First Lines is a series of blog articles posted on or around the first of the month. I started this series after a friend’s suggestion that I write a post on how to write the first line of your story. I hoped to inspire my writing but also hoped to inspire other writers, plus point readers to books they might enjoy.
Celebrating October …
October in the United States is the spookiest month of the year. So this month, I’m looking at books advertised as science fiction or fantasy psychological thrillers. I hope at least one of these sample first lines gives you a chill or two.
Kate Lawson’s hands frozen above the keyboard, fingers trembling as if they had forgotten their own names. The boys had cut through the silence of her apartment like an icicle sliding down her spine. Not heard in the conventional sense – she had no eardrum memory of it– but felt, resonating through her bones with a familiarity that was almost intimate, almost terrifying.
At 2:30 a.m., Chicago slept, indifferent to the terror, gripping her LINKIN PARK apartment. Normally, this hour belong to quiet reflection, a pause after the manic rhythm of litigation and billable hours. Tonight, the silence was a predator, and she knew instinctively that she was the prey.
The coffee mug slipped from her hand, smashed against the hardwood floor. Ceramic shards scattered across a pattern that seemed–she could not explain why–eerily reminiscent of the Hendrix case photos laid across her desk. Another suspicious death. Another family broken. Another cover-up masquerading as tragedy.”
–The Memory Experiment, Andrew Fox
I love Thursday nights.
They have a field to them that’s outside of time.
It’s our tradition, just the three of us – family night.
My son, Charlie, is sitting at the table, drawing on a sketchpad. He’s almost 15. The kid grew 2 inches over the summer, and he’s as tall as I am now.
I turned away from the onion I’m julienning and, ask, “can I see?”
He hold up the pad, shows me a mountain range that looks like something on another planet.
I say, “love that. Just for fun?”
“Class project. Due tomorrow.”
“Then get back to it, Mr. last minute.”
Standing happy, happy and slightly drunk in my kitchen, I’m unaware that tonight is the end of all this. The end of everything I know, everything I love.
No one tells you it’s all about to change, to be taken away. There’s no proximity alert, no indication that you’re standing on the precipice. And maybe that’s what makes tragedy so tragic. Not just what happens, but how it happens: a sucker punch that comes at you out of nowhere when you’re least expecting it. No time to flinch or brace.
Dark Matter, Blake Crouch
The dust fell like rain, but like the world was forgetting itself.
It was a slow, silent cloud of tiny particles that coded everything in the city’s Grand Archive with a layer of gray. For Leo, it was a physical sign of failure. He ran a gloved finger over the spine of the rare book the leather cracked and puffed out dust. The title, The Wars of the Sunstone Kings, was now just a faint shape.
This was the Dustfall. It was a slow-moving plague that had started years ago at the edge of the city and had now reached it heart. It didn’t just cover things up; it broke them down. Stone turned, brittle, iron, rusted away, and paper dash which held all of their history – crumbled into useless grit.
Leo, at thirty, was the youngest, Senior Archivist, but the title felt like he was watching things die, not studying them.”
–The Silent Library, Salim El Dorra
Her first sensation was a man’s arms around her, lifting her out of the sea. He carried her over the sand to a dry patch of Brown, where he laid her down. She turned her face, coughed, and spat out saltwater..
“You all right?” The man said.
She’s squinted up at him, unable to make out his features with the Stark sun blazing behind his head. A feeling of foreboding gripped her and caused a shiver.
“Let me help you,” he said. The man raised her to a sitting position.
She stared at her arm, wondering why it felt like she never seen her own hand before. Her gaze shifted to her legs, which seemed like they belonged to some other person. She felt her eyes, nose and lips, trying to remember what her face looked like she squeezed the dampness from her long, reddish hair, waiting for her memory to return.”
Invader, Margie Benedict
Looking back for me, at least the hunger had said in almost immediately.
In the evening on the day after the injection, I felt a subtle knocking sensation inside the roof of my mouth. I kind of hollow feeling behind beneath my molars, and also under my gums, where my wisdom teeth used to be. However, fully distracted by the many benefits, already rejuvenating my body early on, I hastily discounted it as an insignificant side effect. Not that it mattered – my new condition was irreversible, something that had been stated repeatedly in Boal throughout all the legal paperwork I volunteer signed. After all, getting rid of work related nerve damage, a bad case of Crohn’s disease, and then inevitable family history of Alzheimer’s – and fully covered by my insurance policy – was definitely worth a weird case of dry mouth.
VitaForge: One Shote = Ten Healthy Decades.
I can still see the giant digital billboard in my mind’s eye.
–The Urge, Robbin Ramos
Clarification
There are no affiliate links in this post. I don’t make a cent off of the books listed on this page. Usually I pull these titles at random. They are from Amazon, my personal library, my area public library, or other online booksellers.
For convenience, the links here are to Amazon, but feel free to search for any of these titles on other book selling sites.
Do You Want to Read More?
Do these first lines hook you? Do you want to read more? They are here for your enjoyment. And to entice you to buy more books. Let me know which ones sparked your interest.
Reviews Aren’t Difficult
No matter what book you’re reading, leave a a few words on the site where you bought it, a readers site, or the author’s site. Just say the kind of thing you would tell a friend about it. Reviews are always appreciated by writer and readers alike.
Like this? Check out previous First Lines posts.