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Let’s talk about the opening line of your book. The first thing to know about “first lines” is that they are not going to make or break you. Sure, it’s a lot of fun coming up with great ones. But as long as the first line makes someone want to read the second line, and that line makes you want to read the third… you’re on the right track.
The second thing to know is that the opening line might be the very last thing you write before your book is finished.
That said… don’t you just love a great opening line?
The fun thing about writing a book is that you get to choose what kind of opening line you want, what type of sentence appropriately sets up your book. You can choose to set a stage or create a setting. You can reveal a character. You can drop the reader into the middle of a scene. You can introduce conflict. You can have your character speak a line of dialogue. There’s no one right way to do it.
Today I looked at some of my favorite first lines from novels, and asked myself why I liked them. I found each one appealed to me for a different reason. It might have:
- been clever
- been thought-provoking
- brought an immediate smile (or stab) of recognition
- struck me as poignant
- painted a really cool word picture
- set up an intriguing mystery
- introduced a character I want to know better
- made me laugh
- drawn me into an unfamiliar world
- used words in a beautiful way
The one thing they all have in common is they make me want to read more. They immediately draw me into the universe of the novel by the unique voice that first line begins to establish.
One of the trends lately is to come up with stunningly clever first lines, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But not every novel requires one of those. Some need a more understated approach.
Some say the best first lines introduce conflict right away. I believe that can be true, but it’s not the only way to write a first line. Most of my favorites give a small hint that something is going to go wrong, or something already has gone wrong.
There’s no formula for a first line. It should elicit interest, pique something in the reader, speak to their heart or their intellect or their funny bone. It just has to work. Some of the best opening lines stand remarkably well on their own, having enough meat to allow you to chew on it awhile.
Here are a few popular opening lines from famous novels:
Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.
~ Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (my favorite first line ever)
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
~ Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.
~ J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.
~ Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
~ William Gibson, Neuromancer
Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.
~ Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
All this happened, more or less.
~ Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Dr. Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.
~ Anita Brookner, The Debut
There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.
~ C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.
~ Graham Greene, The End of the Affair
What is one of your favorite first lines?
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The post That All-Important First Line appeared first on Rachelle Gardner.
By Maureen Lynas
The second post highlighting literary issues raised in critique groups. This came up recently at our SCBWI BI critique group in York.
Awesome first lines
What are we aiming for?
I've written an awesome first line that will wow the agents and engage the reader.
OR
I've written an appropriate first line that will wow the agents and engage the reader.
We've seen some amazing first lines in our critique group. Lines that have that wow factor. Lines that we've loved, admired and wished we'd written.
Unfortunately, they weren't always appropriate for the story that followed. They set a tone, an expectation, a hint of a totally different story, a totally different world, and genre. It's so easy to fall into the trap of creating a darling but a first line has a job to do so you may have to assassinate yours.
Read more »
By:
Darcy Pattison,
on 6/15/2015
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Darcy Pattison's Revision Notes
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I’ve been fiddling with the opening of the second book of a trilogy, Blue Planets, for several weeks, trying to plot, trying to think of new and exciting ways to tell the story. I KNOW the story. It’s bringing it down to specifics that’s hard.
Part of my problem is that Book 1 in this trilogy opens with a scene that echoes the movie “Jaws.” That book and movie has a powerful, action packed opening image and scene that sets up the stakes clearly. My Book 1 opening echoes the action, and twists the meaning into a new, surprising direction. I like the opening I create there.
But it also set up a problem: How can I echo the “Jaws” opening for Book 2?
I’ve struggled for a couple weeks with this question and finally found the answer.
Don’t. Find another image that works.
Using a Mentor Text or Story
Perhaps, though, the process I used in the opening for Book 1 can be repeated for Book 2. I used “Jaws” as a mentor text, echoing its action and setting the stakes very high. What if I found a different mentor text/movie for the next book?
At Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat site, they’ve done a series of analyses of movie plots that are called Beat Sheets under his system. I decided to go through them and write a short summary of how I could or couldn’t echo the different movies for this opening. I knew that I had to approach it as a writing exercise and just go overboard and let the ideas flow.
In an hour, I wrote the summaries for the following twenty possible opening scenes. After, I went back and wrote a sentence of how the closing scene might echo back to the opening scene. That closing scene ideas — only written after all the opening scene summaries were completed — helped me evaluate how well this opening fit my story. Note also that I drew a blank on about three of the movie openings and couldn’t figure out how it would fit my story.
The Grunt Work: Writing 20 Possible Summaries of Opening Scene
Note: You won’t understand what some of this means, since I’m not explaining all the background, setting, characters, etc. That’s OK. The point is to see how I echoed the mentor text/story in some way. The link for each movie title goes to the Save the Cat plot analysis for that movie, where you can read the opening image synopsis and compare it to mine. You may think some of my opening as strangely at odds with the mentor text. That’s fine. I consider the mentor text/story as merely a starting point and go where the story takes me.
- A la Ultron.
The opening image is of a huge conch shell that is blown and echoes throughout the ocean. Jake is swimming and hears it—has to stop up his ears it’s so loud. But no human hears it—at a weird frequency. It’s an emergency call to the Mer, but Jake doesn’t know that yet. The umjaadi plague is spreading and they still don’t know what it is.
Final Echo: A hospital ward full of sick patients and the doctor telling someone that unless someone finds a cure, they’ll all die. The Mer will be gone.
- A la The Conversation .
The opening image is Edinburgh, Scotland the castle with a full moon overhead. Home of Harry Potter, the setting is almost mythical. But the reality of walking the seven hills, and climbing up the highest pulls Jake back to Earth (so to speak). From the top, he sees the Frith of Forth and the bridge—with the aquarium under it, where they’ll go tomorrow.
Final echo: back on the hill, Jake now understands what is beneath the waters he sees.
- A la Whiplash.
Jake is swimming laps in a pool—with no one around—when Cy Blevins walks in. You’re not related to the Commander, you’re the Ambassador’s son—we know all about you. OK. So, what? You can’t live here.
Jake swims, but wants to jump out and beat up Cy.
Final echo: No. Doesn’t work.
- A la Birdman.
Jake is swimming and keeps asking himself, “How did we wind up here? Am I Earthling or Risonian?” He turns sharks into tour guides, he is thrilled with electric shock from eels, he talks to octopuses.
Final echo: I am Earthling.
A la Tommy Boy.
