Wow. I forgot I even had come up with those.
I stumbled upon a computer file yesterday when going through an old flash drive, and it was a computer file that had ideas, concepts, and fleeting thoughts about topics for these daily ramblings. Some of them I had used, some of them ended up being not good enough to use, and then there was the one about “first lines”.
I’ve always thought that the first line of an essay was the most important. Not only does it have to impart information about the essay, but it also has to reel you in and make you want to read what’s coming up. I think I’ve been lucky in that regard; I’d like to think that I have a little talent in that area. I mean, I’ve come up with lines like “I now know what the inside of a seagull smells like” (following a kayak trip to Ripley’s Rock) and “I woke up yesterday and realized that I misplaced the 1990s”, following a morning in which I woke up, and well, realized that I had forgotten much of what I did during the 1990s. Of course, none of that tops what may be the single greatest first line ever written, a line in a 2007 California newspaper story that read, and I quote, ““A jazz musician was injured Friday after jumping from a burning motor home driven by a one-time roller skating stripper“.
See? A great opening line and, perhaps, a TV reality show just waiting to be made.
Anyway, I’m bringing this up because the note I found contained what I thought would be a couple of great opening lines. I mean, when you read them you know that they’d never actually happen and are the product of an obviously demented mind, but I’d like to think that they’d draw you in to read what’s next.
And those lines are?
“I didn’t think the explosion would be quite THAT big. . .”
“I thought it would stop oozing after a day or two, but I guess I was wrong”.
“I know how the world is gonna end”.
Like I said, these are lines that would obviously never actually occur in reality (at least I hope they wouldn’t), but they’re lines that could, in a proper context, hopefully make you want to read on. And that’s what’s important in a first line, right?
It’s amazing what you can find hidden on computer flash drives, isn’t it? It really is.
No comments:
Post a Comment