Please welcome Pens Fatales guest...Maya Banks :)

Given that I’ve known the topic of this week for uhm quite a few weeks and the fact that I had absolutely nada in the way of inspiration, I think I’m with Martha on the importance of a first line. I read a lot of books. I mean a lot. I wracked my brain to remember any snappy first lines and I came up blank. I’m sure plenty of authors had them, but it’s not what I remember about their books. I remember characters, a great plot, a really yummy romance, a great hero…but not their first lines. Telling huh?

So instead I looked through my books to see what I’d used as a first line since apparently I don’t place a whole lot of emphasis on them. And yeah, after looking, I can see that I don’t *sigh*

No guts, no glory, no orgasm. –from “What She Craves” in the For Her Pleasure anthology.

It was a damned miserable day to day. –from “Her Majesty, My Love”

Sir Rodrick Castleton fled as if the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels. –from “Beyond the Night”

He had to have pissed off a hell of a lot of people in a past life. It was the only explanation he could come up with as to why he’d drawn this pussy-ass babysitting job. –from as of yet unnamed Kelly book 3 (Garrett’s story)

And sometimes you need the first couple of lines to set that all important first scene.

She had the look of a woman on a mission. Eli Chance recognized a sexual predator
when he saw one. And damn if he didn’t want to be her next victim. –from “Into the Mist”

So yeah, while it’s nice to have a snappy, memorable first line, the truth is, even if you do, I probably won’t remember it. But a really good story? Yeah, I’ll remember that.

Guest blogging today...Maya Banks

Hello Pens Fatales readers,

Today's guest will be the amazing Maya Banks. Maya was the impetus for us to stop talking about doing a group blog and get organized. We are so pleased to have Maya as our guest. She will be blogging later today, so stay tuned!!

Gigi Conducts an Experiment

When the topic of first lines first came up, I couldn't recall a single first line from any of my favorite books. Strange. Perhaps I had been traumatized by my personal first line experience, during which every single one of my early readers told me that my lovingly crafted first line had to go. (They were right.)

Hmm… An experiment was in order. I went to my bookshelves and pulled out several of my favorite mysteries. A wonderful group of books, full of other memorable lines I can recite off the top of my head, but none of their first lines seemed all that special.

"When I first set eyes on Evelyn Forbes-Barton, she was walking the streets of Rome."
-Crocodile on the Sandbank, Elizabeth Peters

"So still and silent was the fog-wreathed form that it might have been an angular, black boulder."
-Old Bones, Aaron Elkins

"Before I tell you about Hannah Schneider's death, I'll tell you about my mother's."
-Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl

"Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond was suffering in the rear seat of a police car scorching towards Bath along the Keynsham bypass with the headlamps on full beam, blue light pulsing and siren wailing."
Bloodhounds, Peter Lovesy

"Monstrous."
The Houdini Specter, Daniel Stashower

And a favorite Golden Age mystery:
"To the murder of Professor Grimaud, and later the equally incredible crime in Cagliostro Street, many fantastic terms could be applied—with reason."
The Three Coffins, John Dickson Carr

Granted, you get a hint that many of these are mysteries from their first lines (a detective here, a murder there) but presumably you already knew that when you picked up the book. What makes these first lines special is the strength of the stories that follow.

So are these great first lines? Maybe. But are these great books? Definitely.

Martha Thinks Firsts Are Overrated

The first line of this blog sucks.

You still reading? Good. Because I don’t care about first lines. Or even first paragraphs. As a reader, I expect to do some work, pull a little weight of my own, and that includes getting past a first page or even first chapter without needing to be dazzled every second of the way.

I want to be drawn in, seduced – and in my experience (with books) that happens best when it happens slowly, bit by bit.

If I were going to judge an entire book by one line – it would be the last. I want a line that makes me exhale or even gasp*. A line that makes me caress the back cover as I close the tome. One that sends me back to the beginning to rethink every plot twist and the characters’ journeys.

“After all, tomorrow is another day” means nothing without Scarlett’s stubborn resistance to Rhett.