Jake is a toddler swimming on Rison and when a camouflaged creature (octopus-like) unfurls, he is startled and starts to cry. Turns to Swann for comfort, but Swann turns him around and says, SEE. Watch. Learn to see.
Final echo: Swimming and points out a camouflaged creature to Swann.
A la Ratatouille.
B/w documentary about octopuses, compared with what we know today. They were once feared as monsters, but we now know they are very intelligent (playing with toys to get crabs). We see what we expect to see, and that changes slowly. (Or: what’s alien comes from what’s in OUR heads, not what we see in front of us.)
Final echo: B/W Risonain documentary on first contact Earth—from the Risonian POV. We now know Earthlings are much more complicated and intelligent than we thought at first.
A la Babadook.
Go for a memory and emotion. Jake relives a moment with Em where they kiss—or almost kiss. But then shakes himself. No. She didn’t want to be friends.
Final echo: A final kiss.
A la Star Trek (2009).
The camera moves along an underwater ship and reveals it to be a U-Boat. Follow with the scene of the DCS dive.
Final echo: Maybe Mom is sick from something on Earth?
A la American Sniper.
(Scene with dramatic first kill – will he shoot a kid?)
Scene with dramatic first ______?
Clearly, this one didn’t work.
A a Lego Movie.
From a boat, Dr. Max Bari lowers a figure on a stretcher into the ocean, then dives in after her—without scuba gear. He tugs the stretcher deeper and deeper until there are lights in the distance. . .
Final echo: Jake lifts off in a rocket ship and watches Earth get smaller and smaller in the distance, and turns his face toward Rison and hopes. . .
A la Big Hero 6.
Setting: Sanfransokyo
My Setting: Aberforth Hills
Final echo: Earth leaders touring Aberforth Hills
A la Liar Liar.
In a classroom, they are going around telling what their fathers do. A young Jake says his father is a test tube. No, it’s the Leader of our People. No, it’s really a test tube.
Final echo: Jake with Dad.
A la Fury.
(Ambush of triumphant soldier by vanquished.) No ideas. Didn’t work for me.
A la Gone Girl.
(Sharp contrast of emotions: head on shoulder of husband contrasted with his thoughts of killing her. Result: Worry for her safety)
Contrasting emotions? Invade Earth and just take it! Take the long, slow route to a long-term healthy relationship.
Mom is giving a speech to the world leaders about Rison’s needs. Jake is drawing pictures of skulls and wishing he could blast all of Earth so Risonians could take over. How can they ever live together on the same planet and not kill each other?
Final echo: Fight that ends in a truce.
A la Guardians of the Galaxy.
Sitting alone, Jake is listening to a cd mix that Em gave him and wishing they hadn’t quarreled. He gets a call from Marisa, who says she wants to meet with him. I hear you’re going to Edinburgh. Mom and Dad aren’t saying much—but I think Em has been kidnapped and they know who did it, but they won’t go after her. I think she’s somewhere near Edinburgh.
Final echo: Jake gives Em a cd of Risonian operas and says, I’ll be back with the cure.
A la How to Train Your Dragon 2.
Jake is spinning a globe of the world and narrating for his class (OR Swann) back home-videoconference call. He tells of how Earthlings/US once put it’s citizens in jail because they “might” have been traitors. How they questioned the loyalty of citizen merely because of their heritage. How unfair it is and how he’s worried that the Risonians will be even more feared and how suspicion will abound.
Final echo: Suspicious news reports: There are fears that Jake Quad-di is returning home with intelligence that will allow the Risonians to attack. His mother, Ambassador Dayexi Quad-di assures us that he only returns to bring back a cure for the Phoke. But why would he risk his life for them?
A la Twilight Zone.
The camera pans across oceans, racing across the seas, until it zooms in on a conference room where Mom is talking to world leaders, a clear image of politics/diplomacy.
Final echo: Not emotional enough to pursue.
A la Muppets Most Wanted.
Start with pan down from The End—the last movie—and sing about how the studio ordered a sequel.
Final echo: No. Don’t like this metadata stuff.
A la Her.
Jake is writing a letter to the editor, or editorial or something—and we pull back to see that he’s writing it for Mom. He’s her assistant now, and she trusts his knowledge of English and culture. (Not emotional enough. HER is a love story, so the emotions there are about truly falling in love. It’s not going to work in this story.)
A la Inside Llewyn Davis.
The scene opens on a rowdy swimming pool with kids taking bets. Jake lines up with another guy and when the whistle blows, the other boy dives in and races away. When that guy touches the opposite wall, Jake dives in, velcroes his legs and swims. He almost beats the other guy back, but is won out by a touch.
I win! Says the other swimmer.
Jake shakes his head. He swam almost twice as fast—and the Earthling says he won? That’s crazy.
We’re never letting you compete in the Olympics! Says one kid.
Final echo: Argument: You think I can do miracles. Sure, I can outswim any human boy, but on Rison, I’m nothing. I’m just a normal kid. How can I find the cure to the umjaadi in time? I can’t. But I have to try.
Notice that I didn’t hold myself to an impossible standard. If the movie’s opening didn’t spark something almost immediately, I moved on. Further, I didn’t stop at just one try. I persevered, knowing that I needed to fully explore my options.
Evaluate the Possible Openings
After writing all of these, I had to evaluate which one fit my story best. First, I went back and added the Final Echo to each, so I’d know if it fit the theme/plot/characters well enough to carry through the whole story. In other words, I double checked my ideas about the story, my intentions.
Then I asked these questions of each opening:
- Which sets the tone I want?
- Which sets the emotional problems?
- Which sets the themes?
- Which one sets up the stakes as very high?
Results of Opening Images Writing Exercise
I found several good images that took me in new and different directions than I’d previously been trying—and that’s exciting.
- Warning conch shell – warning comes true, all Mer sick.
- Jake as toddler scared by octopus-like creature un-camouflaging – Watches old Risonian documentary and realizes that Earthlings are complicated.
- Dr. Max lowers a patient into the water and goes into a foreign world – Jake lifts off in rocket for a foreign world.
- Listens to Em’s cd – gives her a cd when he leaves.
- Jake narrates the globe – a news show narrates Jake’s trip to Rison.
- Jake outswims Earthlings – but realizes he’s just a normal kid on Rison.
Which one did I choose? Actually, several. Because I have a main plot and several subplots, I realized that several of these can work in sequence to open the different subplots.
