First Wednesday again – time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group post!
March 1 question – Have you ever read a line in novel or a clever plot twist that caused you to have author envy?
I have author envy all the time! Sometimes I have to stop and reread a line or two just because they were so perfect. Sarah Addison Allen can do it to me. “[The house] smelled strongly of lavender and peppermint, like walking into a Christmas memory that didn’t belong to her” (Garden Spells). Robert Heinlein had a way with words as well. “Presently her breathing grew slower as she slept. Her breathing stopped. Lazarus waited a long time before he called in Ginny and Elf” (Time Enough For Love). And, of course, classic authors like JRR Tolkein are worthy of a bit of envy (“Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil”).
Here are some famous first lines that may inspire you (or make you envious!):
- “All this happened, more or less.” (Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut)
- “Call me Ishmael.” (Moby Dick by Herman Melville)
- “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.” (The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
- “Your house glows at night like everything inside is on fire.” (The Push by Ashley Audrain)
- “When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.” (The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton)
- “The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.” (The Secret History by Donna Tartt)
- “I am an invisible man.” (Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison)
- “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenburgs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” (The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath)
- “Happy families are all alike; unhappy families are all unhappy in their own way.” (Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy)
- “We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson)
- “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen)
- “My name was Salmon; like the fish, first name Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.” (The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold)
- “The sweat wis lashing oafay Sick Boy; he wis trembling.” (Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh)
- “This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.” (The Princess Bride by William Goldman)
- “Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground and start over.” (Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng)
- “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.” (I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith)
- “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” (The Gunslinger by Stephen King)
- “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.” (Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston)
- “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” (1984 by George Orwell)
- “I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time.” (The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon)
- “The circus arrives without warning.” (The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern)
- “You better not never tell nobody but God.” (The Color Purple by Alice Walker)
- “Sam Vimes sighed when he heard the scream, but he finished shaving before he did anything about it.” (Night Watch by Terry Pratchett)
- The Santa Anas blew in hot from the desert, shriveling the last of the spring grass into whiskers of pale straw.” (White Oleander by Janet Fitch)
- “When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.” (The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins)
What are your favorite fictional lines?