“He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance,” while beautiful on its own, is even lovelier because of the pain Frankenstein and his creature endured.

A first line is a blank slate, but a last line brings with it the baggage of the last hundred pages. It must deliver on tens of thousands of words of promises. By a book’s last line, you’re ready for payoff. You’ve cried at the character’s sorrows. Laughed at their moments of joy. By the last line, the story no longer belongs to the writer. It’s yours.

NOTES
* Sophie is a gasp-hater, folks. She absolutely detests the verb gasp. Thinks it has no business in a novel. So I'm putting this on the line. The first person to buy Sophie's book, A Bad Day For Sorry (Aug 09) and find the word gasp in it - email me with the page number @ martha@marthaflynn.com. There's a $25 amazon.com gift certificate in it for you. If the word gasp isn't in that book, then it's $50 to the person who finds it in her second release, a YA novel for Fall 2010. If not there, then $75 to the third book. I could do this all decade, people. All. Decade.

** Do you want to know the winner of Ellen Hopkin's 30 page critique? Well then...take a look below.....
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Christina Farley, come on down! For a take on why Christina's win is extra serendipitous, read my post on the raffle drawing.

What Makes A Keeper?

I just want to say that I am not a person who remembers details. When I’m in the midst of working or planning, of course, I can pick random details from my brain at will. But once the project is over, most details get relegated to some nebulous part of my gray matter where they can be yanked back out (if need be) with a visual, or sometimes oral, prompt.

When this topic was mentioned, I could only think of one first line I knew immediately.

Gracie Snow was having a bad hair month. Heaven, Texas by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

This line has stuck with me through years of reading and writing. Probably because the sentiment is universal, everyone has bad hair days. The idea of a whole month of them is horrifying.

But here’s the thing...even though this line has stayed with me, Heaven, Texas was not one of my favorite books by Phillips. There are countless other SEP books which I prefer over this one...they may or may not have spectacular first lines, I don’t remember.

The only other first line I remember...It was the best of times, it was the worst of times from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. At the risk of insulting English teachers everywhere, I’m pretty sure I stopped reading by page two.

So does the first line make or break a book? I took a scientific approach (yes, I am a nerd) and did a random sampling from some of my favorite authors and a few books that I just read. These stories have pretty cool beginnings.

A funeral always made for a bad day. Falling Awake by Jayne Ann Krentz.

One hundred and fifty-four fucking inches of rain a year–and this little corner of the Colombian jungle was getting it all tonight. Crazy Kisses by Tara Janzen.

Gwen Davies had a license to steal. Take Me Two Times by Karen Kendall.

I was recruited by the NSA at fifteen. Blowback by Lisa Hughey. (Currently under submission with several publishing houses, keep your fingers crossed :) )



Many of my keeper, re-read at least once a year, books by authors like Elizabeth Lowell, Cherry Adair, Linda Howard, Suzanne Brockmann, surprisingly do not have killer first lines. However the stories kicked ass.

So while that first line may hook the reader, it doesn’t always guarantee a place on the keeper shelf. But having a great (and memorable) first line surely doesn’t hurt.

Lisa

ps. Ironically, after I wrote this post, I saw that Heaven, Texas was just re-released so if this put you in the mood to read about Bobby Tom and Gracie head to the bookstore

The Book's the Thing

L.G.C. Smith

First lines. Sometimes I hear them in my head, but I never seem able to work them onto the first page. The first line I heard for the book I’m working on now was “Where the hell is my warlord?”

Not bad. Spoken by a British intelligence bureaucrat who can’t find the Anglo-Saxon warlord he’s spent millions dragging fifteen hundred years out of the past, it’s fairly punchy. Not subtle or nuanced, but this isn’t a subtle novel.

Alas, I’ll be damned if I can get it smack at the beginning. It would be a decent first line if it weren’t on page 11.

I don’t worry about this too much anymore because I realized I don’t remember great first lines from the books I love. I appreciate them when I read them, but they aren’t sticky. Whoosh. Off they go into the blue.