Sometimes, I approach a story methodically, just doing a writing exercise. This time, I was stuck, and the exercise unstuck me. That was a valuable hour of writing!
by Sally Matheny
“My name is Sally.” Remember that famous first line? No?
“My name is Ishmael.” How about that one? Even if you’ve never read Moby Dick, you probably are familiar with that first sentence.
Over the next two months, a class of teens will have my full attention as we indulge in the delicacies of creative writing. Today, the teens discussed the importance of grabbing readers’ attention in the first line or shortly thereafter.
I read the first lines from several books to them. First, they told me the book they thought the line came from and second, they told me if it intrigued them enough to keep reading.
See if you recognize what books hold these first lines:
1. “There is no lake at Camp Green Lake.”
2. “When I was in elementary school, I packed my suitcase and told my mother I was going to run away from home.”
3. “The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house. All that cold, cold wet day.”
4. “Grandchildren, you asked me about this medal of mine. There is much to be said about it.”
5. “That Sam-I-am! That Sam-I-am! I do not like that Sam-I-am!
Did you guess correctly? 1. Holes 2. My Side of the Mountain3. The Cat in the Hat 4. Code Talker 5. Green Eggs and Ham
 |
| Words quote by twowritingteachers |
This is a fun activity to do with children of any age. Just choose books of which they are familiar. I guarantee most teens will fondly remember those Dr. Seuss books even if it has been ten years since they last heard them read aloud.
My son recently got into watching trivia game shows. He’s nine and almost all of the questions are out of his realm of comprehension. However, he loves the challenge aspect. Noticing this I now have greater results when I quiz him on school subjects if I do two things. I use my best game show announcer voice and use the words “challenge,” “advance to the next level,” and “you won!” If I cut out pictures of cars, dishwashers, and luggage to present as “prizes,” I wonder will he find that fun or cornball. It’s a fine line, you know.
The first lines of a book can have a lasting impression. So too, adults have the potential to influence a young life, just by what they say to them:
first thing in the morning,
first thing after school,
first thing after not being successful.
Make your first lines positive and they’ll definitely have a lasting effect.
 |
| Photo by JanusCastrane |
(*And by the way, when I was a child, one of my favorite books is Try Again, Sally. I wonder why.)
By:
Betsy Bird,
on 4/17/2014
Blog:
A Fuse #8 Production
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So what’s the talk of the town these days? Well the relative brouhaha came about at the end of last week when ReedPOP announced a panel of “the world’s biggest children’s authors” in the field. That the luminaries in question were all white and male struck a raw nerve with a whole slew of folks. Since that moment there’s been some fancy footwork and a promise to add some additional folks. The solution is ludicrously simple, of course. If the gist of the grouping is to have the top selling authors of books for kids then just grab Rachel Renee Russell and ask her to join. The fact that she isn’t tapped for more panels has always struck me as odd.
- I am not immune to professional jealousy. Wish that I was. Fortunately, most of the time I am able to convert the green eyed monster into genuine fascination and interest (much, I’m sure, to the discomfort of the people I’m suddenly obsessed with). Take this week’s example: One Margaret H. Willison. I was listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour, a podcast I like quite a lot in spite of the fact that they can’t tell YA fiction from MG. Anywho, they have a children’s librarian that they love very very much. Ms. Willison has been a longstanding fan of theirs and Stephen Thompson mentioned that she was on track to be the next Nancy Pearl of children’s books. Oh aye! So I checked her out and she did a NPR piece called 3 Bedtime Picture Books That Won’t Put Parents to Sleep. Excellent choices one and all. She’s one to watch then.
- This news made me inordinately happy recently. The Multnomah County Library System and the Seattle Public Library went head to head in an all out reference battle. The question? Who could answer the most book recommendation queries via Twitter? And I am happy to report that Portland (where the Multnomah system lives) won all the way!! Way to go, you literary denizens you. Thanks to AL Direct for the link.
- Recently a new library opened up at NYU. Called the Georgiou Library and Resource Center for Children and Literature the site will do a lot of outreach to the community as well as operate as a research facility. Its librarian is the multi-talented Kendra Tyson and the collection, “contains several categories of children’s literature, including counting books, fairy tales, poetry, biography, and holiday books. It also houses Mother Goose books geared for African, Chinese and Russian audiences, bi-lingual counting books, and the Metropolitan Museum’s of Art’s Museum ABC (Little Brown, 2002), which portrays a range of world cultures through its collections.” I was lucky enough to attend a small event for the library recently and in the course realized that there are other similar collections out there that I just don’t know well enough. Like the Cotsen Children’s Library, for example. Some of you will nod sagely and murmur “of course” when I mention it but to me I was ashamed to discover that not only are they the Princeton children’s library but they maintain these FABULOUS blogs! The Cotsen Children’s Library blog is updated quite regularly and the Pop Goes the Page is maybe the best arts & crafts for library programs blog I’ve witnessed in a very long time. They’ve also archived a variety of different interviews with children’s authors called The Bibliofiles that are well worth finding too. Man. That would be the life working at either of these libraries, am I right?
- Good old, ShelfTalker. I love it when they list a whole slew of their favorite first lines of 2014. And in the process I discovered at least one book that I hadn’t even heard of until I read its line. Bonus!
- You know what? Fair play to Mackenzie Kruvant. There she is at Buzzfeed, slaving away with such pieces as “Which Sex And The City Guy Is Your Soulmate?” but often she’ll come up with a really good children’s literature piece. Example: 15 Adorable Children’s Books For Your Little Architect . Perhaps she got some help from a librarian somewhere to write it, but if she didn’t then it’s a pretty darn good encapsulation of what’s out there. Well played, madam.
NYPL likes it when I blog on their site from time to time, so I’ll tend to do pieces I wouldn’t normally do here. Case in point, recently I did the post Make ‘Em Laugh: Gut-Busting Picture Books That’ll Have ‘Em Rolling in the Aisles. I really try to give attention to funny picture books when they come out. And though I didn’t mention them in the piece (I only included stuff you could currently check out of the collection) if I were to put that post here I’d be sure to include the 2014 titles Big Bad Bubble by Adam Rubin, illustrated by Daniel Salmieri (without a doubt their best work to date) and Monkey Goes Bananas by C. P. Bloom and Peter Raymundo. Both books are danged funny. If I make a funny picture book prize this year, they will both be up for serious contention.
