Dreaming of writing your novel this year? Rip up all the rules!

After 35 years of teaching fiction writing, the prize-winning author shares her wisdom. First tip? Don’t write what you know…

Beginning

I don’t think it’s a bad thing to want to write a first sentence so idiosyncratic, so indelible, so entirely your own that it makes people sit up or reach for a pen or say to a beloved: “Listen to this.” A first line needn’t be ornate or long. It needn’t grab you by the lapels and give you what for. A first line is only a demand for further attention, an invitation to the rest of the book. Whisper or bellow, a polite request or a monologue meant to repel interruption. I believe a first line should deliver some sort of pleasure by being beautiful or mysterious or funny or blunt or cryptic. Why would anyone start a novel, “It was June, and the sun was out,” which could be the first line of any novel or story? It tells you nothing. It asks nothing of you.

Not everyone agrees with me, nor do all great novels have memorable first lines. Pull books from your shelf and you’ll find plenty that start with a month or day of the week plus the weather. Maybe there’s a good argument: if you orient your reader on some level immediately, they will be ready for disorientation on others. Flatness can be a screen upon which brightness may be projected. Disorientation is one of the duties of fiction.

No, I insist. A generic first line is a failure of nerve.

To read the full article on theguardian.com, click here