My dystopian zombie novel, Camellias and Oats, began from a single line. I was working out of a book of writing exercises* and this one prompted me to write a list of “best first lines.” Here’s some of what I came up with:
“If red was the color of love, what color was left behind to see once love had left?”
“After signing the envelope, she realized the ink had left her hand blue.”
“The books were stacked precariously around the room, like only some magic spell was keeping them from falling over.”
“She traced memories into her cup of noodles, the lines of udon spelling out her mistakes and failures.”
“The mascara that ran down her face reminded her of the dead zebra she had seen at the zoo earlier that day.”
“I’m sure the birds are chirping but all I hear is the screaming.”
“Who was it that first let the cat out of the bag, and what was the cat doing in there in the first place?”
I decided my favorite was, “I’m sure the birds are chirping but all I hear is the screaming.” From there, I thought through plot and characters. It was too obvious to have the screaming be related to any kind of horror or thriller novel. So, I asked myself, “Where else do people scream?” And that led me to a book set in an amusement park. Immediately, characters started forming in my mind. Jess, the person who worked the ticket counter who was always listening to rock music, and her cast of regular customers—Old Carl, who sat on the bench just outside the park and fell asleep, Jackson, the teenager who showed up drunk and would always hit on her, but she kind of doted on, and her best friend, Dara, who worked security.
I started writing the book at the start of the pandemic and finished the 33,000-word story by May. I worked on it feverishly until I had a full-length novel of 66,000 words by September. It was escapism at its finest, but it was also the first time I had written a book that wasn’t Dance With Me. Starting with the first line kept me fresh and creative. I was always asking, “Okay, what now?” The sillier the answer the better. I decided that Jess would start to see a pink elephant with a number on it’s back counting down to zero. What does the pink elephant mean and what happens when she reaches zero? I also decided it would be a “Build Your Own Adventure” story. It was so much fun building the world and creating it from the nothing of a first line.
Now, it’s your turn. Come up with your best first lines. Choose your favorite line, and create a story or poem from that line. If you’re feeling frisky, instead of the first line, create a list of best last lines and build to the end.
*The book is called Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Mass. I got some good out of it, but eventually stopped using it. He defaults to the “he” pronoun in all cases “because it’s easier,” unless he’s giving an example about someone being emotional or engaging in domestic work, then the example includes a woman.
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