Hooking the reader with mystery and mood
Setting the stage of epic worlds
Global voices and magical realism
The power of the simple sentence
YOUR GOAL
Master of Great first lines in literature
schopenhauer The Simple Sentence
Call me Ishmael, call me Ishmael, a simple phrase to start it all.
schopenhauer Dodie Smith begins I Capture the Castle with a highly unusual writing spot.
schopenhauer Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man begins with a powerful statement about identity and race.
schopenhauer Match famous opening lines to their books to discover how great stories hook readers.
Austen's title: Jane Austen originally titled Pride and Prejudice as First Impressions, highlighting the power of initial judgments.
A sentence that contains only one independent clause with a subject and a predicate. Herman Melville used this structure in 1851 to open his novel Moby-Dick with Call me Ishmael.
"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins." is the opening of which controversial 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov?
Which 1952 novel by Ralph Ellison begins with the powerful declaration, "I am an invisible man"?
Which fictional street is introduced in the very first sentence of J.K. Rowling's 1997 novel Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone?
"Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know." is the stark opening of which 1942 existentialist novel by Albert Camus?
Where is the narrator sitting while writing the opening of Dodie Smith's 1948 novel I Capture the Castle?
"All children, except one, grow up." is the opening line of which 1911 classic children's novel by J.M. Barrie?
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born..." begins which 1951 novel by J.D. Salinger?
Jane Austen's 1813 classic Pride and Prejudice begins with a "truth universally acknowledged" about what kind of person?