the first sentence in your novel is arguably the most important sentence
there is in this episode of the other epic story my vlog about me writing an
epic trilogy we're gonna examine the first sentences of a few classics and
also examine my first sentence my story this road six years ago I haven't looked
at it too much since today we'll take a peek at it
welcome writers to another episode of the other epic story this is the vlog
where I Elliot work on my epic trilogy with you it's sort of an interactive
experience we're gonna learn a little bit of a lot writing in the process and
in the end of trying to help me edit this giant piece of work that have I've
written the first book of this trilogy for scrapping this book I figured the
best way to sort of kick off this project is to go through it line by line
paragraph by paragraph and see how the story's structured see how we can
improve on it and over time see how we can make it better
readable and in the end make our way into the second and third book so it's
gonna be a whole whole giant enormous project and we'll learn a lot while
riding along the way all right so I got a Google Doc open I tend to use Google
Doc I find the easiest way to sort of collaborate and contain all my stuff I
really recommend it so this few things I want to cover today in this episode the
first thing I want to look at today are some classic opening lines from
different novels from different writers then I'm gonna look at a blog post and
does that gives me 7 tips on how to write the good opening
sentence and lastly I'm gonna look at my own opening sentence and see how I could
improve on that sounds good let's go so first I did some research on the
internet what makes a good first sentence and a novel it's good to see
what other people are saying so I found this blog post on the internet the
website is called the writer practice calm and the blog post is called seven
keys to write the perfect first line of a novel written by Joe bunting thank you
Joe I'll leave the link to his blog posts at the bottom of this description
description box down there let's look at what makes a good first sentence ask
yourself is your first sentence vivid does it create imagery in the reader
this mind does it spark imagination so I found the first sentence to Game of
Thrones it's a pretty epic novel unto its own only made more epic being that
there's still novels not yet written yet so the first sentence goes like this we
should start back guarantors as the width began to grow dark around them
intense that's pretty vivid I think that's
pretty good so the second thing writers should be aware of when working on their
first sentence is is there a voice easy to just start in 1984 big brother was
spying on us or something like that where it doesn't
really have a voice it does have a voice but it's more of a journalistic kind of
voice it sounds like a report maybe instead check this out
this is from the Great Gatsby and my younger and more vulnerable years my
father gave me some advice I've been turning over in my mind ever since he
could have simply said when I was young my father gave me some advice that's how
he sort of set the tone that scott Fitzgerald did pretty fascinating yeah
you sort of get the feeling that the rest of the story is gonna be written in
style there's gonna be some use of extra words don't give too much information
don't do it you don't necessarily want to overload your readers in the first
sentence something simple you also want to hook them and this is how George
Orwell did it in Animal Farm mr. Jones of the manor farm had locked the hen
houses for the night but was too drunk to remember to shut the pop holes I
don't know what a poeple is but I assume it's kind of important for the headings
he doesn't necessarily explain everything he doesn't explain where
Manor Farm is he doesn't explain where the hen houses are he doesn't explain
what a pop hole is doesn't give too much information yeah I still want to learn
more fourth element of a quality first sentence is is there humor is there
humor a lot of writers often want a shock and with the first sentence I know
I did it a lot when I was young but a more strategic way to do it is to
actually be kind of funny I always felt that the first sentence to Harry Potter
it's actually quite funny when you think about it it goes
mr. and mrs. Dursley of number four private drive we're proud to say that
they were perfectly normal thank you very much WTF there's Lee's perfectly
normal no one really is rayon either way humor it works I think that's a pretty
good first line it doesn't talk about magic it doesn't talk about anything but
it insinuates it tip number five to making a good first sentence is it clear
is the writing clear even if you this is especially true when you're writing
world-building fantasy novels get complex you're using
words that aren't really normal you know daily vocabulary so I drew from the
example of up from Lord of the Rings and there's a lot of stuff that doesn't make
sense there but I think it's actually quite clear in why
touken is trying to communicate so the sentence goes like this when mr. Bilbo
Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his 11e
