Opening Lines

I thought it might be fun to look at some of the opening lines of stories in my soon to be published collection. The volume will probably be called Whole Cloth since it will contain many pieces from life that, knitted together, present an image of a whole journey. Opening lines are important. Any writer can tell you that. Grab the reader’s attention quickly and they may stay with you. So, here are a few of the lines I chose to open the door. After this introduction, the reader is free to come in and look around. A Christmas Wreck Collection “Nothing’s perfect. And Christmas helps us see the cracks and dusty corners more vividly.” Variations on the Dangers of Youth “Ben first recognized that his mother was dangerous when he was eleven.” Ben’s Passage “In the early half of Saturday morning, countable days from school’s end and cool with promise, Ben headed towards the field.” Intermission “I suppose the most precise way to describe George’s condition on this brilliantly colored October day is that he had become disconnected.” Jenny “When he breezed mindlessly into the room and found her waiting in darkness, it occurred to him that things were as they should be; the perfectly natural, again, had delivered itself up.” Rosen In Tirol “The land banked, heaving thick grasses across the dirt path.”