520]

>Admiring what I've done, finally beginning to feel the consequences coil around my heart, I realized I should've killed myself all those years ago.

>Above all things, I fear that God will forgive me.

>And so, the sun rises anew.

[Anonymous No.20214528]

>>20214451
>best prose from r/fantasy showed up.
Jesus christ, what the fuck. Please tell me you're joking. I refuse to believe this.

[Anonymous No.20214584]

>>20214528
no, and two replies agreeing

[Anonymous No.20214618]

Hello, and welcome to my story.

[Anonymous No.20214623]

She was really into anal.

[Anonymous No.20214627]

>I'm pretty much fucked.

[Anonymous No.20214635]

>>20212687
“Orange MIO soaked into the grid paper, and I wept”

[Anonymous No.20214643]

>>20213762
English second language

[Anonymous No.20214672]

>>20213668
I read it in a voice of a Conan audiobook I once listened too.
https://voca.ro/17rZkFI7S3Cm

the voice inspiration: Phil Chenevert- https://librivox.org/the-devil-in-iron-by-robert-e-howard/

I really like his cadence.

[Anonymous No.20214676]

>>20212740
>I'm going to kill my boss today. I might kill myself too, but if I do it won't be until sometime next week.
This is the only one I liked.

[Anonymous No.20214677]

>>20214584
Christ, those fags are truly lost then.

[Anonymous No.20214709]

>>20212687
I like to open with either a striking image or plot detail that grabs you and pulls you in or something like a thought-provoking aphorism. For example Tolstoy's famous opening line to A.K. is aphoristic: ""Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." An example of a striking detail would be, to use a throwaway one: "Blood dripped down the gutter and swirled down the sewer drain, as if running from the deed that was just done."
Never open with a description of the weather or some banal routine activity . You'd be surprised how many shit writers start their stories with "It was a cool autumn day" or "John woke up and with his vision still blurry drank a cup of water."

Opening with the weather makes intuitive sense because humans are visual and there's a feeling that the weather and scenery "sets the scene" so you describe that first. But unless it's really relevant it's just an empty prop and doesn't pull you into the story. Same with routines. Our lives are 50% routines but if you describe it in a boring matter of fact way you're doing the very opposite of what you're supposed to be doing . People want to read something that transports them and makes them forget about how dull existing is.

[Anonymous No.20214922]

>>20212687
What are some good non first person openers?

[Anonymous No.20214934]

>>20214922
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

[Anonymous No.20214938]

>I'm not a racist, but

[Anonymous No.20214948]

>>20212687

>NIGGERS could be here. I HATE NIGGERS he thought.

[Anonymous No.20214976]

Sometime between the coffee wearing off and the streetlights turning on was when the fear started to creep over me again.

[Anonymous No.20214983]

>>20214976
KINO

[Anonymous No.20215099]

'Newcomers describe the arrival as awakening from an eternity-long nap that felt like an instant'.

This is the opening of a book set in Hell.

[Anonymous No.20215122]

>>20215099
Which book

[Anonymous No.20215135]

>>20215122
The one I'm writing, I could have worded it better

[Anonymous No.20215136]

>>20212831
agreed as well. souds super edgy and imo it doesnt make al lot of sense to talk about a high that hasnt happened yet.

>>20212740
also cut the last sentence on the fourth opener. it sounds like a lotr meme and it feels very inconsistant for the character. at first the character realises acknowledges his irrationality by not choosing one and moving back home, which is immediately followed up by a rationalisation. why not build on that irrational element of the character more?

[Anonymous No.20215155]

>>20212687
Rate mine:
'The pauline epistles and their consequences have been a disaster for the human race.'

[Anonymous No.20215182]

>>20212687
The best way to deal with this is to not worry about it at all.

[Anonymous No.20215212]

>>20212687
>It was a dark and stormy night,

[Anonymous No.20215232]

>>20213213
He literally was?????

[Anonymous No.20215270]

>>20214413
I like this

[Anonymous No.20215294]

>There's a nigger on the loose.

[Anonymous No.20215308]

>>20215232
oh fuck he kind of wasn't shit mods delete my last post

[Anonymous No.20215341]

A flush carried away his fourth shit of the day. Yet, much more shit remained to be done.

