First Lines—1

Novelists struggle over that first sentence. Obviously, the first thing a reader reads will set the tone for the book and the writer wants to set that tone in just the right way. There are some first lines of novels that are SO memorable that they stay with us: “It was the best of times and the worst of times…” is how Dickens began A Tale of Two Cities. The sentence goes on in a rhythmic way that draws you in, almost like poetry. And since his title refers to two cities, his best of times/worst of times juxtaposition carries that through.

“All children, except one, grow up” is the beginning of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. After reading that sentence my first thought is to ask ‘who’s the one boy, then, who didn’t grow up’ and this is a question Barrie wants me to ask because that’s the core of the story he wants to tell.

Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina begins with the iconic line “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Do I have any illusions that he’s going to write about happy families from that first line? Certainly not.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” is a favorite line of mine. I particularly like it because it tells the point of view of the author, because think about it—if I’m a rich single man, do I necessarily want a wife? Maybe I’d prefer to sleep around and have my freedom. But that first sentence tells me we’re going to be told a story by a woman who firmly believes that a wealthy man needs a wife. And, in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, that’s a part of the story we’re told.

There are some great first dialogue lines in film, for sure. I love Patton’s opening line addressing his troops: “Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.” And probably the most iconic dialogue line to begin a film is Citizen Kane’s “Rosebud.”

In Patton that first line tells me tons about the title character. He’s a guy who says it like it is, he doesn’t suffer fools gladly, he’s opinionated and he always thinks he’s right. I’m intrigued and want to see this movie to figure this guy out. But in Citizen Kane my motivation to keep watching the film is different—it’s to figure out what the deal is. Why is this dying guy’s last word “Rosebud”?

But wait a sec—the first line of a movie script is hardly ever a line of dialogue, unless it’s a film with a narrator. Most scripts begin with a line of narrative. And hey, that was true of all the novels I mentioned too, wasn’t it? Dialogue rarely begins a novel and it rarely begins a film script. It may begin the movie for the audience watching the film but the film script almost always begins with narrative.

What does this mean to you as a writer? You have to come up with a killer opening line/paragraph to start your film. Because your script is read by a reader who needs you to set the scene, establish priorities, tell them something that makes them want to keep reading.

Think about how that can be done and next week we’ll look more closely at the beginning of some great film scripts.

Copyright © Diane Lake

23Apr17

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