{"id":21613,"date":"2016-04-13T07:00:47","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T14:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rachelswirsky.com\/?p=1038"},"modified":"2016-04-13T07:00:47","modified_gmt":"2016-04-13T14:00:47","slug":"first-lines-part-iii-what-can-they-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=21613","title":{"rendered":"First Lines Part III: What Can They Do?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part I: Half a Dozen of My Recent Stories<\/a>
\nPart II: from Some of My Favorite Stories<\/a><\/p>\n

After giving close reading to a dozen first sentences, half mine and half others, I’m ready to make a list of things that a first line can do (although probably no first line should try to do all of them).<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Include a mystery the reader wants to solve by reading the next sentence.<\/li>\n
  2. Set a fast reading pace.<\/li>\n
  3. Foreshadow the story.<\/li>\n
  4. Establish the basics\u00a0the reader needs to move on with the story.<\/li>\n
  5. Create relationships between reader, character and narrator.<\/li>\n
  6. Quickly encourage readers who are interested, and discourage those who would rather read something else.<\/li>\n
  7. Most importantly, the use of A) diction, B) grammar, C) imagery and D) punctuation in order to establish X) character, Y) setting, and Z) mood.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Or, in abbreviated graphic form:<\/p>\n

    \"what<\/a><\/p>\n

    What else do you think they do?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Part I: Half a Dozen of My Recent Stories Part II: from Some of My Favorite Stories After giving close reading to a dozen first sentences, half mine and half others, I’m ready to make a list of things that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing-advice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21614,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21613\/revisions\/21614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}