first birthday with a party of significance there was much talk and
excitement in Hobbiton like it's clear but you don't know who Bilbo Baggins is
you don't know what Bag End is a lovely first birthday and Hobbiton these things
don't necessarily make sense right away but it's clear that he's having a
birthday probably the town he's in is super
stoked I think that's a good example I think it's a good example does its
encapsulate the novel does the story does the first sentence contain all the
elements of the novel does it can you in the end bookend it you know can the
first sentence be the last sentence I always think that it's kind of
interesting and something worth exploring later on in my mind one
example I need to pull from this it's set been said to be Stephen King's best
first sentence best sentence ever written it goes the man in black fled
across the desert and the gunslinger followed this is from the Dark Tower
series it's great because it tells you who the characters are and it tells you
what the objectives are you got the protagonist you got the antagonist and
you got the sort of obstacle and you have the setting it's so simple and it
caps it essentially encapsulate what the Dark
Tower is about it's like this chase story there it's a good journey
West kind of story and that's a good sentence
lastly number seven is it true Ernest Hemingway has a good quote is to
whenever you feel like you have writer's block write one true sentence what he
means by that is if you're sitting and you're trying to figure out something to
write just write something truthful you're sitting there you have writer's
block and you look out the window and you could just write something like the
leaves outside are very green and then BOOM kick start your writing I'm not
gonna draw anything from Hemingway almonds back draw my example from Cormac
McCarthy's the road and his person goes like this when he woke in the woods in
the dark and the cold of the night he reached out to touch the child sleeping
beside him as a truthful sentence that's true thought it's not it's not playing
on anything it's not you know trying to be fancy it's just literally what is
happening and so consider doing that alright so those are seven tips to
writing a better first sentence now here's the button flash kind of weird
part I'm not actually sure how this is gonna go so I got here my first sentence
for my epic novel and it goes like this when technology fell the catastrophe
threatened human existence yeah I'm not loving it so let's get that here I don't
think this is the greatest sentence I can write I think there's a few things
that aren't necessarily clear I don't know if it cooks the audience completely
I don't know if it's vivid enough I don't think it is and I definitely think
there's way to improve it's definitely not funny it's clear I guess but like
the words such as technology and catastrophe even threaten and human
existence these are kind of vague words in a sense taking into consideration
what we've just talked about I'm gonna give a shot improving this somehow so
instead of saying technology let's be a little bit more specific
maybe when so when we think of technology what do we think about we
think about communication transportation intelligence database like all our
knowledge is held and we're like sort of keeping it for the next generation some
people in the world know how to make a microwave but what it's telling all
those people who know I make microwaves died and then all the resources to make
up microwaves are lost then everything we have to start from the beginning
again so that's sort of the idea I'm trying to get through in this I think I
kind of know how to approach this one instead of talking about technology as a
whole I'm going to talk about a very specific one I'm gonna talk about the
last piece of technology to fall I believe the last piece of technology
would be communication with the outside world as soon as that stops then this
whole idea of sharing ends so
one minute 37 seconds later hmm so this was hard so my previous first sentence
was what technology fell the catastrophe threatened human existence pretty bland
not too much the words to technology to TAS Rafi existent doesn't evoke too much
imagery here's my updated version I I think it's a little bit better I'm not
sure I'm gonna continue working on this for a while I'll let you know if I
change it at any point so here is my new first sentence for my epic novel it goes
the last message sent digitally was to let everyone beyond the border know that
there was still hope huh huh a little bit better right I don't know either way
I want to I'm gonna wrap this up for this episode I think I made a little bit
of progress learning a little bit about how to improve a first sentence I hope
this helped you as well either way I want to wish you the best of luck in all
your writing endeavors I know it is challenging to find time for it to get
inspired for it to sit down and actually write so I hope this helps if it does
please subscribe to my channel give a like leave a comment if you have any if
you have any thoughts about the sentence that I wrote or any of the other
sentences use as examples in this video please let me know I'd love to hear from
you either way