Tag Archives: am writing

Great Opening Paragraph 126… ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ #amwriting #FirstPara

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
‘A Tale of Two Cities’ by Charles Dickens Charles Dickens
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Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
The Heart’s Invisible Furies’ by John Boyne 
Beloved’ by Toni Morrison 
‘1984’ by George Orwell 

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#FirstPara A TALE OF TWO CITIES by Charles Dickens #amwriting https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4ej via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 105… ‘The Long Drop’ #amwriting #FirstPara

Denise Mina“Monday 2 December. He knows too much to be an honest man but says he wants to help. He says he can get the gun for them. William Watt is keen to meet him. Laurence Dowdall has already met Peter Manuel several times. He never wants to see him again.”
‘The Long Drop’ by Denise Mina
Amazon

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘Divisadero’ by Michael Ondaatje
‘American Psycho’ by Brett Easton Ellis
‘Dance Dance Dance’ by Haruki Murakami

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THE LONG DROP by Denise Mina #books via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2pN

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Great Opening Paragraph 97… ‘The Curious Incident…’ #amwriting #FirstPara

Mark Haddon“It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs Shears’ house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead. There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog. The points of the fork must have gone all the way through the dog and into the ground because the fork had not fallen over. I decided that the dog was probably killed with the fork because I could not see any other wounds in the dog and I do not think you would stick a garden fork into a dog after it had died for some other reason, like cancer for example, or a road accident. But I could not be certain about this.”
‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ by Mark Haddon 
Amazon

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘Brighton Rock’ by Graham Greene
‘Spies’ by Michael Frayn
‘Bel Canto’ by Anne Patchett

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THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME by @mark_haddon #books via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2qu

Great Opening Paragraph 96… ‘The Secret History’ #amwriting #FirstPara

Donna Tartt“Does such a thing as ‘the fatal flaw,’ that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn’t. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.”
‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt 
Amazon

Read my review of The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘Herzog’ by Saul Bellow
‘In Cold Blood’ by Truman Capote
‘The Murder Room’ by PD James

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THE SECRET HISTORY by @DonnaTartt #books via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2qp

Great opening paragraph 20… ‘Notes on a Scandal’ #amwriting #FirstPara

Zoe Heller“1 March 1998. The other night at dinner, Sheba talked about the first time that she and the Connolly boy kissed. I had heard most of it before, of course, there being few aspects of the Connolly business that Sheba has not described to me several times over. But this time round, something new came up. I happened to ask her if anything about the first embrace had surprised her. She laughed. Yes, the smell of the whole thing had been surprising, she said. She hadn’t anticipated his personal odour and if she had, she would probably have guessed at something teenagey: bubble gum, cola, feet.”
‘Notes on a Scandal’ by Zoe Heller 
Amazon

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
‘I’ll Take You There’ by Joyce Carol Oates
‘Death in Summer’ by William Trevor

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A #FirstPara which makes me want to read more: NOTES ON A SCANDAL by Zoe Heller #amwriting http://wp.me/p5gEM4-84 via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 12 ‘In Cold Blood’ by Truman Capote #books

“The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call ‘out there’. Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, ranch-hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes. The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveller reaches them.”
‘In Cold Blood’ by Truman Capote  Truman Capote CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Try one of these First Paras & discover a new author:-
‘Fortunes of War’ by Olivia Manning
‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ by Thomas Hardy
‘Divisadero’ by Michael Ondaatje

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A #FirstPara which makes me want to read more: IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote #amwriting https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4a5 via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 11… ‘Brighton Rock’ #amwriting #FirstPara

“Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him. With his inky fingers and his bitten nails, his manner cynical and nervous, anybody could tell he didn’t belong – belong to the early summer sun, the cool Whitsun wind off the sea, the holiday crowd. They came in by train from Victoria every five minutes, rocked down Queen’s Road standing on the tops of the little local trams, stepped off in bewildered multitudes into fresh and glittering air: the new silver paint sparkled on the piers, the cream houses ran away into the west like a pale Victorian water-colour; a race in miniature motors, a band playing, flower gardens in bloom below the front, an aeroplane advertising something for the health in pale vanishing clouds across the sky.”
‘Brighton Rock’ by Graham Greene  Graham Greene CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Try one of these First Paras & discover a new author:-
‘Norwegian Wood’ by Haruki Murakami
‘Enduring Love’ by Ian McEwan
‘True Grit’ by Charles Portis

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A 1st para which makes me want to read more: BRIGHTON ROCK by Graham Greene #books https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4a6 via @SandraDanby