[Anonymous No.20215458]

>>20215155
Kinda copey-seethey

[Anonymous No.20215550]

>>20212740
Based

[Anonymous No.20215663]

I’ve only ever heard of two men who died while conducting their business on the toilet. Elvis Presley, and the now former owner of apartment #207 of the Greenfield apartment complex. The timing could not be better, for I had recently decided to move into the neighborhood. My other option was 15 minutes down the road in a rental unit lorded over by a demented old women enjoying a life estate. She died about 3 months after my move, and her property went to her son who had abandoned her. He resold the property to private developers, who subsequently tore down the home the son had grown up in. Before construction began, the developers went bust. Now the land sits uncultivated. If I had any money I would purchase it.

[Anonymous No.20215713]

>>20212740
These are excellent anon. Based writing a short story every week too. Wish I had that kind of discipline.

[Anonymous No.20215874]

"See the child."

[Anonymous No.20215911]

>>20212687
he was talking a shit in the pond when

[Anonymous No.20215916]

>>20212740
The boss one is the only good one.

[Anonymous No.20215923]

>>20213668
I can't believe people actually like that. I read fantasy but it's nowhere as terrible as this

[Anonymous No.20215949]

Leonard Bilsiter was one of those people who have failed to find this world attractive or interesting, and who have sought compensation in an “unseen world” of their own experience or imagination—or invention. Children do that sort of thing successfully, but children are content to convince themselves, and do not vulgarise their beliefs by trying to convince other people. Leonard Bilsiter’s beliefs were for “the few,” that is to say, anyone who would listen to him.

[Anonymous No.20215976]

>>20212687
Jack Debur is thus pronounced guilty of murder and condemned to seventy years of official military service," was the last phrase Jack heard before the machine activated and wiped his mind.

[Anonymous No.20216200]

>>20212687
You have an image of the scene. The rest is on you. It requires poetry. Like >>20214948

[Anonymous No.20216212]

>>20212740
I’d keep the “riding the high” part as long as it’s elaborated on how he feels the high

[Anonymous No.20216354]

>>20212687
Typed from memory from John Barth's A Sot Weed Factor
"In the last years of the seventeenth century there was to be found among the fops and fools of the London coffee houses one rangy gangling flitch named Ebeneezer cook, more ambitious than talented, more talented than prudent, who, likes his friends in folly, all of whom were supposed to be educating at Oxford or Cambridge, had found the sound of Mother English more fun to game with than her sense to labor over, and so rather than applying himself to the pains of scholarship, had learned the knack of versifying, and ground out quires of couplets after the fashion of the day, afroth with joves and jupiters, aclang with jarring rhymes, and string taught with similes stretched to the snapping point."

[Anonymous No.20216364]

>>20214672
>https://voca.ro/17rZkFI7S3Cm

I enjoyed this greatly

[Anonymous No.20216414]

>>20212740
all bad

[Anonymous No.20216419]

>>20216414
Gosh you're so cool and contrarian can I please suck your dick? Pseud poser

[Anonymous No.20216428]

>>20216419
>can I please suck your dick
no. i detest fellatio, which is why i have to rain on the dicksucking parade that your post started

[Anonymous No.20216451]

>>20213668
>>20214672
This shit is so fucking horrendous that I refuse anyone actually reads this garbage, let alone a company publishing this. Was this self-publish?

[Anonymous No.20216455]

>>20212707
He was thought English and French since he was a tender child. He also attended classes in Oxford later in his life. He knew the language more than well.

[Anonymous No.20216558]

"You certain?"
"Do I look uncertain to you?"
A scar twitched again, "this is exactly the problem with you smug assholes - are you going to bite the bullet if shit goes south from here?"
That goddamn scar. Cheek spliced in two, giving otherwise regular features a dark twist, this vague yet unnerving aura, contrasting with thin - withered even - physique.

[Anonymous No.20216604]

>>20216451
I hate to break it to you lad, but its from "The Darkness that Comes Before" which is a VERY famous fantasy novel. So no, it isn't self published.

[Anonymous No.20216616]

>>20216604
>VERY famous fantasy novel.
>Very
Don't lie to him. It's not famous. And the series was so shit that the publisher had to drop because of it. Imagine, writing something so terrible that not even genre fiction readers don't want it.