A friend on mine on Facebook mentioned that he had a 12-year-old in his branch who was interested in Socialism and did we have any books to recommend? Naturally my thoughts turned to Little Rebels, but that’s a lot of picture books (many of which are out of print). Fortunately marxists.org (!) has a booklist of its own. Say they, “This is the start of an ongoing broad bibliography of children’s literature for MIA with title first, divided by age range and fiction/non-fiction. Some of these books were written to be expressly radical, and others need a stretch to find political implications. Compiled by Sally Ryan.” Cool.
- Hey, remember when I mentioned that I’d interviewed Deborah Underwood about her amazing Bad Bye, Good Bye? I got a little confused about when it was going to post but now, happily, it is up up up! If you ever wanted to know the ins and outs of writing a rhyming picture book, you are indeed lucky.
- Got a little confused with the headline on this one, but as it happens it has absolutely nothing to do with the bookstore Books of Wonder here in NYC. No, this little article is instead about a cool new collection within the Toronto Public Library. Its full name is “The IBBY Collection of Books for Young People with Disabilities”. Say they: “As its official name indicates, this collection comes from IBBY, the International Board on Books for Young People. The IBBY collection features more than 3000 multilingual books in sign language, Braille, Blissymbolics, as well as cloth and tactile books and other formats — all for and about children and teens with disabilities.” I’m downright envious again. Thanks to Deb Pearson for the link.
- In the world of book awards we’ve two to consider today. The Eisner Award nominations came out and I see a lot of familiar faces in the youth category. Meanwhile the Minnesota Book Awards were announced and you might be surprised to discover some of the winners.
- Whenever someone asks adult authors to name the children’s books that inspired them there is a danger of the books being the same old, same old. That’s part of the reason I like this post from World Literature Today. Yes, there are some rote choices, but there are also some really obscure titles. The Summerfolk by Doris Burn? The Three Fat Men by Yuri Olesha? Tim and the Hidden People by Sheila K. McKullagh?!? Wowza. Thanks to Mom for the link.
Good news, poppins. Today you have a chance to buy cool things and be a good person in the process. And just in time for my incipient birthday too! The site Out of Print has been killing it in the library-chic neighborhood. Observe the cool things that there are to buy:
Mom, Kate, I will happily take that iPhone case. Wouldn’t say no to any of those baby onesies, for that matter.
Now, how does buying this stuff make you a good person? Well, it seems the site is THIS WEEK (it is National Library Week after all – my workplace got me a mug and everything) giving money to the following school if you buy stuff. Voila:
P.S. 244 (The Active Learning Elementary School “TALES”) is an early childhood public school (Pre-K to 3rd grade) located in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens, New York. The majority of students do not speak English at home and qualify for subsidized meal plans, yet at TALES they thrive. A model for public schools at both the national and state level, P.S. 244 has been recognized for its focus on health and nutrition and ranks among the healthiest schools in the country. In 2013, P.S. 244 also ranked 11th in the state for test scores and has been heralded for its innovative curriculum and extremely hard working staff.
With all of these strengths, they also have challenges. The school’s current library has no formal checkout system and relies on volunteer staff. The result? The space serves more like a reading room than a true library. Students aren’t able to check out and read these books at home, families miss out on sharing the joy of reading with their kids and the school is unable to implement a summer reading program to enhance student reading skills during off-school periods.
Help us to give this school and its students the library they deserve. During National Library Week (April 13-20), we are donating a portion of our sales to purchase and implement a scanning system for P.S. 244 and to train staff to manage it. We will post updates after the donation and share stories from students and teachers about the impact of this new system.
Many thanks to Ms. Marci for the links!
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By:
Keith Schoch ,
on 2/9/2013
Blog:
Teach with Picture Books
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When we read a truly wonderful picture book, one whose words resonate as much as the pictures themselves, we should take the opportunity to stand back and ask ourselves, "How did the author do that?" And more importantly, How can we get our students to find their own strong voices in writing?
If we recall the opening lines of some favorite middle-grade novels, we discover that the author's voice begins to take form in just the first few words. Consider Avi's Newbery winning The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, a fantastic sea yarn in which the protagonist finds herself at the center of a mutiny:
“Not every thirteen-year-old girl is accused of murder, brought to trial, and found guilty. But I was such a girl, and my story is worth relating even if it did happen years ago.”
“Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.
“Out to the hoghouse,” replied her mother. “Some pigs were born last night.”
As both novels progress, we immerse ourselves in the narrator's point of view, falling in step with the rhythm of words, the tone, and the exacting word choice.
But neither picture books nor our students' own writing has the luxury of 200+ pages to build voice. It needs to happen much sooner.Here are three picture book exemplars to get us started.
Mentor Text: Jangles: A BIG Fish Story
David Shannon's recent picture book Jangles: A BIG Fish Story harkens back to the day of the traditional Tall Tale. Tall Tales, characterized mainly by their penchant for hyperbole (that is, their tendency to exaggerate to the point of lying!) developed a boastful and boisterous voice over time, due to the fact that many of the original Tall Tales were spread orally. Each subsequent teller would add his or her own embellishments (as well as quaint colloquialisms), resulting in crowd-sourced versions of the tales that were rich in both authentic voice and vocabulary.
Jangles: A BIG Fish Story would serve as an excellent introduction to this literary genre. Author and illustrator David Shannon writes in a style that harkens to the boasts of the Tall Tale tradition:
When I was a kid, Jangles was the biggest fish that anyone had ever seen - or heard! That's right, you could hear Jangles. He'd broken so many fishing lines that his huge, crooked jaw was covered with shiny metal lures and rusty old fishhooks of all shapes and sized. They clinked and clattered as he swam. That's why he was called Jangles.
Jangles was so big, he ate eagles from the trees that hung over the lake, and full-grown beavers that strayed too far from home.
Compare that with the beginning of Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee (another Newbery Medal book): “They say (he) was born in a dump. They say his stomach was a cereal box and his heart was a sofa spring. They say he kept an eight-inch cockroach on a leash and that rats stood guard over him while he slept…They say.”
And to be sure, you'll find the "They say..." phrase in Shannon's book as well, since, while the facts of any Tall Tale might not be verified empirically, they must undoubtedly be true, since so many people agree on them.
The story itself is an engaging narrative, with an ending that requires a bit of inferring on the reader's part. The story also begs the question, "What would you have done in his place?" Close rereadings can reveal simile, alliteration, personification, and many other wonderful literary devices masterfully woven into the tale.
