I was just having a sort through of all the left over sheets from Tabinda’s draft and I found eight page 2s. Page 2 is the first page.  Sifting through these rejects it is clear I was not satisfied with the opening sentence.  Bearing in mind I had already changed my entire opening scene because I was unhappy with the tone it set and I’d reached the printing-off stage, you would have thought the opening sentence was done and dusted. Nah -ah.

It began as:

‘We had just won a corner against Lutton Ash Angels.’

I expanded that to: ‘We had just won a corner against Lutton Ash Angels, the dirtiest team in the league.”

I then expanded it further to:

‘It was a wet Saturday morning late in October and we had just won a corner against Lutton Ash Angels, the dirtiest team in the league.’ ©

That’s how it has stayed. I am not claiming it is a sentence of outstanding natural beauty but it does what I wanted it to do. It serves its purpose by planting a picture in the reader’s mind from the start. We know when the story takes place (day and month) we know where (won a corner = football pitch)  and we know something’s going to happen because Lutton Ash are ‘dirty.’

My aim as a writer is to get the reader hooked from the beginning. I don’t do clever and complicated. I hope I do interesting. I want the reader to want to read to the bottom of the first page at least; If they don’t, the chances are I’ve already blown it. Older readers will persevere with a story, giving it the opportunity to warm up but with short, quick reads like the Girls FC series, you have to be sharp from the start.  Kids don’t have time to waste. There’s too much stuff to do. Other books to read. Playstations and Wiis to attend to. Brothers to torture and so on.

Good opening sentences are crucial. One of my favourites comes from Karen Wallace’s Raspberries on the Yangtze: ‘It all began the day my brother and I decided to murder our mother.’ Brilliant!  Killing your parents - straight for the jugular.

Sticking with the morbid side have a gander at this corker from Geraldine McCaughrean:

‘On the morning of his fourteenth birthday, Pepper had been awake for fully two minutes before realizing it was the day he must die.’ ( The Death Defying Pepper Roux).  Questions immediately pop into the readers’ heads. What? Why?  This is a deliberate - and highly successful - attention grabbing ploy.

Then there’s the straight-to-the point opening…

‘Nathan Wheatear hated his Uncle Jago and could not remember a time when he didn’t.’ (The Tower of Moonville by Stephen Elboz)

… and the more ambiguous…

‘Some things start before other things’ (The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett)

…to this simple observation from Pete Johnson’s main character in How to Train Your Parents: ‘I think I’ve arrived somewhere weird.’

I like this one from Penny Dolan’s ‘The Third Elephant‘:

‘Large trees hid the old house from the street lights.’ Very simple but you’re there already, in the scene, aren’t you?

Loved this one:

‘Another ghost arrived last week.’ (The Ghost of Uncle Arvie by Sharon Creech).

Here’s a classic:

‘Well, it’s not often a great bundle of clean paper comes my way like this, so I’ve decide I’m going to use it for writing about the street where I live and then when I’m very old, say about thirty, I’ll be able to read about what happened in 1948.’ (Private Keep Out by Gwen Grant)  Talk about setting your stall out!  Wow! That narrator flies at you, chirpy, self-assured and witty.

This one’s not bad, either:

‘Hi, my name is Danny Ogle and my life is over. Want to know why?’  (from There’s Only one Danny Ogle by moi and yes, I know, that’s two sentences. I’m a cheat. Get over it.

George Orwell set the bar high with his prescient 1984:  It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.

All those sentences make me want to read on.  What’s your favourite one that you’ve ever come across?

Tags: George Orwell, Geralidine McCaughrean, Gwen Grant, Karen Wallace, Penny Dolan, Pete Johnson, Sharon Creech, Stephen Elboz, Terry Pratchett

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