[Anonymous No.20217107]

>>20214672
nice

[Anonymous No.20217322]

>The thunder of his dreams turned with sudden violence into a repeated knock on the front door. As he rose slowly from bed his eyes fell on the clock. 3:15 in the morning.

[Anonymous No.20217380]

>>20212687
Not novels, but Borges's short stories have a lot of those
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Márquez
Jazz, Toni Morrison

Also I like
>See the kid.
from Blood Meridian

[Anonymous No.20217382]

>>20213237
I would kek

[Anonymous No.20217385]

>>20212687
The first chapter is the last one you write.

[Anonymous No.20217396]

>>20212740
I like the third one but
>I might kill myself too, but if I do it won't be until sometime next week.
is a bit clunky, not punchy enough.
>I write about one short story a week
Sounds fun desu

[Anonymous No.20217397]

>>20213072
Says who? Your English 1000 teacher?

[Anonymous No.20217399]

>>20213135
Woah, nice

[Anonymous No.20217403]

>>20212687

ITT give me your best "first lines"

>Thank God I'm White.

[Anonymous No.20217474]

>Only one enemy remained; two if you counted God.

[Anonymous No.20217484]

>>20216354
This shit rocks

[Anonymous No.20217493]

These are a few of my favorites:
“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.”

"The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the following entry in the Transactions of the Pickwick Club, which the editor of these papers feels the highest pleasure in laying before his readers, as a proof of the careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination, with which his search among the multifarious documents confided to him has been conducted"

"Ilsebill put on more salt. Before the impregnation there was shoulder of mutton with string beans and pears, the season being early October."

[Anonymous No.20217588]

>>20213668
ESL here.
Anyone mind explaining why it's bad? Other than the fact it's a terrible word soup with half-baked allegories. I'm guessing the intent was to be striking and poetic. Anyways, I've honestly seen much, much worse, so I was wondering why exactly this one generated such a strong reaction.

[Anonymous No.20217651]

i remember one that was something along the lines of "I once robbed a bank with a pool noodle and a rusted pair of scissors while my brother set his hand on fire in the getaway car, but that is a story for another time."
the first half i made up but it something equally ridiculous. the second half "story for another time", i remember for sure being there

[Anonymous No.20217664]

>>20212707
One of the best modern opening passages I’ve ever read to be sure. The way he captures the physical dimension and depth of the narrator’s obsession there:

>The tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the pallate to tap at three on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Tah.

Really draws you into this fucked up dude’s headspace. I have no idea how someone comes up with that shit he’s on another level

[Anonymous No.20217728]

>>20217588
You being serious?

[Anonymous No.20217741]

>>20217588
Read more books that aren’t shit and you would know why its bad.

[Anonymous No.20217766]

"Despite what everyone might tell you, it wasn't my fault Grandma died."

"This wasn't the first time I'd woken up at the bottom of the ocean."

"When I stepped into school, the last thing I expected to see was my dead Sister."

>What do ya think, guys?

[Anonymous No.20217773]

>>20217728
I would love to see the thought process behind why, exactly, it's bad. Yes.

[Anonymous No.20217812]

>>20217766
second is kino, a lot of room for maneuvering after writing something like this

[Anonymous No.20218002]

>>20217766
>"This wasn't the first time I'd woken up at the bottom of the ocean."
This one's great, probably one of the few in this thread.

[Anonymous No.20218022]

>>20213090
Based Maman enjoyer

[Anonymous No.20218023]

>>20217397
Blaise Pascal

[Anonymous No.20218091]

>>20217741
Some of the classics start off worse than that.
Like, of course. That entire set of paragraphs is nothing more than a word salad of things happening without really giving anyone a reason to care. But you can tell the author at least was passionate about whatever the fuck that's supposed to be. That already makes it better, at least in spirit, than 90% of the trash out there.
Which is why I'm asking. I feel it's doing the thread itself a disservice to just dismiss and laugh at it without really explaining *why*.

[Anonymous No.20218147]

Currently writing a fantasy novel. Here's my first line and paragraph:

>In the twelfth year of that vile civil war, a giant battle-statue called Makina would walk fair Atlantica, that land between worlds, and uproot the Earth. But who would pilot it? Tradition held the firstborn line of the Makina’s original commissioner. Unfortunately for Eli son of Solon, he was born second, just a year after his brother Lynos.

