coraline

“Knock ‘em dead with the first sentence.” This is one such advice given to writers. For some reason, I think that this was one of those writing advices that I hadn’t really needed to be spelled out for me as a mark of great writing.

It was something that I felt I came to naturally, from all my reading. I learned that there were great sentences that pull you in immediately and I knew them when I read them.

Writers for The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker, I have frequently noticed, write really great pieces and really great opening sentences. It never ceases to amaze me and rouse my admiration. “Wow, that was a great sentence!” Inwardly, I admired the craft.

I borrowed the book Coraline by Neil Gaiman from Lala ages ago and have yet to return it since. That’s because it took me an awful long time to get around to reading it. (This was because I had watched the movie first before Lala decided to lend me the book. Don’t I have amazing friends? Though I just say that so that she’ll lend me more…heeheehee.)

So anyway, after a few years, I finally got around to reading Coraline. I opened the book to page 3, where the story starts, and its opening sentence was this:

Coraline discovered the door a little while after they moved into the house.

I had to stand up on my feet and clap. Actually, I didn’t do that physically. More likely, I just closed the book after reading that and marveled and said, “Wow”. That was a good line. That was a good way to open the story.

Amazing. Thank you, Neil Gaiman. Kudos. Wow. :) :) :)