Visual images stay with me: the faded map of Cornwall from a shop in Truro, the name Frenchman’s Creek handwritten alongside a narrow finger leading to the Helford River; Pip in the churchyard on the edge of the tidal marshes, caught by a filthy man in leg irons, threatening to eat him; Ruck on the road to Avignon with a troop of pilgrims, desperately trying to hush his hysterical young wife, Isabelle, before the other travelers turn on them. Stella Hardesty getting ready to plug an old trailer full of bullets.

I know Sophie’s “A Bad Day for Sorry” opens with a killer first line. It would be nice if I could remember it. As for du Maurier’s “Frenchman’s Creek,” Dickens’ “Great Expectations,” and Laura Kinsale’s “For My Lady’s Heart” -- well, none have compelling first lines, but I’ll never forget those opening images. I can’t count how many times I’ve reread them, or measure the enjoyment they’ve brought me.

That said, a zinger of a first line never hurt a reader, especially when followed by a top-notch read. Karen Marie Moning begins “Darkfever,” the first book in her current paranormal series, with the hard to ignore “My philosophy is pretty simple – any day nobody’s trying to kill me is a good day in my book.”

Like my own example, we’re not talking subtlety and nuance here. This is a conk-you-on-the-noggin, you-want-to-buy-this-book-don’t-you first line designed to slam straight into your story-lusting heart. It’s the sprinkle of toasted pecans on a black and tan sundae. Not necessary, but really nice.

That killer first line is always the ideal. In my imperfect reading practice, however, I don’t need one, and I won’t remember the gems I do find. I drive myself crazy searching for them in my own work, but in the end, I reconcile myself to the best I can manage. Then I make sure the book gets better as it goes.

Our First Guest!!! Karin Tabke

I'm so very pleased to announce our VERY FIRST grog guest: Karin Tabke. Karin spent two years as the President of our local RWA (Romance Writers of America) chapter. During her tenure, she offered words of wisdom, unflagging encouragement, and occasionally a shoulder to cry/whine on.


We're going to interview Karin asking the hard hitting, tough questions you've come to expect from the Pens Fatales (okay, maybe not so much hard hitting, cause really, we are so very nice)

Our subject for the first two weeks is First Lines so we're going to start in theme....

PF: What's your most favorite first line from a book? Do you have one or many?

KT: First of all I want to thank all of the grog ladies for having me today! I feel so special! Your first guest!!

So, fave first lines? I have a few and no surprise, I wrote them!

Here’s the first line from my debut hot cops series GOOD GIRL GONE BAD, “Are you trying to tell me Sergeant Jamerson, you didn’t lay one finger on Jesse Rivera?”

In SKIN, the first line is, “Strip.”

In JADED the first line is, “Touch me again, Mr. Townsend, and I’ll cut your balls off and shove them so far down your throat you’ll choke to death.”

Snerk all of these first lines are spoken by the heroines. Hmm I think I see a pattern.

I mix things up in the historicals, they are more atmospheric. From MASTER OF SURRENDER, book one in my Blood Sword Legacy series the first line: The pungent odor of urine, the copper tang of blood, and the stench of terror blended in perfect union with the ailing moans and strangled screams of the multitudes of prisoner begging for merciful death.

For me the first line has to hook. It has to make the reader want to read the second line to see what happens. Each subsequent line should whet the reader’s appetite for more. I’m very conscious of how each of my books begin. It’s not easy to cast the bait, hook the reader than reel them in. Each word counts.

PF: You run a "first line" contest on your website, can you tell us more about that?

KT: Of course! I will admit the first, First Line Contest was done purely as a promotional tool to drive readers to my website and hopefully encourage them to buy my book. But it has evolved into something far more important. (Don’t get me wrong! I want to sell books!). Let me back up a bit. When I cannonballed into this writing thing many moons ago, I did it with wild abandon and high hopes, and the expectation I would sell right off the bat. So, we all know how that goes. When the realization sunk in that I needed help, there wasn’t much out there. And god forbid I ask a published author to recommend their agent or plague upon plague, ask them for their editor’s snail mail addy to submit to. One would think I had asked them to kiss a canker sore infested frog. So, you get my drift. Amongst unpublished authors, there was an outpouring of support. Published authors? Nada. So, I vowed when my time came, I would pay forward.