[Anonymous No.20218172]

>>20213668
>As though pursuing his bloodline to its thinnest tincture...

This line is pretty exceptional.

[Anonymous No.20218179]

>>20218091
Some of the classics start off worse than that.
ive personally never seen one even close to this. for me, despite it just being boring and aesthetically ugly, the metaphors are possibly the worst ive ever seen penned, except from quotes posted here by the same author.
>Ganrelka had only wept at Ishuäl, raged the way only an Emperor of nothing could rage
what exactly does this mean? Its just staed with no evidence. The whole book appears to be like this. Sentences that sound cool with no evidence or actual storytelling done
its like hearing bad music, not much to rlly say about it

[Anonymous No.20218426]

>>20213280
was looking for this, thank you

[Anonymous No.20218521]

>>20218179
I kinda see your point, that it's trying to skip to these striking images without doing the work to build them up to mean something. But it seems to be going for an effect like that of a montage in a film, a set of establishing shots that give you a picture of what's going on and a feel for the emotional pitch of the events. My main problem with it is just the usual awkwardness of exposition when trying to work from the perspective of characters who are already aware of the situation; it would be better if he could find a way to just stick to images and neutral statements rather than trying to use the characters' thoughts to refer to the events he wants to mention. I suppose that's a problem with genre fiction in general though and that passage just exemplifies it. Obviously Bakker is a massive cringe edgelord but having only seen this, I don't think his writing or aesthetic sensibility is egregiously bad.

[Anonymous No.20218632]

I have seen three pictures of the man.

[Anonymous No.20218639]

>>20217766
Shit. Stop trying to be le catchy and write normally

[Anonymous No.20218675]

i like to poop, it's fucking fun but i hate when the shit water hits my ass

[Anonymous No.20218707]

>Why did she like bees so much, she would've loved the bee movie, or hated it, i don't know.

the opening line from my planned short story with many interspersed poems

[Anonymous No.20218834]

Do the one about the lady blowing the dead baby NOW!

[Anonymous No.20218837]

>>20214349
“If it doesn’t begin, ‘A shot rang out,’ ” Kingsley Amis once declared, “I don’t want to read it.”

[Anonymous No.20218886]

reposting an old post on the same topic:

I was watching a video the other day and the author said the first line is the whole story, it's a sort of rhythmic foundation, and once it's written the rest of the story is just unfolding that first sentence (Salman Rushdie says a similar thing, that it all builds from the first sentence, and much of the process of beginning to write is about getting that first sentence right so that the angle of attack for the whole novel is clear). I do and do not agree with that--the metaphor ran too far, perhaps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsY1viY4NUI&t=5s

I have read one book by Colm before and it bored me to tears, but I found his interview there to be interesting. The idea of not reading your work out loud too was new to me, and it makes sense, but I am not sure I really agree. I am in two minds.

First sentences:

>MOTHER died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure.

This to me is a very good first sentence and has elements I want to see always. I want to see a sort of tension, I want an image that is half formed almost, I want something that is not quite explained, something that establishes a sort of mystery or tension or strangeness. I think incompleteness is certainly good, or contradiction. Enigmatic. The first lines should be enigmatic, there should be some mystery that compels me to continue. That doesn't always need to be so strange a thing as it is in The Stranger, who doesn't even know when his mother died. Here is the opening to The Cook by Henry Kressing which I read yesterday

>One hill stood out. It was steeper than the others, and higher. Also, it had no peak.

It's not very unusual, it's a landscape description, something ten a penny in literature. But the rhythms are good, first of all, they are clipped and curt, and that itself is a kind of incompleteness that spurs me on. "One hill stood out.". How? Even that first line represents a kind of mystery that invites you to watch it unfold. Of course it grows more interest then, the hill stands out because it is higher, very good, very normal, but also, "Also, it had no peak". Strange, no? A hill without a peak? And I struggle in my head to picture what on earth that is. Of course he explains it is a hill that plateaus, a flat top, but as for opening lines these were simple but good and established problems and images that invited the reader to contemplate them.

>>20217766
I like the second one a lot. But each of those are examples of effective opening lines, they all pose a number of questions that entice the reader to discover more.

