I spent my teens slogging through Gravity's Rainbow and Ulysses and translating Caesar's infinity-length ramblings, so if an author doesn't grab me inside of the first few words, I'm out. Gone. Stick a fork in me, 'cause I ain't readin' the rest, sucka.
On the contrary, if the author introduces something awesome on page one, I'm a devoted slave to the end.
With all that in mind (and inspired by this and this), I now present you with the worst beginnings to imaginary novels. Read on, if...you...daaaaaare...
- "Walking into the cool embrace of the caverns was like entering an ice rink on which there had recently been an amateur-league hockey game with an unsatisfying outcome."
- "Laverne was shocked—his profile said he had gangrene, but she'd just assumed he was a Jets fan."
- "Cataracts, like so many amphibious eggs in a murky gel, clouded his questioning eyes, morphing his pupils into tadpoles mired beneath the swampy surface, straining their way towards froggy, opaque freedom."
- "Dina packed and made a mental list of things not to forget: socks, shoes, pants, underwear, hiking socks, her one-piece bathing suit, regular socks, underwear, jeans, a few bras, t-shirts, her teal windbreaker, tank-tops, toiletries, a mid-length paperback for bedtime, a nicer outfit in case they went out to eat, and her sense of wonder."
- "Finding himself a little hoarse, Detective Palomino ponied up to the bar, saddled in, and kicked off the conversation with a whinnied, 'Hey.'"
- "Could one ever truly know, Chris wondered, that which is unknown, or that which is partly known, or that which is known to some but not at all to others, who might only learn of it in an Independent Study class?"
- "United once again, the great ape and her first-born son shared a celebratory embrace and nit-picked each other, which in their gentle primate culture was an actual act and a literal sign of intimacy and not the figurative sign of disappointment my mother used to indicate the vibrant, orange, cheese-cracker crumbs I had yet to clean up on the couch."
- "With two strikes at the bottom of the ninth, Abel Cupborn clenched the mighty wooden bat in his hands, pointed towards the bleachers, and took a moment to reflect on whether it was worth giving up life as an intergalactic space ranger for all this."
Can you take these horrible first lines and turn them into full-fledged stories? Only you, your future publisher, and the patron saint of craptastic writing can know for sure.
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