Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Road Trip Wednesday-opening lines



Road Trip Time
Welcome to another Road Trip Wednesday, a blog carnival wherein the lovely ladies of YA Highway post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and the contributors and readers (like me!) answer it on their own blogs.
This week’s question is:
What are your favorite first lines?
How do your own WiPs start?


One my newest favorite books is Gone.  It has the best opening line ever:
One minute the teacher was talking about the Civil War. The next minute he was gone.


DAMN!  Seriously.  Talk about a hook.   The whole book is about living in a world without adults and bam first line all the adults are GONE. 

There's no messing around there. 

As for myself, I've been struggling for a LONG time on how to start How to Pwn nOObz.  Almost EVERY draft has had a new opening.  I"m going to start revising it for the 14th time soon.  Probably while the rest of the writing world is working on Nanowrimo.  

This time I think I know where to start.  This time I think I've got it.  But sure I"ve said that 13 other times as well.

But my other WIPs New York Karma-  it's opening line is, "My g-string is so far up my ass it's an organ." 

For Penny and Hank the opening line is, "Trapped.  Every morning I wake with the same thought, I'm trapped in this POS town." 

Sometime the opening line comes to me right away.  I sit down and POOF like magic it happens.  Three complete drafts of NYK and the opening line hasn't changed at all.  
Other times, it's a slow and horrible process like How to pwn nOObz. 
I have no magically formula, if I did, I'd sell it and make my millions on that, instead of teaching. :-) 




11 comments:

  1. HA the opening for NYK just made me laugh out loud at work. Again! You are killing me Erinn.

    And I just read GONE based on your recommendation and LOVED it. Such a fun read.

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  2. Ha!! love that opening line for NYK :)

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  3. I think I'm going to have to check out GONE. Have you ever read THE GIRL WHO OWNED A CITY? It's about a disease that kills all the adults and the children have to learn to run society. And the opening to NYK - awesome!

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  4. I used GONE as one of my favorites too! Freaking love the opening, and the entire series :)

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  5. GONE's first line is awesome. As is the g-string, lol.

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  6. I love your New York Karma opening line!

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  7. hahaha - great opening line for NYK.I love it.

    also, i really need to read Gone asap

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  9. That opening about the g-string certainly has me curious!

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  10. I love the sense of voice and personality that we get from your opening lines.

    So many people are talking about Gone right now, and I hadn't even heard of it! I must check this book out.

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