And the illustrations! Fans of David Shannon know from earlier books such as A Bad Case of the Stripes and How Georgie Radbourn Saved Baseball that his pictures are lush and vivid and sculpturesque. Whenever I'm explaining to my students that their own illustrations should be saturated with color, Shannon's books are among the exemplars I share.
Extensions:
- To begin a Tall Tale unit, let children read a number of traditional retellings of Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, John Henry, and Slue-Foot Sue. Have them generate the critical attributes of this genre, explaining as well how it differs from (and yet takes cues from) legends, folktales, and myths. Find some online resources at 42explore.
- After reading Jangles: A BIG Fish Story, challenge students to write a Tall Tale about an animal of their choosing. You might consider supplying a simple story map based upon the mentor text which can guide students in their writing.
- Ask students to generate a list of some of their most memorable experiences (circus, baseball game, birth of a sibling, family reunion, recital, getting lost at the mall, etc.). Share the interview with the David Shannon at the Scholastic site. Discuss how personal experiences can often serve as the basis for writing fiction, and then have students choose one of their events to turn into a fictional account.
Mentor Text: Touch the Sky: Alice Coachman, Olympic High Jumper
Another recent picture book which features a strong voice is Touch the Sky: Alice Coachman, Olympic High Jumper. Author Ann Malaspina tells the true-life tale of a young girl who dreams of being the first African-American woman to win gold at the Olympics. Her medals won while competing as part of Tuskegee Institute's famous Golden Tigerettes only increase her determination to reach that goal. Tall Tale boasting would be inappropriate for this genre, of course, because as Dizzy Dean (and others) would say, "It ain't bragging if you can do it." Instead, the prose here is more lyrical, and almost poetic:
Alice Coachman raced
down the dirt road,
bare feet flying,
long legs spinning,
braids flapping
in the wind...
LEAP!
She sailed over
a tree branch
and kept on running.
Students will come to appreciate the power of repetition, parallel structure, and flow in such lines as:
Fields shut.
Tracks shut.
Doors shut
to girls like Alice.
No place to practice.
No crossbar to raise.
Alice and her friends got busy.
Knotting rags.
Tying rags to sticks.
Planting sticks
in the red Georgia clay.
Then her friends stood back
and let Alice jump.
Illustrations by Eric Velasquez (trust me, you know this guy; we all have chapter books in our classrooms bearing his work) fill each page, providing not only energy and emotion, but historical context as well.
Extensions:
- Check out the Teacher's Guide at Albert Whitman and Company for discussion questions, cross-curricular extensions, and ready-to-use assessments.
- In connection with biography readings for either Back History Month or Women's History Month, encourage students to rewrite key events from a famous person's life using the lyrical style of (fellow New Jerseyan) Ann Malaspina. Existing lines from chapter books can be reformatted into parallel structures (where possible), although I'd prefer for students to adapt those events or anecdotes they find most compelling.
- If you enjoy Malaspina's writing, which Kirkus Reviews called "spare and elegant free verse," then definitely check out Heart on Fire: Susan B. Anthony Votes for President, another spot-on writing exemplar for young authors, with superb illustrations by Steve James. Susan B. Anthony's law-defying act of voting is little known to students, but rivals the illegal actions of such "criminals" as Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr. See the classroom guide for this book which was named to the Top Ten of the Amelia Bloomer Project.
Mentor Text: Prairie Chicken LittleIn the tradition of this age old tale, Prairie Chicken Little by Jackie Mims Hopkins chronicles the over-reaction of one prairie chicken who thinks the sky is falling, or more accurately, a stampede is coming!Listen to this text's unique voice as the story begins:
Out on the grasslands where bison roam, Mary McBlicken the prairie chicken was scritch-scratching for her breakfast, when all of a sudden she heard a rumbling and a grumbling and a tumbling.
"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "A stampede's a comin'! I need to hightail it back to the ranch to tell Cowboy Stan and Red Dog Dan. They'll know what to do."
So away Mary ran, lickety-splickety, as fast as her little prairie chicken legs could carry her.
The onomatopoeia, the rhymes, and the word choice (such as "hightail it") combine to create a voice that matches both the book's setting and its levity. The book's fun is well supported by Henry Cole's splendid pictures. You might recall seeing his handiwork in Three Hens and a Peacock, mentioned here in a previous post.
Extensions:
- In the event that your students are studying other ecosystems such as as rain forests or polar regions, you could adapt this idea, challenging students to create a crisis or calamity, as well as appropriate creatures who would help spread the word. It's a pretty cool way to synthesize students' collection of random facts from a unit into a creative response. Can't you just see a penguin or a toucan as the main character?
- Fractured Fairy Tales are an all time favorite for kids to read, and they're fun to write as well. A recent post at the Peachtree Publishing blog provides some great titles to get you started.
- Have students research any of the animals from Prairie Chicken Little. Some of the real-life critters who populate this book sport some pretty amazing features. A good place to start? The Minnesota Prairie Chicken Society.
Do you have a favorite picture book to teach author's voice? If so, share it below!
And if you haven't entered yet, be sure to get in on the raffle for one of three animal picture books happening on this blog (scroll to the bottom of that page).
This will be the last time I rave about the articles in Alice Pope's 2009 Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market. I Promise. Pages 37-43 contain "Great Opening Lines in Picture Books" by Lisa Wheeler. She compares the opening lines to first dates. Her analogy is funny and memorable.
Wheeler describes (and gives examples of) openers from lots of PBs. She says that opening lines are like
Over the last two weeks I learned (again) what a good first line can do for you. As I mentioned in my last post, I'm working on a picture book biography. While researching the genre, I came across an interesting article by award-winning biographer James Cross Giblin. In it, he speaks of the importance of finding "anecdotes that bring the subject to life in ways that can be appreciated by younger as well as older readers." I do have several such anecdotes about my subject, but I've been having a hard time arranging them into a story with conflict/tension that rises to a climax. My draft also lacked a well-defined focus or theme.
So I tried the Writing Workout I suggested last time: I went back to the stack of sample biographies I'd brought home from the library and I studied the opening paragraphs to see how each author set up the tension and/or piqued the reader's interest. In other words, I examined how the authors "say who, when, and where" and "state the problem," as Mem Fox says. Here are several of my favorite openings from those books:
"No one expected such a tiny girl to have a first birthday. In Clarksville, Tennessee, in 1940, life for a baby who weighed just over four pounds at birth was sure to be limited." (34 words)
--from Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World's Fastest Woman
by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by David Diaz
"In 1917, some girls dressed their dolls. They played house and hopscotch, jump rope and jacks.
