http://people.cornell.edu/pages/jad22/plain/english.html
It's interesting looking at a bunch of first lines like that. Some of them are classics, some of them are pretty lame. But what interested me the most was how many books I was able to identify even if I'd never read the book. So many of the first lines tie directly to the title or the main point that you hear about.
For example, I've never read The Mill on the Floss, but what else could this be:
"A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace."
Or Emma:
"Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her."
Or The Bridge of San Luis Rey:
"On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below."
I'm just amazed at how effectively many of these lines set up the books that followed by establishing the key character or theme or setting or event or whatever in the very first line.
SS-GB by Len Deighton
"Himmler's got the King locked up in the Tower of London," said Harry Woods. "But now the German Generals say the army should guard him."
Alternate history in the thriller mainstream. Deighton got a lot of setting across with just a couple of references.
A humorous one I kind of liked. From THE SECOND ASSISTANT by Claire Naylor and Mimi Hare
"Your job will be to separate the white thumbtacks from the colored ones. But be sure to throw the colored ones away. They must leave the building. If they don't, then __you__ will."
Shoot. The first lines I keep remembering seem to need a sentence or two following.
One thing I don't see discussed here about openings/first lines etc. Not only the novel or story itself has an important opening line(s), but every subsequent chapter needs a good opening, too. Every chapter, every start after a hard scenebreak, every scene itself needs a good opening. And there aren't that many different opening structures. A handful keep getting recycled all over the place.
The first line -
'The seller of lightning rods arrived just ahead of the storm.'
Totally sold the book to me.
[This message has been edited by Annabel Lee (edited June 12, 2006).]
I also don't usually like stories that begin that way.
First lines that I usually find interesting are ones that make some sort of unusual statement that makes me think, "What in the world...?"
I think my favorite comes from Elantris (although, ironically, it begins with a character waking up, but it was done in such a way that it grabbed my attention):
"Prince Raoden of Arelon awoke early that morning, completely unaware that he had been damned for all eterninty."
Brilliant.