[Anonymous No.20218989]

It definitely depends for what atmosphere the book is going for what opening line to go for. My favorite I have is a sentence or 2 about a raindrop falling. I'd share it but I don't like the critique of others.

[Anonymous No.20219343]

„Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt.“

[Anonymous No.20219371]

>>20212694
>"Call me Ishmael"
Nigger

[Anonymous No.20219414]

>>20212740
I think I'll try doing one short story a week as well, sounds fun.

[Anonymous No.20219459]

A creaming cums inside the pie.

[Anonymous No.20219819]

'My tired father used the thought-gaze' I always thought was a banger

[Anonymous No.20219871]

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

[Anonymous No.20220006]

>>20212687
Here's how it started. I'd never said a word. Not one word. It was Arthur Ganate that made me speak up.

[Anonymous No.20220015]

>>20220000

[Anonymous No.20220032]

First sentence isn't important, but the first paragraph has to be really strong

[Anonymous No.20220036]

>>20218707
pretty bad but
>or hated it, i don't know.
makes it so much worse

[Anonymous No.20220182]

>>20214672
what would you call this accent or delivery style? Its deliberate and stresses the ending sylable. any linguistics people here? I like it.

idk wy but it does give of a 1930s pulp vibe.

[Anonymous No.20220387]

>>20213280
this one is the most fucked up openings to get EVERYONE to shut up and listen.

[Anonymous No.20220411]

Today I will kill my girlfriend. I hate her and that's it. I could explain and explain and explain and I could go on and on and on. But that's it. I will kill her because I want to, and I want to because she's a whore. And she deserves it because she's a whore that's what. A whore, a whore, a whore. And I hate whores.

[Anonymous No.20220412]

Betwixt a laden sunset atop the firm hilltop of Norhamgar the call of wrath was sounded.

[Anonymous No.20220568]

>>20213553
>Once upon a midnight sneedy, while I pondered, weak and weary,

[Anonymous No.20220710]

>>20220411
>I thought about killing you today
>premeditated murder
>I think about killing myself and I love myself way more than I love you
>so you best believe
>I thought about killing you
>people say "don't say this, don't say that"
>just say it outloud, see how it feels
>today I seriously thought about killing you
When did you realized Ye was the greatest writer of our time?

[Anonymous No.20220783]

>>20220710
Never really listened to Kanye, but I'll give him a listen. Thanks for the recc anon.

[Anonymous No.20220791]

>>20220783
the life of pablo is one of the peaks of modern production artistically (trap style production so not a huge bar) and lyrically is genuinely good and interesting. One of the only things zoomers can point to as being their generations art.

[Anonymous No.20220899]

>"There was only one enemy left; two if you counted God."

[Anonymous No.20220922]

>>20220899
cringe

[Anonymous No.20221038]

It wiz an oorlie, jeelit night, in the dreich and dead o' Winter. Rain dropped, near invisible, fae a sky as black as pitch. Doom hung ower the village like a shadow.

[Anonymous No.20221097]

There are few things I regret more than coming here.

[Anonymous No.20221153]

Maman died today.

[Anonymous No.20221154]

>>20213611
So fucking underappreciated
Pearls before swine.

[Anonymous No.20221231]

starts mid sentence to drop the reader right into the action with a sense of impending urgency?

[Anonymous No.20221328]

>>20212707
> His childhood, which he called "perfect" and "cosmopolitan", was remarkable in several ways. The family spoke Russian, English, and French in their household, and Nabokov was trilingual from an early age. He related that the first English book his mother read to him was Misunderstood (1869) by Florence Montgomery. Much to his patriotic father's disappointment, Nabokov could read and write in English before he could in Russian.

[Anonymous No.20221514]

>all these LE EPIC SHOCKING TWIST right at the start of the novel
Holy reddit

[Anonymous No.20221522]

a gentle knight was pricking on the plaine

[Anonymous No.20221626]

>>20213221
Dear friend now in the dusty clockless hours of the town when the streets lie black and steaming in the wake of the watertrucks and now when drunk and homeless have washed up in the lee of walls in alleys or abandoned lots and cats go forth highshouldered and lean in the grim perimeters about, now in these sootblacked brick or cobbled corridors where lightwire shadows make a gothic harp of cellar doors no soul shall walk save you.