That is what my First Line Contest has become. I stalk an editor and hold her hostage until she agrees to be my final judge, which is the hope of all of us, to get our work in front of a bona fide editor who can buy our story! My past final editor judges are Editorial Director at Pocket Books, Lauren McKenna. Then Kensington editor Hilary Sares, St. Martin’s editor Hilary Teeman, and this past contest, Senior Grand Central editor, Amy Pierpont.

Here’s the gist of the contest. I open it up to the first 100 commenters on my blog who post a first line. Each week I have an anonymous published judge cull five entries. Each Monday the lines that make it go up as a blog post and they have until Friday night to post their next line. Back to the next judge, until after about 15 weeks we have ten first lines that are now 15 lines. Those top ten go to five judges who then give me their five faves. Those five are my finalists. They have two weeks to write a cover letter and the first ten pages of their story that begin with their original first line. It goes to the editor, she ranks them, but the hope is she falls in love and requests more. And hope of all hope she buys! No sale yet, but lots of requests, and not only from editors but agents who follow the contest. It’s a huge amount of fun!


PF: What is the first line from your most recent release,
Master of Craving, from Pocket out NOW?

KT: “Push, milady, push!” Jane the royal nurse urged.


And now that we've hit the highlights of our theme, we are going to move on to more general questions.

PF: What made you start writing?

KT: Daydreaming in high school. I was smitten with Rod Stewart and the only way I could have him all to myself was to write our love story.

PF: What does your writing schedule look like?
KT: I have no schedule. I write during the day, at night, in the wee hours of the morning. It’s all over the place. But always in my office, and when I’m under deadline I write every weekday.

PF: What's the best or most inspiring fan letter or blog comment you've ever received?

KT: I’ve had some really nice reader emails over the years, but for me the biggest thrill came from RWA National when they awarded me the Pro Mentor of Year Award last year. Don’t get me wrong, I love it when readers tell me how much they love my stories and characters, but my biggest inspiration comes from making a difference in a writer’s life.

PF: What advice do you offer to aspiring writers out there?

KT: If publishing is truly your dream: Never, ever, EVER quit. I’m a goal orientated person, and I set my goal on New York. I wasn’t going to stop until I had achieved my goal. Now my goals are to stay employed with a New York publisher!

One final question, because really we all had so much fun (uh, sort of, maybe, okay, this was really hard but fun) coming up with one fun fact about ourselves, which can be seen on the Jungle Red grog, http://www.jungleredwriters.com/ post from May 29th when they invited us to tea.

PF: Tell us one "Fun Fact" about yourself.

KT: I think I’m a rock star but can’t carry a tune.

Karin can be found on her website, http://www.karintabke.com/, click the blog link to her personal blog The Write Life, a cozy fun place to hang out. She also blogs every other Friday at http://www.murdershewrites.com/ you can follow her on Twitter and friend her on Face book, both under Karin Tabke. Myspace too! She gets around! Or if you have any questions always feel free to email her at Karin@KarinTabke.com

Oh, and before I forget, to celebrate the release of MASTER OF CRAVING, book three in my Blood Sword Legacy series, Karin’s publisher, Simon & Schuster is offering A KNIGHT TO REMEMBER a free read. Just click on the link!
http://www.simonandschuster.com/giveaways/karin-tabke-free-download

She is also giving away a signed copy of MASTER OF SURRENDER, book one in the Blood Sword Legacy series!

Humbling Revelations

--Adrienne Miller

Of all the rash and midnight promises made in the name of love, none, Boone knew was more certain to be broken than “I’ll never leave you.” - Cabal, Clive Barker

Let’s get this out of the way right now. I will never write this well. Never. Not if I studied every craft book that’s ever been written. Not if I wrote everyday for the rest of my life.

The first line of Cabal has stayed with me. I memorized it almost immediately. It is the gold standard by which I judge all other first lines--my own especially. And I am well aware that, in my own mind, I will never produce anything that surpasses its simple beauty.