But one little girl wanted more. Elinor Smith wanted to soar." (27 words)
--from Soar, Elinor! by Tami Lewis Brown, illustrated by Francois Roca
"From the time he was young until long after his beard grew white, Charles Darwin loved to collect things. He collected rocks from the English countryside he explored as a boy, coins in the home where he grew up, shells from trips to the sea, and dead bugs, too." (49 words)
-from Darwin by Alice McGinty, illustrated by Mary Azarian
Each of these openings hints at the challenges and/or aspirations of the book's subject while also introducing theme and tone. In each case, it took fewer than fifty words to hook me so that I wanted to know more.
I spent days working on a first line/paragraph that would accomplish the same thing for my manuscript. When I finally had it, so much of the story fell into place. My new opening provided more than a hook; it helped me find the focus I'd been struggling to define. What a
Eureka! moment.
In a bit of Synchronicity, yesterday I came across
a short article by author-illustrator Lindsay Barrett George on picture book writing in general. When writing picture books, she says:
I found this cool meme today and wanted to participate. Here’s how it works:
How to participate: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments. Include the title and the author so we know what you’re reading. Then, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and let us know if you liked or did not like the sentence. The link-up will be over at A Few More Pages every Friday.
This first line is from a book I will be reviewing next week. It’s called Losing Michael Malone and it’s a work of fiction written by 20-year-old author, Nicholas Kasunic.
“The viewing was today — a day, in description, no different than the next.”
Please stop by next week and you’ll get all my thoughts and impressions of this book.
It’s my turn to enter a contest! Scroll down for my entry in the first line contest hosted by Brenda Drake over at Brenda Drake Writes. I’m ready for your critiques, fellow blogfesters! Genre: Picture Book On Monday, Mom cooked 8 … Continue reading →
By: 1questionaday,
on 2/1/2011
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Round Four judging for our Line-by-line novel opening contest is now complete. The top ten opening sentences are in, and literary agent
Natalie Fischer says the entries are getting harder and harder to pick--there are too many great beginnings. Without a query letter to clue her into the plot, she's having to rely on guesses about where she thinks the novel is going. And she also points out that evaluating writing of any kind is a highly subjective process.
Without further ado, the finalists are listed below. At the end of the contest,
each of them will receive at minimum a 3-page critique from one of our participating authors. If you are one of these lucky ten, please add the first five sentences of your manuscript along with your entry number and name into the comments of this post by 6:00 pm Monday, July 19th for the final round of judging.
If you didn't make it to the last round, we will be holding the promised critique clinic for you. There will be an announcement posted about it this afternoon.
Finalists
#11 L.J. Boldyrev There’s a dead girl in the trunk and all I can think about is how white the trees are. There ain’t no street lamps on this stretch of road, but still the trees glow like they’re lit from the ground up.
“Not much farther,” Jack says.
I want to tell him he’s driving too fast, to slow down so I can get a better look at the trees, but I know we got to hurry.
#18 Jenn FitzgeraldMadame Bhut’s Finishing School in the town of Whut was known across Amalthea as a respectable place to send your daughter if you were hoping to marry her to a gentleman; not for producing evil queens with ideas of world domination. That is, until Priscilla Martin escaped.
Even before she escaped, Priscilla was less than a model student. Miss Birch, the embroidery teacher, had been horrified to find that during her second week at the school Priscilla had started embroidering skulls and crossbones instead of flowers on all her projects.
#28 Cambria DillonWhoever said cell phones made life easier was full of BS. If it were true, then I wouldn’t have spent the past fourteen minutes sitting on my bed, half-naked, wondering why my thumb couldn’t do something as simple as press a button.
Girls did this sort of thing every day. Probably every minute at Pembroke, which meant I had just wasted fourteen—no wait, fifteen—opportunities to prove to Tommy that—damn it Kendall, just do it already.
#47 Margaret NicholsThe bonfire in the middle of the grand plaza of New Tikal sent sparks up to greet the low-hanging stars; the stars Mau B'ah-Pakal hoped were still speaking to him, because no one else was. He had failed his friends, offended the Emperor, and worst of all - he could barely think it - had he really shoved his grandmother?
The plaza was full of people celebrating the equinox, but Mau couldn't hide in the crowd. Although he had the chocolate skin and thick black hair of his people, his forearms and the back of his hands were covered with tattoos.
#54 shanini3 There was no mistaking the darkness on the eastern horizon; they were coming.
Malaysa clutched the balcony railing as she stared out over the land in the predawn glow from the sky. The tinkling of metal tubes continued to ring out in the air; they were what had woken her up.
Her mother, standing by her side, bore a terrified expression.
#57 SheilaJacob shook the bamboo bars of his cage agai
The results are in! Literary Agent
Natalie Fischer has picked the top 25 finalists in our
Line-by-line novel opening contest.
If your entry
is not listed below and you are one of the 25 that didn't make it through this round, we invite you to join our
Round 3 Critique Clinic to find out why. The critique clinics are an amazing opportunity to get feedback from agented, published, and debut authors who are donating their time and expertise to help you. Please see the list of participating authors and post your entry number and first five sentences in the comments by clicking here.
If you your entry
is listed below, please add a comment to this post including your entry number and the first four sentences from your YA or MG novel.
TOP 25 FINALISTS
#1 Kat ZhangAdie and I were born into the same body, our souls’ ghostly fingers entwined before we gasped our very first breath. Our first few years were our happiest—then came the worries: the tightness around our parents’ mouths, the frowns lining our kindergarden teacher’s forehead, the question everyone whispered when they thought we couldn’t hear.
Why aren’t they settling?
#2 Creepy Query Girl ‘How do you punish someone who’s already dead?’ Gretchen Grey tightened her grip around an umbrella handle while she waited for her parents to arrive. Her haunted blue eyes examined the London townhouse where she had grown up.
#11 L.J. BoldyrevThere’s a dead girl in the trunk and all I can think about is how white the trees are. There ain’t no street lamps on this stretch of road, but still the trees glow like they’re lit from the ground up.
“Not much farther,” Jack says.
#14 cchant My hope of living a normal life in Lindenville faded faster than my fifteen dollar jeans the moment I got to the school bus stop. How could anything be normal after you hear you’re living with a dead girl?
“That’s Laura’s house. You don’t belong there.”
