Voted the best first line in a novel, this opening sentence from Moby Dick begins an adventure (a long adventure) of whale hunting that remains popular more than 150 years after publication.
I read through the list of top lines from novels and smiled as I remembered reading some of them for the first time years ago and became intrigued about the rest of the story of others.
What is it that makes an opening line great?
Quick analysis tells me it's an element of surprise mixed with a perfect choice of words and names. "Call me Angie." just doesn't have the same effect as Ishmael. "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." from 1984 obviously throws a curve ball of surprise and immediately makes a reader stop and wonder what would make a clock strike 13?
I watched the movie Enchanted last night and when the mean step-mother sent the beautiful princess tumbling down the wishing well, she wished her bad luck in a world, our world, where there are "no happily ever afters." Those words put together in the opposite of the familiar "happily ever after" stopped the flow of thought processing in my brain and I'm still thinking about the idea today of living in a place where fairy tales don't really come true.
As I've been doing Bible study in the book of Isaiah where God's wrath and judgement dominate, I admit I have wanted to stop, to skip over it and move on past what I don't want to hear and on to the good stuff of love and peace and hope. It's shocking to be reminded of a God who demands obedience and who will appear on a throne with flying six winged angels. Shocking almost to a point of not being able or want to understand.
But equally shocking is a God who loves enough to die for me. A God whose love is equally as powerful, relentless, and just.
Definitely shocking and the first line of my story.
I leave you today with another shocker...
"I want a moustache just like my brother."
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