From: BrendaWriter@yahoo.com   
      
   On 9/11/2014 5:18 PM, William Vetter wrote:   
   > On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 7:14:47 PM UTC-4, bre...@sff.net wrote:   
   >> Hmm. First paragraph of the novel I wrote this year:   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> Although his wife's palate was discriminating to a nicety, neither Jack   
   >>   
   >> Wragsland nor Marilee cooked. Their virgin oven still had the   
   >>   
   >> energy-saver stickers on the door, and Jack kept paperback poetry   
   >>   
   >> anthologies inside. His breakfast reading goal was to catch up on all   
   >>   
   >> the verse he had missed by traveling almost 170 years into the future.   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> Clearly it meets the rule.   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> First paragraph of the novel I wrote last year:   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>    Calla did not need to look at her phone while texting, so she actually   
   >>   
   >> saw it happen.  One moment the road in front of the car was more or less   
   >>   
   >> clear, except for Ponpet�s standard killer gridlock. The monumental   
   >>   
   >> stone triumphal arch commemorating her grandfather dominated the traffic   
   >>   
   >> circle they were stuck in.   
   >>   
   >>    Then, flicking into existence like the special effect in a movie, was   
   >>   
   >> a totally odd man.  In a long black coat and tall hat, he looked   
   >>   
   >> something like the young Abraham Lincoln.   
   >>   
   > I read a book named _Hooked_.   
   > It was about openings, and the idea that you can compel an editor to   
   > read the ms. by writing an opening with so many qualities.   
   > What aspects of these openings do you think tries to achieve this, or at   
   > least to draw the reader in?   
   > When I look at them with this question in mind, I can see that some aspects   
   do this, and some less so.   
   > I don't mean to say that it's possible to pack all desirable qualities into   
   an opening of every variety of story; often, I think, it isn't.   
   >   
   >   
      
   I do not think of it this way at all.   
      
   The fist sentence of the novel is the one that allows me to write the   
   second sentence. And the third. And roughly a hundred thousand more. If   
   it cannot do that, it's not the right first sentence.   
      
   Brenda   
      
      
   --   
   My latest novel SPEAK TO OUR DESIRES is available exclusively from Book   
   View Cafe.   
   http://www.bookviewcafe.com/index.php/Brenda-Clough/Novels/Speak   
   to-Our-Desires-Chapter-01   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)