In a strange way, this revelation has been liberating. I mean, if the best first line has already been written, the pressure is off. RIght? No need to sit on my butt for hours, staring at the awesome intimidation that is a blank document page and waiting for pure genius to pour forth from my fingers.

Ain’t. Gonna. Happen.

Don’t get me wrong. I still have a lot of work to do, a lot to live up to. I have to hook you. Pull you in. Not let you go until its 2 a.m. and you’re cursing me, yelling, “For Heaven’s sake, I have to get up in the morning.” That’s a tall enough order without having to worry about if my first line will make you weep.

So, if the trophy for best first line has already been awarded, I’m cool with that. Let’s just agree not to get into the contest for best last line of a novel. That shiny little beauty is still up for grabs as far as I’m concerned.

The Unrequited Search for a Kick-Ass First Line

"On my forty-ninth birthday, I decided that all life was hopeless, and that I would eat myself to death.” –Anne Lamott, Plan B.

Great line. Great first line, to be more precise.

I’d like to say that first lines aren’t important; certainly they don’t make or break a book – most of us count amongst our most beloved novels those that start out with a tepid whimper but end with an unforgettable bang.

But like most writers, I’m also a voracious reader. And I do what most readers do upon picking up an unfamiliar novel:I glance at the back cover, then open it to the first page and peruse the first few lines.

I remember standing one summer in Booksmith in the Haight, San Francisco, and looking for the perfect airplane book: Paperback, not too stupid, but not too worthy, either. I don’t like to have to think a lot on airplanes, much less in airports.The young woman standing next to me-- sporting a nose ring, two eyebrow piercings, and an intricate tribal tattoo that ran around her neck-- told me Laurell K. Hamilton’s vampire hunter series was “hecka tight”.

I was skeptical. I’m not really a vampire-hunter kind of gal. I had never watched Buffy, and the last Dracula movie I saw starred Frank Langella as a young and sexy bloodsucker. Now the man plays Nixon.

Still, the young woman was so much cooler than I could ever hope to be that I picked up the book and took a look. The back cover blurb didn’t move me –and I’m far too cynical to be swayed by enthusiastic endorsement quotes-- but I flipped to page 1 and read:

Willie McCoy had been a jerk before he died. His being dead didn’t change that. He sat across from me, wearing a loud plaid sport jacket…He was a slime bucket, but he was an undead slime bucket. – Laurell K. Hamilton, Guilty Pleasures.

I bought the book.

As an author, I’m not sure I have yet managed to write that kind of “gotcha” first few lines, though I do try.

Our eyes met. I tried to keep a poker face. I failed. (Feint of Art)

“Anthony, that body is not part of your exhibit,” I said for the third time, my voice rising in desperation. (Shooting Gallery)

The sweet-faced boy, one arm curled around his cocker spaniel puppy, paid no attention to the swaying and bobbing of the sagging helium balloons near the doorway. (Brush with Death)

And now my latest, but the very first line in a new series:
Witches recognize their own. (Secondhand Spirits)

Nope. Haven’t written my best opening line yet. I know it's in there somewhere. The sentence that makes you buy the book because you absolutely, positively need to read the next 335 pages. The line that makes you laugh, and recognize yourself, maybe even weep.

Okay, I’ll admit it. The first time I heard this week’s topic, I thought of nothing so much as the lines on my face. The first ones were a bit traumatic. But now they are numerous, and I forget which ones came first. I like to think of them as marks of experience, a well-lived life, and if I’m very lucky, plenty of laughter.

And unless I decide, like Anne Lamott, that life is not worth living and I must eat myself to death, I expect my lines to be with me the rest of my life.

Much like a really kick-ass first line of a book.

--Juliet Blackwell

First Lines Suck

Rachael Herron


The first line of my novel-in-progress is "'I need excitement,' Lucy said."

I hate it. It's an awful first line. I've hated it since I wrote it more than ninety-thousand words ago. But that's okay. It's a trick I play on myself. I want to hate my first line, because there's no way it's making it through the second draft alive. It's a constant reminder, every time I open the document, that changes will come, that revision is good.