#18 Jenn FitzgeraldMadame Bhut’s Finishing School in the town of Whut was known across Amalthea as a respectable place to send your daughter if you were hoping to marry her to a gentleman, not for producing evil queens with ideas of world domination. That is, until Priscilla Martin escaped.
Even before she escaped, Priscilla was less than a model student.
#20 HeatherAmidst the never-ending fires and screams of defiant terror, Abby collapsed to the ground – feet twisting inward, eyes unwilling to stay open, and desperately wishing to pass out. Exhausted from the chase, tired of the hiding. For fifteen years, she had never felt her stomach cave in from hunger like it did now; even the stench of death and decay rooted beneath her skin as if it were her own that was blackened with Consumption.
#27 salarsenッThe challenge began like all the rest, although the dead corpse-look was different. Ana wished she could ignore it, pretend it didn’t exist, but that never worked. She could feel them.
#28 Cambria Dillon Whoever said cell phones made life easier was full of BS. If it were true, then I wouldn’t have spent the past fourteen minutes sitting on my bed, half-naked, wondering why my
Literary agent
Natalie Fischer, the judge for our current
Line-by-line Novel Opening Contest, has sent us her picks for the top 25 finalists. Unfortunately, that meant cutting another 25 entries that did not make it through to the next round. Overall, these are fantastic openings. To help make them even stronger, our panel of agented, published, and debut authors have offered to critique the first five sentences of these novels right here, so we
all can learn to strengthen our writing.
This is an amazing opportunity. These authors have all been through the querying process and won. They have been providing thoughtful, incredibly detailed critiques. We urge you to take advantage of this chance to develop your novel opening. (Marissa and I only wish
we could benefit from their expertise and patience!)
To enter the Critique Clinic with our fantastic panel of guest authors, if your entry appears below, please add your entry number and the full first five sentences of your novel in the comments of this post before 6:00 pm Monday, July 12, 2010.
Please Give a Warm Welcome to Our Participating Authors:- Barrie Summy writes a humorous tween/teen mystery series for Random House. Her books include I SO DON'T DO MYSTERIES, I SO DON'T DO SPOOKY, the just-released I SO DON'T DO MAKEUP and the upcoming I SO DON'T DO FAMOUS. She lives in San Diego with her husband, four chatty children, a dog named Dorothy, two veiled chameleons and 83 chameleon eggs. She is addicted to the internet and licorice.
- Riley Carney is seventeen years old and has written seven MG/YA novels. The first book of the five-book Reign of the Elements Series,The Fire Stone, was released January 2010, and the second book, The Water Stone, will be released August 2010. Riley is passionate about promoting global literacy through the nonprofit corporation that she founded because she believes that the way to help children break the cycle of poverty and exploitation is through literacy.
- Tracy Clark has completed two YA novels and is currently working on her third. She is represented by Michael Bourret of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. She’s a wife, mother, lover of words, private pilot and irredeemable dreamer. Tracy was mentored by bestselling author, Ellen Hopkins, in the NV SCBWI Mentor Program.
- When Cole Gibsen isn't writing she can be found shaking her booty in a zumba class, picking off her nail polish, or drinking straight from the jug (when no one is looking). Cole's debut YA paranormal, Katana, is due out from Flux in spring, 2012.
- Tahereh a.k.a. T.H. Mafi works as a graphic designer. Her blog Grab a Pen consistently entertains the masses. She writes YA novels and is represented by the ever-fabulous Amy Tipton of Signature Literary Agency.
- Lisa Green
Today the gals over at Adventures in Children's Publishing are hosting a contest judging first lines of completed manuscripts and it got me thinking about the importance of first lines.
With my first WIP, the opening had no real hook aside from the setting. It's a historical and takes place in an era we're all familiar with (or should be familiar with) so there's tension, but the line wasn't a hook.
With my newer WIP, I have a definite hook. The reaction to the two is very different. And not just because of content.
Someone said (and if I can find who, I'll post a name) that the first line sells the book, the last line sells the second book.
Out of curiosity I grabbed the closest book, LOW RED MOON by Ivy Devlin, and opened it up. The first line reads: I was covered in blood when the police found me.
That is a GREAT opening line! It catches my attention and it makes me ask questions. Why is she covered in blood? Who's blood? Was it a murder? Was it an accident?
Not all great books have a great opening line. In some cases, such as with TWILIGHT, the author uses a catchy prologue to grab your attention. This, in my opinion, is fine if that prologue serves a purpose. If you come back to it later. If you don't it can upset your reader. I can think of a few books who had catchy prologues that made me ask a lot of questions, but then those questions weren't answered in that book.
Frustrating.
In most cases I think we as writers need to avoid prologues.
Suzannah over at
Write it Sideways came up with a great list of what
NOT to do in your opening lines:
- Dialogue. Nice somewhere on the first or second page, but not in the first line. We won’t know who’s speaking or why we should care.
- Excessive description. Some description is good, but not when it’s long winded. Skip the purple prose and opt for something more powerful.
- Irrelevant information. The first few lines of your story are crucial, so give your reader only important information.
-
10 Comments on The Importance of the First Line, last added: 6/10/2010
We all know the importance of the first page in selling your manuscript. To compete with the talent out there, we have to grab our readers fast. But how do we know we've done it?
We're excited to hold a line-by-line contest to help you evaluate your opening the same way a literary agent will read it. And we are fortunate to have agent
Natalie Fischer of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency as the judge.
Here's how the contest works:
June 10th - Round One: 8:00 a.m. and Noon Eastern Time Submission Windows- Submit the first sentence of your completed YA or MG manuscript starting at 8:00 a.m. ET today in the comments of this post. We will take the first 50 entries and then close the comment window.
- We will reopen the comment window at noon today to accept the next 50 entries. Comments will stay open until we have 100 entries total, or until 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time on June 16th, whichever comes first.
- Please enter only once per manuscript. If you have multiple completed manuscripts, you may enter the second one after 1:00 pm if there is still room.
June 17th - 100 Entries Posted - We will post the first sentences for all 100 contestants and open them for kind, respectful feedback.
- Natalie Fischer will begin judging.
June 24th - Round One Winners: Top 75 Entries Posted- If you made the top 75, you may submit the first and second sentences of your novel.
June 28th - Round Two: Submission Deadline for 75 2nd Sentences- Submission window CLOSES at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
July 1 - Round Two Winners: Top 50 Entries Posted- If you made the top 50, you may submit the first through third sentences of your novel.
