2025-03-31
53 分钟You're listening to Away With Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I'm Grant Barrett.
And I'm Martha Barnett.
There's nothing like opening a book and falling in love at first line.
What is it that draws you in or makes that first line so powerful or effective or irresistible?
I'm thinking Grant of first lines
like it was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking 13.
You know, the first line of 1984, it just makes me want to keep going.
Or even where's Papa going with that axe?
Oh!
From Charlotte's Web, right?
And I've been puzzling lately over what makes a great first line,
and I think that the writer Alice McDermott has a really good answer.
In her book of essays called What About the Baby, Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction,
she says that the one thing great first lines have in common... is authority.
What all these memorable first sentences convey in all their variety is confidence.
No equivocation, no building up to the good stuff.
Listen, they say.
I have a story to tell.
I know how to tell it.