Great Opening Lines...

Ernest Hemingway once wrote, "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."

Sounds easy right? But where to get started? 

Opening lines can be the trickiest part of writing. Countless English teachers have probably reminded you that you should always begin with a hook. But coming up with one sentence that grabs your reader but is also clear and concise can be hard. Rather than tell you how to do it, I thought I would let a few great authors show you. Take a look below:

“To start with, look at all the books.” ~ Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” ~Leo Tolstoy,  Anna Karenina

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself" ~ Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

"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, Catcher in the Rye

"Call me Ismael." ~Herman Melville, Moby Dick 

"The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting." —Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage 

"Those who saw him hushed." ~ Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin 

Want to learn more about opening lines? Read Jonathan Russell Clark's essay in The Millions (The Art of Opening Sentences). 

Letters of Note

Here is the link for your first essay assignment:

Letters of Note


Below is one of my favorite letters from the website!

Dear Sir:

I like words. I like fat buttery words, such as ooze, turpitude, glutinous, toady. I like solemn, angular, creaky words, such as straitlaced, cantankerous, pecunious, valedictory. I like spurious, black-is-white words, such as mortician, liquidate, tonsorial, demi-monde. I like suave "V" words, such as Svengali, svelte, bravura, verve. I like crunchy, brittle, crackly words, such as splinter, grapple, jostle, crusty. I like sullen, crabbed, scowling words, such as skulk, glower, scabby, churl. I like Oh-Heavens, my-gracious, land's-sake words, such as tricksy, tucker, genteel, horrid. I like elegant, flowery words, such as estivate, peregrinate, elysium, halcyon. I like wormy, squirmy, mealy words, such as crawl, blubber, squeal, drip. I like sniggly, chuckling words, such as cowlick, gurgle, bubble and burp.

I like the word screenwriter better than copywriter, so I decided to quit my job in a New York advertising agency and try my luck in Hollywood, but before taking the plunge I went to Europe for a year of study, contemplation and horsing around. 

I have just returned and I still like words. 

May I have a few with you?

Robert Pirosh
385 Madison Avenue
Room 610
New York
Eldorado 5-6024

(Source: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/i-like-words.html)