July 5 - Round Three: Submission Deadline for 50 3rd Sentences- Submission window CLOSES at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
July 8 - Round Three Winners: Top 25 Entries Posted- If you made the top 25, you may submit the first through fourth sentences of your novel.
July 12 - Round Four: Submission Deadline for 25 4th Sentences- Submission window CLOSES at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
July 15 - Round Four Winners: Top 10 Entries Posted- If you made the top 10, you may submit the first through fifth sentences.
July 19 - Round Five: Submission Deadline for 10 5th Sentences- Submission window CLOSES at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
July 22 - Overall Winners AnnouncedAnd the winners get.... Drumroll, please!- 1st Place: A 25-page critique by Natalie Fischer plus books by a Sandra Dijkstra agency author
- 2nd Place: A 10-page critique by Natalie Fischer plus books by a Sandra Dijkstra agency author
- 3rd Place: A 5-page critique by P.J. Hoover, author of the MG Forgotten Realms Novels, plus books by a Sandra Dijkstra agency author
- 4-10th Place: A 3-page critique from one of the debut auth
I love the first lines of books — they’re so full of promise, and an intriguing one really gets me hooked. I almost never buy a book in the bookstore that has a dull first line (and a surprising number of books do — the weather, or the day/date, or some relatively boring description of the setting). And I think that as books struggle harder to catch the attention of readers used to movie trailers, TV, and video games (not to mention other books), they get better all the time. (This showed in our “first 3 lines” contest recently… although, of course, following up with a zillion more good lines is part of the trick, too!)
M.T. Anderson still gets my vote for favorite first line, with, “We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.” (FEED.) But there are plenty of great ones out there.
What’s your favorite?
— Joni, who can’t start writing until she has the right first line to follow, like the Yellow Brick Road
Posted in Joni Sensel Tagged: beginnings, first lines
Guest blogger and First Book supporter Mindy Klasky is the author of six fantasy novels, including the award-winning, best-selling The Glasswrights’ Apprentice and numerous short stories. Her latest trilogy, The Jane Madison Series, chronicles a love-struck D.C. librarian who discovers she’s a witch. Visit www.mindyklasky.com to learn more about Mindy’s work and her support of First Book.
“Once upon a time….”
“Call me Ishmael….”
“In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit….”
Those are all great beginnings. Classic beginnings. Beginnings that call out to the reader to turn the page, to soak up one more paragraph, another chapter, an entire book at one sitting. (Okay, maybe not the “Ishmael” one - I don’t think anyone has ever managed Moby Dick in one sitting.)
But beginnings don’t come easily. In fact, I spend more time thinking about (worrying about, changing, modifying, adapting — see how challenging this choosing of words can become?!?) my opening sentence than I do any other sentence in my novels.
And I’m totally preoccupied with an opening sentence now. I’m hard at work (or, rather, hard at not-quite-working-yet-on) my latest genie novel. I know the characters, their plot, the complications that I’m going to toss in front of them. I just need that perfect starting point.
I think about opening lines as I’m trying to fall asleep. Often, I find inspiration in that hazy, misty place that lies between wakefulness and sleep. Alas, the ideal turn of phrase, the one that I could never forget because it’s just *so* perfect, the Platonic ideal of a title, sometimes get swept away by dreams. But I try to take comfort in my belief that a truly great opening line will survive that assault; it will last until morning.
I’m still considering a few different options for the as-yet-unnamed novel. (Yeah, that’s another thing I need to meditate on before falling asleep - naming this baby!) What are your favorite opening lines? And why?
By: Catherine J Gardner,
on 9/5/2008
Blog:
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I stole this one from Camille Alexa as it looked like fun. Plus I needed an excuse not to work on my current story.
Here are the rules:
List the first lines of the last 20 stories you have written:
1. Have you ever kissed a decomposing corpse? - untitled WIP.
2. “After the attempted robot revolution of 2017 we buried our robots in the oceans. - Cyclone of Painted Shells.
3. The carpetbagger climbed onto the back of the wagon taking with him Thomas Eagan’s bones. - Lazarus Jones' Creepy Carnival of Corpses.
4. Gold teeth shone as a pirate climbed out of a black cab, saluted a garden gnome and then clambered up the hill to Between House. - Trench Foot.
5. It was one of those accidental resurrections. - The Restoration of Purple Curtains & Other Things.
6. Vern Gobel won by a margin. - Nobody Smiling.
7. There’s a curious robot poking around my thoughts. - Curious Robot.
8. Rule one in the Doggett Household - don’t throw spitballs at Uncle Eric. - Uncle Eric's Leather Bound Tale.
9. When Daniel Borgfeldt told Marie Pickens, he wanted to see her dance he didn’t mean from the end of a rope. - Hand Scratched Note.
10. Not everybody wants to be famous. - Ugly Duckling.
11. The plastic lizard floated on its back in the stagnant pool of rainwater. - A Strange Artificial Light.
12. A crowd of humans gathered about Cappuccia. - The Coffee Fairy.
13. Dead Man Irwin Scherzer was in fact fifty-eight years living. - Chasing Alice out of Wonderland.
14. Artie wanted to look his best for the meeting with the Golf Club Secretary. - The Flat-Packed Golfer.
15. Alice peeled the Band-Aid off her forehead. - Cold Coffee Cups & Curious Things.
16. A flyer drifted a hundred feet down into the pit where Mack Johnson leant against a dribbling rain pipe, and where the giant Tarasov Baranowski folded paper. - Manipulating Paper Birds.
17. I want to say it was a face. - Beneath a Hungry Sky.
18. If the cracked eggshell in the centre of Fog Street was an indication of the size of the monster then it was tiny. - Sneakers on Asphalt.
19. The sombre giant bowed his head as the procession of funeral cars arrived at St. Bartholomew’s. - Through the Warped Eye of Death.
20. The field of red berries floated on the surface of the flooded bog. - The Dreadful Guise of Red Berries.
My beau was in Professor Georgiou’s NYU class back in the late 1970′s. He suggested I audit classes which the good professor allowed (still have Georgiou’s purple mimeographed notes). He thought my writing was “preachy”. However, he sent me to his friend at UNICEF and I got my first ever professional illustration job! What a wonderful tribute to a dedicated children’s book lover. Yay!
Woohoo for the Multnomah County Library system. Best libraries ever (I’m sure NYPL is a close second, Betsy). #bookmatch was fun to follow, and I highly recommend it to other library systems. Go Timbers! #RCTID
How cool would it have been if they’d made a video out of it? Next time.