The Starting Gun
Three novels that hit the ground running.
Hey books: please get to the point and grab my attention.
Novels should start late and end early. If you start reading a book and it can’t intrigue you in the first chapter… hell, if it can’t pique your interest in the first few paragraphs - chuck it and move on. Life’s short. 40% of Americans did not even read one book in 2025. So you’re doing something unique - make it count.
Book covers are beautiful and alluring but I judge books by the first few sentences.
Prologues, introductions, and lengthy blurb lists might as well be skin tags - just get on with the actual story. And avoid, ‘it was a dark and stormy night’ - as Elmore Leonard says in his rules of writing, “Never open a book with weather.”
Here are three of my favorite first sentences:
“My sweater was new, stinging red and ugly.” - Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn.
“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
“They threw me off the hay truck about noon.” - The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
The lines are jarring declarations. They speak to a critical component of the narrator - the self-harming reporter, the gonzo journalist, and the murderous drifter.
What are some of your favorite opening lines?
