"If you look really closely at things, you'll forget you are going to die."
~Kierkegaard
You may have noticed that you are willing to read the first line of almost anything, but won't go on to the second if the first wasn't interesting. The first line should be poetic or dramatic or mysterious in order to hook the reader. It stands alone for a moment. Ideally, it should also tell us something about the character (narrator), other characters, setting, or plot. Good memoir reads like fiction.
Consider these opening lines (the first four from novels, the rest from memoirs):
Call me Ishmael. (Moby Dick, Herman Melville): Why, "Call me Ishmael?" Why not, "My name is Ishmael?" There's mystery in that line.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. (1984, George Orwell): Thirteen? The reader already knows that something is askew. Mystery.
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. (Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov): Wow! That poetic first sentence begs for another.
All happy families are alike but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion. (Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy): Very portentous, full of promise and drama.
But that’s not where the story of my midlife crisis begins. (The Madwoman in the Volvo, Sandra Loh): Mysterious. Where does the story begin if not in the opening line? (I've chosen from the first chapter, not the introduction)
The night before my husband’s cancer surgery, I stay up to watch him sleep. (Wondering Who You Are, Sonya Lea): Introduces a dramatic core issue. Tells the reader something important about the couple’s relationship.
Consider these opening lines (the first four from novels, the rest from memoirs):
Call me Ishmael. (Moby Dick, Herman Melville): Why, "Call me Ishmael?" Why not, "My name is Ishmael?" There's mystery in that line.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. (1984, George Orwell): Thirteen? The reader already knows that something is askew. Mystery.
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. (Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov): Wow! That poetic first sentence begs for another.
All happy families are alike but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion. (Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy): Very portentous, full of promise and drama.
But that’s not where the story of my midlife crisis begins. (The Madwoman in the Volvo, Sandra Loh): Mysterious. Where does the story begin if not in the opening line? (I've chosen from the first chapter, not the introduction)
The night before my husband’s cancer surgery, I stay up to watch him sleep. (Wondering Who You Are, Sonya Lea): Introduces a dramatic core issue. Tells the reader something important about the couple’s relationship.
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