Right up there with killing your darlings (I scream louder than they do), I believe in killing that first scene after the book is written, after you know what you were really writing, not just what you intended to write. After all, it's the first time those characters have breathed since their invention, and they tend to be a little asthmatic when they hit the light.

So if I start with a dud of a first line, I have no qualms about slicing it out later, no sense of regret that genius didn't shine on the work from day one. Heck, no, it didn't. There were days during the writing of the first draft when it felt like I was rearranging random words out of the dictionary and that perhaps my border collie could do it better.

The magic comes when that final scene is written, when I type "The End."

It's a lie, of course. It's not the end. It's the just the beginning. The first draft being finished means only that I know a little more about where the book should go, about who the characters might end up being. Now I can go back and revise the first line.

I'm in the second-draft of my novel-in-progress now, and my first line is "'Nothing ever happens here,' said Lucy." It's still not good, and it won't last to round three, but Lucy has a real voice now. She would never say "I need excitement." It's not in her quiet, careful nature, something I didn't know when I sat down for the first time at the blank page. So I'm getting closer. The first line eventually has to be perfect. It just doesn’t have to be perfect right now. Thank God.

Bring On The Sparkle

by Sophie Littlefield

So it begins – eight writer friends gathered under one virtual roof, long on enthusiasm and ready to roll. Many thanks to the Jungle Red gang for getting us started with yesterday’s raffle. Congratulations to Edith Maxwell, who won her choice of BRUSH WITH DEATH or SHOOTING GALLERY by Juliet, aka Hailey Lind - and welcome to PensFatales!

Every couple of weeks we’ll toss out a topic and see what comes up for the eight of us and our guests. We’ve already discovered that our little band is full of renegades, so expect creative interpretations and occasional side trips.

For instance: we’re starting with a discussion of first lines. I love a sparkly sentence as much as the next reader, but it doesn’t need to be in the first paragraph or page or chapter of a book to stop me in my tracks. For me, the most memorable lines often seem to be found when characters are being developed and revealed.

Or maybe it’s just that, for me as a reader, character is everything. A plot’s nice, I guess, but show me the inside of someone’s soul and I’m hooked. Do it with a pretty turn of phrase and you’ve got me forever. I tend to just breeze through all the parts of the book where stuff actually happens (no, really…it’s a problem) but get to the heart of a character and I’ll wallow happily in your narrative.

Early on, when adolescence wasn’t working out very well for me, I found Flannery O’Conner, who was like boredom repellant. She could define not only a person but an entire relationship in a lean paragraph:

“She was plain, plain. The skin on her face was thin and drawn as tight as the skin on an onion…She was pregnant and pregnant women were not his favorite kind.” (“Parker’s Back”)

Adulthood, as it turned out, was distracting on its own, but after a couple of decades of that, boredom set in again and I went looking for something new to read. At first I didn’t stray too far from my roots, wallowing in authors who seemed like they might have fed from the O’Conner trough:

“The coffin looked like a birthday cake, flocked pink. We had ordered it by phone. I knew Lyle would have ordered the cheapest for himself, so I ordered the second cheapest.” (James Galvin, THE MEADOW)

Age honed my tastes, and I found I liked my thrills more thrilling, my emotions assaulted with force rather than subtly nudged, and I steered straight into genre. Daniel Woodrell is the perfect gateway, as he himself isn’t sure if he writes literary or crime or what, but heaven help us can he write a sentence that hits you on the head:

"He's the kind of fella that if he was to make it to the top based only on his looks you'd still have to say he deserved it. Hoodoo sculptors and horny witches knitted that boy, put his bone and sinew in the most fabulous order…If your ex had his lips you'd still be married." (TOMATO RED)

Wouldn’t you have killed to write that?

Topics Coming Soon

05.31.09 Writer

06.01.09 First Lines

06.15.09 Characters

06.29.09 Summer

07.13.09 Creativity

07.27.09 Movies

08.10.09 Food

08.24.09 Deleted Scenes