Where do I begin?
Now on my fifth draft of an alternative version ofJane Eyre, I’m experimenting with a different opening. It’s tough – there’s so much to balance in those early scenes. I need to orientate my reader without overwhelming them with information. I need to intrigue, without confusing. The first page has to do a lot of heavy lifting, and not just the first page. If possible, I want to entice my readers with the opening line.
I’ve been playing around with three possibilities. I’m wondering which of these would be most likely to draw you in.
Once you’ve indicated your preference, hover over the sentences below to read what I think about them. Do you agree?
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman without family or fortune must endeavour to become a rich man’s wife.
I’ve used some version of this since the very first draft. It playfully sets out my character’s preoccupations (as distinct from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane) in language that seems to belong to a bygone age. But, as you might have noticed, it revamps the opening of a different novel, Pride and Prejudice, which might raise expectations my novel won’t meet.
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.
Would you recognise this as the first sentence of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre? In over ten years of asking people on my guided walk (around the settings believed to have inspired that novel) if they can remember the opening, only one person has ever made a decent stab at it, although many can recite much more memorable lines from the book. Charlotte Brontë has some wonderful lines in her novel, but I don't think this is one.
The instant I stepped onto the cobbles, it was plain there was no one to meet me.
There’s intrigue: who is she, where is she and why does she need to be met? Unfortunately, there might be too much intrigue as, although Jane’s reaction gives some insight into her character, the jeopardy doesn’t last long, albeit a little longer than in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
What are your favourite first lines in literature? Let me know in the comments, where you can also add any further observations on the three I’m considering here.
No possibility of a walk raised many questions for me e.g. for whom? why was there no possibility? Why would there ever have been a possibility of a walk? what is possible if not a walk – something better? etc etc etc
That’s great! Seems Charlotte Brontë had the right idea (it’s her opening line) – although I never really liked it because it isn’t about going for a walk.
Although I chose “the cobbles”, I do also like the succinct “no possibility of a walk”. Looking forward to seeing the cover!
Thank you, Clare. A long way from the cover but looking like the non-walk could kick off the prologue and the cobbles chapter 1.
I agree with Deanna. The simplicity and flow of the second option means it goes unnoticed on a conscious level, while the subconscious gets dragged right in and we want to keep reading, even if we don’t realise why – its simplicity enables us to continue reading without pausing or rereading, we just soak up the story.
Though I think the third option could also have a similar impact with a few tweaks.
Thanks, Rebecca. That’s also a good way of looking at it. You don’t really want to pass on the first sentence, you just want to read on to the next and the one after that.
Hi Anne!
I chose the second line. It is short and simple. And, as it states there was no possibility of taking a walk that day, then so much is possible. The why’s of no walk and the wonder of alternative is enough intrigue for me, without hurting my brain. It gets me in the door with no worries of getting lost.
Good luck! (though clearly this writing thing is something you work hard at, not chancing it to luck)
Thanks for that, Deanna. It’s a good point about keeping the opening straightforward, which I hadn’t thought about in my efforts to be fancy. Well, I do think there’s a lot of luck in this writing business as well as talent and hard graft.
“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun”. Not really suitable for Jane Eyre I suppose!
Thanks, Geoff, I’ll have to work on how to feed that one in somehow. You never know!