Independent Novel #1 ***Everyone must respond to this question***
December 29th, 2006
What is the first sentence of your book? What impression did it leave you with? Did that impression prove to be true as you continued past the first line? What did the line tell you about the author’s style/diction/etc? Be sure to include the title and author of your book since we are all reading different things!
Now…choose 1 of the 2 other questions to respond to. Or respond to both!
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Fire Starter Stephen King
The fist sentence is Daddy I’m tired the little girl in teh red pantsand the green blouse said fretfully. Can’t we stop?”
I could tell from the first sentence that something was wrong that they were probably running from something. The diction is normal speech nothing spectacular. The reader can tell that the father has a burden from the very beginnning. It mainly just introduces charlies character and the weight on Andy in the story.
In anne menlo’s experience, a carefree idyllic childhood was mostly an adult myth: that was the first sentence in “the shadow of the child” by Maxine O’Callaghan, the book i read over the break. when i read that first sentence i did not think anything about it… i just kept reading. but now that i think about it, that sentence pretty much tells what the story is going to be like: a child that is psychologically screwed up because he saw a murder after he got kidnapped. the sentence tells the reader that the little boy that the doctor is going to try to help is not going to be easy and that the little boy is not living a carefree life. also the first sentence tells me that O’Callaghan’s style is going to be straight to the point and not “beating round the bush” and that this book is going to involve a child that adults do not understand why he or she is acting the way he or she is acting.
The Story of B”, Daniel Quinn.
“Today I ducked into a drugstore and bought a notebook-this notebook right here I’m writing in.”
The story is written soley from the main character’s point of view, as it is essentially his diary that makes up the story. He records the details of his life and how he came to the mission he is now completing. It also follows along in present time narrative, meaning he writes as things are happening. This gave me the impression that the story would be somewhat one-sided toward the main character, however it was intriuging. By using this form, the author is not expected to use corect grammar, but rather shorthand at some points and that it may not include many views of the story.
The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl
“I remember the day it began because I was impatient for an important letter to arrive.”
The story is written from the main character’s point of view and it is his accounts of his journey helping Poe. It sets up the main character as being very impatient and losing track of things very easily and having a one track mind, which has continued throughout the entire book. Quentin, the main character tells the story as just that a story everything has already happened, and that can be seen in the way that Pearl writes. The grammer and style of writing seems to try and follow that which was present in the Antebellum period.
“We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.”
The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood.
The first sentence of this book begins with a flashback, to illustrate how the main character’s life developed into what she now lives. The opening left me with a sickly curious impression; it seemed at first that the “we”–all women–were refugees of some sort, perhaps in the future, when gymnasiums are not used (or so I assume). It also implied that these women were not there of their own free wills. I wouldn’t want to sleep in a gymnasium with hundreds of other people–the narrator probably doesn’t, either.
I guess this isn’t a pure impression of the first line, since I’ve already finished the book, but whatever. It held pretty true as I read: women subjugated into regulated servitude in the future, strict but unstable society and politics, et cetera.
And as for the style and diction, the first sentence is a good example. The author regularly writes with simple sentences and fragments, although the narrator, Offred, is not unintelligent. Her word choice is usually simple but powerful and very realistic.
And kudos to Beth for her choice of book. Neat-o.
“Alex Stafford was just like Mama said. He was tall and dark, and Sarah had never seen anyone so beautiful.”
Redeeming Love, by Francine Rivers.
The first sentence is a forshadow of Sarah’s life that will soon come. The beginning of the book gives a little information about Sarah’s mother and her lifestyle. It is told in a childish way eventhough the reader can tell that the mother is a prostitute.This opening sentence gave me the impression that this is the budding of her liking men because that is all she has grown up seeing. Sarah doesn’t know a life without a man because her mother has always had one around.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Charlie: I’m writing to you because she said you listen and understand and didn’t try to sleep with that person at that party even though you could have.
The story centers around the narrator Charlie and a collection of letters he sends an anonymous “friend” as he calls he or she. The letters center around Charlie’s life changing experiences he encounters his first year of high school. The opening sentence gave me an impression that this character “Charlie” is vague but confused. Throughout some of the story I found myself lost in his vague descriptions and lack of realization. Also Charlie has a dark tone in many parts of the book. This adds to the overall tone of the book. The overall tone to me is how difficult it really is to grow up these days. I found myself having felt the same as Charlie did in the ups and downs of being a teen.
The first sentence is “SPARTAN-104, Fredric, wirled a combat knife , his fingers nimble dispite the bulky MJOLNIR combat armor that encased his body”. This sentence let me with an impression like wow there has only been ine sentence so fa and a knife has already been mintioned, this is going to be action packed. This book was action packed the whole way through. This line showed me that this book would have a very tense feal that would last all the way throughout it. My book is First Strike by Eric Nylund
the first sentence of my book The Hot Zone by Richard Preston is “charles monet was a loner” and it is just desrcibing an important character but since the narrator uses “was” we know monet is proably deceased.
“It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs. Shear’s house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it wa running on its side, the way dogs when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead.”
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime – Mark Haddon
The first line of this novel left me with the impression that something was amiss. There was an obvious problem considering that there is a dead dog on the front lawn. The reader also gets a sense of the narrator’s straightforward and unforgiving logic. Both impressions proved to be consistent throughout the novel. The initial problem of the dead dog develops throughout the novel into deeply personal and complicated conflicts. Christopher also proves to be an extremely logic driven character and only makes sense of simple, direct, and completely logically events.
This opening line displays the author’s directness and open style of writing. The diction of the book is simple and straightforward. The first line also displays the young and child-like voice of the fifteen year old narrator.
Ken Follett Jackdaws
“One minute before the explosion, the square at Sainte-Cecile was at peace.”
This is going to be an exciting, and this did indeed carry though the rest of the book.
The first line shows that the author uses their diction etc. to draw in the reader at the moment of begining the book.