Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Site Seeing: 100 Best First Lines

Because I have no blog posts written
Because I was writing for a client until after 7 p.m.
Because I went on Facebook for mindless recreation

You score!

Thanks to David for posting this link to the American Book Review's list of the 100 Best First Lines from novels. What can you do with this list? The opportunities are endless. For starts:
  1. Check the list and see how many of the novels you've read. Read more.
  2. Choose a line and use it to start a 3-minute free write. (Just write. No edits. Pen to paper, preferably.)
  3. Decide which of the 100 is your favorite. I choose #15. It's poetry. Although I wouldn't argue with #16. And, yes. I read all 100. You are such a skeptic.
  4. See how many of the titles you know or can guess simply from reading the line.
  5. Be amazed that "It was a dark and stormy night" is #22. Who knew?

Tomorrow, I will not rely solely on the kindness of Facebook friends. I'll write something before I'm too tired to think. Cross my heart and hope to have a line on someone's list.

1 comment:

Lezlie said...

Better than I expected. I've read 13 or 14 (lost count).