Novel Opening Lines Novels & Stories

They walked. The Atlantic walked with them, as it always did — vast and patient and indifferent and there, the background note of everything, the constant that made the variables make sense. "The second novel," Elian said. "Yes?" Dante said. "I'm going to start it next week," Elian said. "I know what the first sentence is." "What is it?" Dante asked. Elian looked at the ocean. He said the sentence — the first sentence of the novel about staying, the one about permanence, the one about what it means to choose the same thing every day and what that accumulates into.

Maybe… maybe I’d find answers about the big betrayal here. I opened it. The first line glowed faintly in the dim room: “I am the fire—” And then the world went black. Not metaphorically. Not because I blinked. I went blind. It took me a moment to accept the fact that I had lost my eyes just after reading the first line! My breath seized. “What—what’s happening?” I whispered, reaching out into space. “I can’t—I can’t see—I can’t see!” Panic clawed up my throat.

Novel's POV After returning home, the book seemed to pulse on my desk, demanding to be opened. Earlier, I’d told that woman I had a boyfriend, but the truth stung, Alexei hadn’t even asked me out yet. How pathetic of me. “The Book of Outer Land,” I whispered, sliding on my reading glasses. As I opened the cover, a cloud of ancient dust drifted upward, smelling of cedar and forgotten places. “Ouch, cough! Seriously?” I sputtered, waving the dust away. My eyes landed on the dedication page.

“Just make it attention-grabbing.” They continued to debate the best opening line. They felt the first hook was worth getting right, like they were writing Moby Dick. They were half right. While James Baldwin and Alfred Lord Tennyson worked on their first draft, I decided to wing it. Emergency! The old god Joshaya has returned to Gorgoth with an army of immortals. If you wish to learn more, contact me at this address: I put down the name of the inn we were staying at and signed it Nelson Mandela. I felt it was a name that would engender trust. I popped the card in the barrel. Probably as effective as putting it in the bin.