A Musing

Literary agent blogger Nathan Bransford and author Anne Dayton recently judged over 500 online entries to determine what makes a great opening hook. The "Stupendously Ultimate First Line Challenge", as it was formally named saw sentences ranging from transgressive splatterpunk imagery to purple-prose, literary aims to heavy-fisted schlock, but also some very solid writing. Most of the contestants realized the intrinsic spirit of fun that was the goal of the SUFLC, but within hours of announcing the finalists Bransford resigned to switch the voting to write-ins only because of "irregular activity", i.e. skulduggery.

And now... In no particular order, my top nine favorite first-liners **with comments.**

1.)lafreya said...
Here is the question the people of my hometown of Vigilant, Michigan want answered: Why did I, Grace Johnson, an African-American high school senior, an honor student, take two bullets to protect the life of the white supremacist jackass Jonathan Gilmore?

**The character Grace juxtaposed by jackass Jonathon really grabs my attention.**

2.)Conduit said...
His hands just looked dirty to casual eyes, a slight darkening on the knuckles, a shadow on his palm.

**This is a pretty good line. You can read into it a variety of ways and it's honest.**

3.) Church Lady said...
I was unaware of being watched.

**Although to me there's a disjunct of the narrator being 'unaware' while simultaneously 'watched', it grabbed my attention. I would even dare to call it a one sentence suspense story.**

4.)James Bailey said...
I had a professor my junior year in college who told us that one day we'd each wake up and realize we hated our lives, and that this knowledge would set us free. From my novel, THE GREATEST SHOW ON DIRT.

**I read your response to Amused Lurker that Nathan had already passed on your query for this work. But imagine the irony if this sentence would have won. It's good. I like it.**

5.)eric hill said...
It was a time of Miles,Coltrain,and Warhol; a time when the answer was blowing in the wind and we were all Dharma bums howling on the Coney Island of the Mind while the English were reinventing Rock-n-Roll and men eighteen to thirty-five were looking for some way out of the draft.

**This sentence conjures up the ghost whisperings of a favorite author. I enjoy zeitgeist pieces. You dig?**

6.)derek said...
I'd only been in love with her for ten minutes when everything turned to shit.

**A wedding in Las Vegas. It's all playing out before me in my mind.**

7.)dramabird said...
The gates of the Emerald City were rotting.

**I like the metaphor of a doomed city--Steven King did it in 'Hearts in Atlantis'. Excellent**

8.)trenchgold said...
The sky was a sloppy Picasso.

**Made me thing of a drunk looking at, but maybe not really 'seeing' the starry night. Very evocative of a perfection soured. Anyone who uses the word sloppy and Picasso in the same sentence gets a nod from me.**

9.)Matt said...
They came from the east, devastating the crops and leaving tiaras and cloak-pins in their wake.

**The British are coming! This is surreal and would I hope to find something in it akin to the work of Tom Robbins.**

Maps

Everybody's joining in on the hoopla, throwing in their two cents about how this lady is (to quote Steely Dan Jethro Tull), "thick as a brick." Now I enjoy watching beautiful people making complete idiots out of themselves as much as the next guy, but if I had to throw an alternate theory out there it would be that Miss South Carolina's a genius, or at least advanced in the knowledge of how to prolong that 15 minutes of fame. She did the shit on purpose.

I think:
1.) She realizes that she probably won't win the damn competition anyway.
2.) She realizes that in terms of media exposure, sheer stupidity trumps intelligence nine out of oh... nine times.
3.) Dunkin Donuts has got great coffee.

I can't say I blame her. You know those "person on the street" interviews that Jay Leno does where he asks questions like, "Who was the first president of the US". The people who answer George Washington Carver, or Abraham Lincoln, these are the people who "get it". I'll bet dollars to donuts (or cups of java from dunkin donuts) that she's on a reality t.v. show in six months. If not, then in a year (just as the last person in the country is forgetting about her) she'll take the Paris Hilton route a la "One Night in South Carolina".

The Alcohol Chronicles

Hangovers are funny little buggers. I woke up this morning feeling a bit woozy after a few Red Stripes too many (courtesy of The Traveling Monkey) that we had at the little tiki bar, or "Hemingway Bar" here in Bluewater.

After a long day of looking for used cars in the little shit box dearerships around FWB we decided it was time for a well deserved beer or two... or three, four, five...arg. I forgot to ask the bartender which Muzak or Sirius channel she had it on, but they were playing some really good music--Counting Crows, Nirvana, John Mayer, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, that kind of stuff which was a welcome change from the honky tonk, country music that droned in every office of every used car salesman we talked to all day.

This place really is great. It's got a view of the harbor and the boats and for anyone who's reading this that knows of LJ Schooner's I dare you to describe it as anything other than "picturesque". For bonus points, the only bartenders I guess this place hires are attractive females. In the words of Mr. Burns.... Excellent Smithers...

Last night there was an eclectic mix of people hanging around sucking on their bottles like hungry infants. Some kid that goes to school in Orlando and is supposedly something of a golfing phenom was drinking with his dad. He explained to me in great detail that the key to golf when taking a shot is to think of a ham sandwhich. There you go, a ham sandwich. I'm pretty sure you can substitute lunchmeats or even wheat for rye, but the point is to let your mind relax without overthinking your swing. Sounds good to me.

There was this hilarious drunk redheaded girl that had the most infectious giggle; a cool dog too, I think it was a lab and pitbull mix. Other characters included: three Air Force guys obviously recovering from a long weekend, weird/creepy pipe smoking mp3-player-listening-to-guy, a babyfaced biker kid that was somehow connected to the hilarious redhead, a couple of bleary-eyed old boat captains, and of course the bartender.

It was all pretty standard happenings I guess. The golfing guy's dad fell down the steps and onto the floor, but other than a bruised ego I think he was OK. The bartender gave us a crash course on the enigma which is the fake/polite female laugh. The creepy guy continued to be creepy and the biker guy turned out to be the roommate of the hilarious drunk redheaded girl, although as of this blogging they are "just friends". Poor guy, I have the feeling that I'll be seeing him there more often than I want to.

The TM and I finished the night off with a bite at the Awful Waffle. The bartender and the roomates asked us to meet them for drinks at the only bar that was close by and open but it was already late and the day had been long.