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 Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 1:57 pm
We all know an opening for a book sets the pace. Its the hook that draws the reader in. So I want to see the best openings you can throw at me! Whats your favorate? My fave: Dead Beat, by Jim Butcher Quote: On the whole, we are a murderous race. According to Genesis, it took as few as four people to make the planet too crowded to stand, and the first murder was a fratricide. Genesis says that in a fit of jealous rage, the very first child born to mortal parents, Cain, Snapped and popped the first metaphorical cap in another human being. The attack was a bloody, brutal, violent, reprehensible killing. Cain's brother Abel probably never saw it coming. As I opened the door to my apartment I was filled with a sense of empathetic sympathy and intuitive understanding. For freaking Cain. You know any good openings? Lets hear it! ( the book name if its too long to post it all )
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Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 10:13 am
Quote: The Opera ghost really existed. He was not, as was long believed, a creature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of the managers, or a product of the absurd and impressionable brains of the young ladies of the ballet, their mothers, the box-keepers, the cloak-room attendants or the concierge. Yes, he existed in flesh and blood, although he assumed the complete appearance of a real phantom; that is to say, of a spectral shade. Ya gotta love the Phantom. ^_^
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Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 3:44 pm
Well, I don't know if I have a favourite opening, since I usually remember parts from the middle of a novel more than any other part. However, this is one opening that I find particularly good. It's from The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman. Quote: On a cold, fretful afternoon in early October, 1872, a hanson cab drew up outside the offices of Lockhart and Selby, Shipping Agents in the financial heart of London, and a young girl got out and paid the driver. She was a person of sixteen or so - alone, and uncommonly pretty. She was slender and pale, and dressed in mourning, with a black bonnet under which she tucked back a straying twist of blonde hair that the wind had teased loose. She had unusually dark brown eyes for one so fair. Her name was Sally Lockhart; and within fifteen minutes, she was going to kill a man. I think it just perfectly sets up the atmosphere, the character and the premise. It is a perfect opening, not only for the novel, but the entire Sally Lockhart Quartet.
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Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 10:17 am
The first chapter of The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud is intense and exciting, and has just a splash of sarcastic comedy, which indicates what the rest of the book will be like. For fans of fantasy tht haven't read the Bartimaeus trilogy, shame on you!
The prologue of Silver's Bane by Anne Kelleher is disturbing; it leaves a strong impression. A faery noblewoman agrees to give The Hag her womb in exchange for help and she rips it out of her body and it's GRAPHIC!
The first several pages of The Crimson Petal and The White by Michel Faber are amazing! It's a descriptive second-person that does a superb job of depicting the setting. The rest of the book is okay, however, the opening is amazing.
Sorry, all of these beginnings are many pages long, hence I cannot type them here for you.
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