Aaron's WRITER'S TIDBITS - Exercise #1: First Sentences

This is the first post in a series intended to inspire writer's to write (especially myself).



In the Age of Augustus, the Roman poet Horace gave us writers a couple of excellent decrees, viz:  


1.  Carpe diem —  literally "pluck the day", more commonly, "seize the day"!

2.  In medias res — "into the middle of things".

First Sentences

Where to begin?  Why, if you will look at the first sentences of a few of your favorite tomes, you will find that most often the story begins in the middle of things.   Let us take a look at a few, shall we?  I shall; for truly, we will be mightily illumined for it.  Note the immediate decisions by the authors of point of view, setting, situation, geography, class and education of characters, story history, etcetera. 

At a village of La Mancha, whose name I do not wish to remember, there lived a little while ago a gentleman who are wont to keep a lance in the rack, an old buckler, a lean horse, and a swift greyhound.   -Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes

In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul.  -Dune, Frank Herbert

It will be neither fruitless nor idle, seeing we are at leisure, to recall for you the primary source and origin of our good giant Pantagruel, for I note that all fine historiographers have done likewise in their chronicles, not only those of the Greeks, Arabs and Ethnics but also the authors of Holy Writ, as Monsignor Saint Luke particularly, and Saint Matthew.  Pantagruel, Francois Rabelais

It happened during one of those prolonged and delightful evening parties we attended in the winter of 1841 at the palace of Princess Galitzin in Florence.  -Castle Eppstein, Alexandre Dumas

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.  -Ulysses, James Joyce

I do not envy your workload if you start with Genesis 1, and I am certain it too begins in medias res.

WRITING EXERCISE

You will come to find that time and time over, the first sentence compliments the title.  The first sentence is the opening of the portal, the doorway, the shape of things to come.  One can't help but envision Mark Twain, Missouri Meerschaum in hand, a faint ember within, meditatively transmuting leaden language into gold.  It is he who most famously said the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.

The exercise for you and I, dear reader, is to fashion five of our own first sentences for five different stories.  You can begin them in any way you wish—with dialogue, description, a narrative summary, a generalization, a reminiscent narrator.  That's not important.  The writing of them is important.  I suggest you write a sentence a day for the rest of your life.  Prepare a journal. or a specified file, or even use a voice recorder to capture your daily first sentences.

Here are mine (please feel free to share your own in the comments, as I would be most gracious and heartily enjoy reading them):

1.  Having claimed the summit of the Mount of the Bloody Serpent, the aeromancer spread himself upon a large flat expanse of granite, his eyes to the clouds, within which the nepheliads began the forming of his visions.  

2.  I see the smell of the ocean as I hear the dark watery thoughts of a neirid—nestled just below the water's surface, she is—and I am sick over the side.

3.  Airth loved her at first sight, knowing that she, bathed in the pale light of Europa, standing thoughtfully amongst the stars, was the manifest physical idealization of his desire; and how much more he was filled with hope, should it be Providence who stirred his passion legitimately—anyway, if not, feelings, after all, cannot be falsely felt; only can they be reaffirmed or redirected by time.

4.  What had she been but a quick jury-rigging upon the frail and delusional little vehicle that was his life—what was left but to repay her for those long winding miles together?

5.  Preparing for the night's descent, standing at the shore's stone arch, ancient sunken millieu; steady and silent as the deep current, lost shimmering baubles seined from the blue whirlpool bring streambed visions of Merfolk—their image, along with other creatures of lore, are contained in a living book shown to me at the approach of a great storm—understand the motion of water its trickling whispered.

- Aaron DeWeese