From: BrendaWriter@yahoo.com

On 9/11/2014 5:18 PM, William Vetter wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 7:14:47 PM UTC-4, bre...@sff.net wrote:
>> Hmm. First paragraph of the novel I wrote this year:
>>
>>
>>
>> Although his wife's palate was discriminating to a nicety, neither Jack
>>
>> Wragsland nor Marilee cooked. Their virgin oven still had the
>>
>> energy-saver stickers on the door, and Jack kept paperback poetry
>>
>> anthologies inside. His breakfast reading goal was to catch up on all
>>
>> the verse he had missed by traveling almost 170 years into the future.
>>
>>
>>
>> Clearly it meets the rule.
>>
>>
>>
>> First paragraph of the novel I wrote last year:
>>
>>
>>
>>    Calla did not need to look at her phone while texting, so she actually
>>
>> saw it happen.  One moment the road in front of the car was more or less
>>
>> clear, except for Ponpet�s standard killer gridlock. The monumental
>>
>> stone triumphal arch commemorating her grandfather dominated the traffic
>>
>> circle they were stuck in.
>>
>>    Then, flicking into existence like the special effect in a movie, was
>>
>> a totally odd man.  In a long black coat and tall hat, he looked
>>
>> something like the young Abraham Lincoln.
>>
> I read a book named _Hooked_.
> It was about openings, and the idea that you can compel an editor to
> read the ms. by writing an opening with so many qualities.
> What aspects of these openings do you think tries to achieve this, or at
> least to draw the reader in?
> When I look at them with this question in mind, I can see that some aspects
do this, and some less so.
> I don't mean to say that it's possible to pack all desirable qualities into
an opening of every variety of story; often, I think, it isn't.
>
>

I do not think of it this way at all.

The fist sentence of the novel is the one that allows me to write the
second sentence. And the third. And roughly a hundred thousand more. If
it cannot do that, it's not the right first sentence.

Brenda


--
My latest novel SPEAK TO OUR DESIRES is available exclusively from Book
View Cafe.
http://www.bookviewcafe.com/index.php/Brenda-Clough/Novels/Speak
to-Our-Desires-Chapter-01

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
 * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)