FLOTD (First Line of the Day)

I was all set to write about the first line of the book I'm reading now and was going to compare it to the first line in my own books, Toe the Line (here) and On the Edge (here) so went through my blog looking for the posts where I dissected my own first lines.

Couldn't find em.

May not have ever done it.

That's a problem. Here I have (what I think is) a wonderful series all about first lines (see here). It has shown me that first lines although important are perhaps not as important as many believe. I think it's proven to me that having a good quality product and reputation is more important than a super-fantastic first line. But without those other two qualities a first line that knocks the reader back a step can be a pretty good substitute.

All that being said, count on a post in the coming days and or weeks on my own first lines. What will be really interesting is reading the first line of my newest novel, Vapor Trail, to see if I've learned anything about first lines from this series.

I love reading Forsyth novels and he's had some doozy first lines (see here). This one . . . not so much.

It was the owner of the small convenience store on the corner who saw it all. At least, he said he did. 

He was inside the shop, but near the front window, rearranging his wares for better display, when he looked up and saw the man across the street. The man was quite unremarkable and the shopkeeper would have looked away but for the limp. He would testify later that there was no-one else on the street. 

The day was hot beneath a skim of grey cloud, the atmosphere close and muggy. The hysterically named Paradise Way was as bleak and shabby as ever, a shopping parade in the heart of one of those graffiti-daubed, exhausted, crime-destroyed housing estates that deface the landscape between Leyton, Edmonton, Dalston and Tottenham.

Forsyth, Frederick - The Veteran

Mostly scene setting. "He was inside the shop" . . . . "The man was quite unremarkable" . . . "The day was hot" . . . not really the type of thing that grabs the reader by the throat and compels them to know more. Saying "the day was hot beneath a skim of grey cloud," is hardly as profound as "The November sky over Manhattan was chain mail, raveling into steely rain." (see here).

This is what I meant by having a good quality product and a worthwhile library as a foundation. Forsyth certainly has the history. So far he's missed the first line and at the moment since the first part of the book reads like a particularly boring episode of Law and Order (the Ben Stone era, not the Jack McCoy era), he's taken two strikes and the next pitch is on the way.