[Lower than nihilism No.20221630]

>>20213084
It's easy and fun to hate on Campus,, but he has his moments. I'll remember that old man and his sickly dog for the rest of my life.

[Anonymous No.20221643]

>>20212687
test

[Anonymous No.20221648]

>>20212687
I usually just describe something even if it's mundane. Like if my story takes place in a city I might describe the morning hour at which all the cleaners come out and start sweeping the streets before the sun comes up. Something like that.

[Anonymous No.20221666]

>>20216414
>>20216428
kek based

[Anonymous No.20222115]

>>20221154
Thank you
I work in obscurity

[Anonymous No.20222178]

>>20213611
Best post I've read this month

[Anonymous No.20222348]

>I was ten years old when I saw my first pair of tits. They were big and perky, and they belonged to my then-sixteen years old neighbour. I stood there by the door, mesmerised by their shape and how soft they looked. It was in that moment that I knew I'd be a slave to the beauty of breasts for the rest of my life.

[Anonymous No.20222356]

>>20222222

[Anonymous No.20222376]

>>20214451
lmao

[Anonymous No.20222386]

>>20212687
>Last spring I spent most of my time in bed with my girlfriend. Had I known what was going to happen, I would have spent more time looking through my telescope.

[Anonymous No.20222411]

>>20215949
Leonard Blister sounds like a massive faggot

[Anonymous No.20222415]

>>20217493
I vaguely recognize that first one

[Anonymous No.20222417]

>>20217766
I like the first two

[Anonymous No.20222418]

>For sale: small condom; never worn.

[Anonymous No.20222429]

>>20222418
>Cumtown writes a book

[Anonymous No.20222461]

CRASH! Mom made pancakes.

[Anonymous No.20222466]

>>20213668

[Anonymous No.20222547]

>>20212687
>Tonight's the night. The night that will prove Anon's existence to the world at large. The night that will lead to thousands among thousands of tears to be shed. The night that will never be forgotten like the rest of faceless suicides out there. The night that will spark a restless revolution of revenge. The night that will veto any debate on gun control. The night that will make the discotheque burn down to nothing less than ashes. It's amazing what a jerry can filled to the brim with gasoline can do when it comes to a bodycount.

[Anonymous No.20222608]

it's always sad when you read a thread on 4chan and are confronted with the idiocy and ignorance of the fools you share your time with.

[Anonymous No.20222620]

If you were very, very small, smaller than a leprechaun, smaller than a gnome or a fairy, and you lived in a vagina, every time a penis came in there would be a natural disaster.

[Anonymous No.20223747]

>>20213611

[Anonymous No.20223824]

>>20213668
Im so glad that I never started reading fantasy during my teens

[Anonymous No.20223918]

>>20212687
He was drinking buckets full of ice water. That’s why he was sent to the nightmare dimension.

[Anonymous No.20224502]

>>20223824
Same.

[Anonymous No.20225093]

>>20218632
No longer human is full of memorable lines.

[Anonymous No.20225353]

>>20215663
this is good. more?

[Anonymous No.20225378]

>>20225093
The bunny scene fucked me up.

[Anonymous No.20225392]

>>20212740

[Anonymous No.20225427]

>>20212687
I seek protection from Satan, the rejected.
In the name of Allah, the most Merciful and Compassionate.

[Anonymous No.20225438]

>>20212687
"Hello." I always start with this and it's sometimes funny and sometimes out of place. I love it though.

[Anonymous No.20225723]

>>20212687
my favorite openers are The Stranger, Lolita and Notes From the Underground, I can remember each one clearly even though i've only read them one time each

[Anonymous No.20225855]

The only opening line I remember is: "All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." But I thought Anna Karenina was horribly dull. So for me, I guess, it's good if it contains a kernel of truth. The same as any other line.

[Anonymous No.20225891]

>>20225855
Try this one on for size, kiddo
>it was the best of times it was the blurst of times

[Anonymous No.20225943]

>>20225891
You stupid monkey!

[Anonymous No.20226366]

>>20217766
#2 is alright, #1 and #3 sound like some cards against humanity-bullshit

[Anonymous No.20226373]

>>20220899
Holy... I want more