Sentence the first

What is the first sentence of your favourite book? Don’t look it up, obviously. And you aren’t allowed to pretend that Pride and Prejudice is your favourite book if it isn’t, because lots of people know that one. Or A Tale of Two Cities. Think of your real favourite book. How did that lovely thing, that star of your memory, that lifelong friend, first introduce itself to you?

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This question on my part precedes a confession: I hate writing first sentences. In my writing career so far I have never written a first sentence first. I’ve always started somewhere else, in fact usually at the opposite end (of which more another time). And then I have eventually come to the first page, the first sentence, the very first word, and been gripped by a kind of super-anxiety. As if I was about to walk into a room full of deeply impressive strangers, and my livelihood depended on the first impression that I made. Which is exactly what writing books for a living makes a first sentence, after all.

So today I thought I would share with you the queasy, nervy road down which I tentatively trod so many times when writing Central Reservation. It is kind of a cathartic pain-sharing experience, apart from anything else. If you are interested in this sort of thing – how a book takes on its final shape – then head over to the information about supporters and patrons here, where you can sign up to share in decisions like these for the new book as they occur. You can influence which first sentence the next book actually ends up with!

Meanwhile here, in rough order, are the 18 (18!) first sentences I tried and discarded for Central Reservation, with comments here and there.

 

I spend a lot of time hanging round airports, looking for the lost.

All right: some explanation required. As you’ll see if you read about it above, Central Reservation is the story of a girl called Holly Jones, and always was. Problem is, I didn’t realise this at first. I started with someone else, a kind of medium (or maybe ghost). He was going to meet Holly, and that was how we were going to learn about her. And he was hanging around an airport looking for the dead. As you do. Anyway. He still exists, somewhere, and one day I’d like to write about him too. But not yet.

 

HOLLY Jones was eleven years old when she learned that she had no guardian angel.

Actually I still didn’t know it was Holly’s story: this was just a stab in the dark. She intrigued me, so I tried starting with her. However, I got her age wrong. I also tied myself in knots about what ghosts were, and about the difference between them and deaths, guardian angels, etc etc. Ah, the endless pitfalls…

 

I was twelve years old when I found out that I had no guardian angel.

Well, now I am pretending to be Holly, and that isn’t true to how I write. I’d like to introduce you to Holly, not tog myself up in her clothes (an immediately disturbing image) and come right up and shake your hand.

 

HOLLY Jones was twelve years old when she found out about the dead.

Getting warm here! So what do I do? Turn away, and get cold. Literally, as you’ll see…

 

IT was a bleak November day: thin, insinuating rain was falling, and it stung.

I’d lost Holly again. The book was now going to open in a motorway service station. (The astute among you, spotting the title, will see I was making some kind of progress, however.) The station was going to be full of the dead. Obviously.

 

IT was an unnaturally warm afternoon for the time of year: a sticky day of unexpected sweat, and unprovoked aggression.

Right, so I can see what you are thinking. Hang on, wasn’t it just November? It was. But now it’s March in Kilburn, and Holly is suddenly 42 instead of 13. More about that another time.

 

THE 13th March was unnaturally warm for the time of year: sticky and airless.

So this happens too: harping on one idea. Cutting a word here and there, refining, aiming for polish.

 

THE 13th March was an unnaturally warm day for the time of year: sticky and airless.

Or adding a word.

 

HOLLY Jones was twelve years old when she found out about the dead.

Yes! At last (after only a year or so) I had at last straightened myself out, and gone back to the best effort so far. This time, though, I was sure I was right. I’d spent a long time with Holly, and I knew who was going to walk into that room full of strangers. All I had to do know was work out the exact greeting, which you can see happening below.

 

AT two minutes to seven on a wet February morning Holly Jones lay in bed with her eyes wide open, and made a wish: that her twin sister Yvonne would die.

 

AT two minutes to seven on a wet February morning Holly Jones lay in bed with her eyes wide open, feeling quietly murderous.

 

AT seven o’clock on a wet February morning Holly Jones lay in bed with her eyes wide open, feeling quietly murderous.

Note the two-minute change. No, I’m not sure what I was thinking either.

 

ON the morning of the day her sister died Holly had lain in bed, staring unblinking at the ceiling, and wanted her to.

I love this sentence. I know it ends with a preposition, and I know if you read it the wrong way it doesn’t make sense (wanted her to what?). But I thought maybe it would make people stop and think; and then they would realise it meant Holly wanted her to sister to die; and then they would be intrigued. In fact this was how the book was first sent out, to my brilliant and very kind first readers, most of whom shook their heads regretfully. Nope, they said. And I think they were right. The thing is: if you go into a room full of people, tap them on the shoulder, and say, ‘Here is a conundrum,’ then understandably enough, for all the people who are interested, there will be just as many who smile politely and back away. So I gave the sentence two more tweaks, below, then with great reluctance showed it the door…

 

ON the morning of the day her sister died Holly had lain in bed, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling, and wanted her to.

 

ON the morning of the day her sister died, Holly had lain in bed, staring at the ceiling, and wanted her to.

 

ON a grey Thursday morning Holly lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, and wished that her sister would die.

Ah, I thought when I wrote this. Hang on, I thought. I quite like that.

 

ON a grey Thursday morning Holly lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, and wished her sister dead.

Or this?

 

ON a grey Thursday morning Holly lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, and wished her sister would die.

Nope, this. The extraordinarily acute John Were at Xelsion consulted with the very wise Amelia Were, and suggested losing the word ‘that’. And they were, I hope and think, very right to do so.

 

So that’s it: the sentence we finally went for, and the one currently teasing away over on the right-hand toolbar. As you can see, finding it was quite a journey: backwards, forwards, and round the houses, until eventually the words seemed to slot themselves into the right kind of order.

Now, I am very aware that I am presently addressing myself to readers: you are the room full of impressive people into which my first sentence has to walk. And what I have done here is make the door see-through, so that you have all been able to witness the pre-entrance ritual that the above list represents: the straightening of the hair, the checking of the fly, the wiping of the nervous palm on the trouser-leg. Gulp, as they say.

My hope is that we all do all of these rituals, and that you will feel some sort of kinship with that first sentence now, so that when you meet it on the real page for the first time, you will brush aside its outstretched hand, give it a big hug, and sit down with it to be told a story. I hope too that without even noticing, over hours or days or weeks, you will stay in its company until it gets up to leave, and you realise it has turned itself into a last sentence to which you don’t want to say goodbye (no spoilers here. All I’ll tell you is that it is pretty short).

In that earnest hope I shall leave you. This blog probably needs a good final sentence, I suppose. Er…

 

[Social mediarites, or mediators, or whatever the word is: more on this at #bookfirstline.]

 

This blog will be published weekly or thereabouts. Explore the links above for more about Will le Fleming and his writing.

2 Responses to Sentence the first

  • Bruce Reed says:

    Whilst not my favourite book (probablyb in my Top twenty), I’ve always liked the first line of the John King novel, the Football Factory:

    ‘Coventry are fuck all’

    always stick in my mind for some reason…

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Will le Fleming is a novelist. His debut, Central Reservation, is published by Xelsion and available now. Read more...









On a grey Thursday morning Holly lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, and wished her sister would die. Five hours later her wish came true. Read more...







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