What makes a great first line of a book? How do the best authors put together an initial sentence that draws you in and makes you want to read more? We’re talking about the openings of such novels as George Orwell’s 1984 (Bookshop|Amazon), E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web (Bookshop|Amazon) and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (Bookshop|Amazon). As writer Alice McDermott observes in her essay collection What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction (Bookshop|Amazon), the most compelling first lines convey a sense of authority and the idea that you can relax into a story told with confidence and verve. This is part of a complete episode.
A Winter Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon) by Paul Anthony Jones includes some words to lift your spirits. The verb whicken involves the lengthening of days in springtime, a variant of quicken, meaning “come to life.” Another word, breard, is...
Rosalind from Montgomery, Alabama, says her mother used to scold her for acting like a starnadle fool. The more common version of this term is starnated fool, a term that appears particular to Black English, and appears in the work of such writers...
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