#AuthorToolboxBlogHop: Opening Sentences

The first sentence in your story is pretty important. The literary canon is full of books with memorable opening lines.

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul." —Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." —Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

 "It was a pleasure to burn."—Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

 "All this happened, more or less."—Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

"Call me Ishmael." —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick 

"If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book." - Lemony Snicket, The Bad Beginning

"I'm pretty much fucked." - Andy Weir, The Martian

"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much." - J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

What do those opening lines all have in common? For me, it's that they hook you and make you want to know more. Why is the MC of The Martian fucked? What happened in the Slaughterhouse-Five and what didn't? These lines made me want to read more.

So, when you're writing your story, think about your first line and how it is drawing your reader in. Is it interesting? Thought provoking? Does it ask a question that demands an answer? Does it make a reader want to know what happened? Is is shocking? Is it honest? Whatever it is, it should give your reader a reason to continue diving into the world you created.

Good luck on all of your writing ventures!

To continue hopping through other great blogs in the monthly #AuthorToolboxBlogHop or to join, click here.

#AuthorToolboxBlogHop: Knowing Your Limitations

For this month’s #AuthorToolboxBlogHop I’m going to talk about knowing your limitation as a writer.

I had a friend read a few chapters of my WIP and while she liked it, she was also kind of upset that my main character was a straight white girl. My cast of characters is pretty diverse. My main character lives with her aunt. Her aunt is married to a black woman who has a son from a previous marriage that the main character loves like a brother. None of those characters were just written that way, they evolved as I wrote them. She would like me to make the main character a bisexual woman of color. 

I do not agree with her.

Not because I don’t think a bisexual woman of color deserves to have her story told, but because I am not the person to tell her story.

I am not bisexual, gay or questioning. I’m not a woman of color. I know that I write best from personal experience and that I wouldn’t be able to do her story any justice. I know I could research and I could interview people but I know my limitations as a writer.

Now, I am not saying that a writer can’t write outside of their experience. That would be stupid and dangerous. I mean, To Kill a Mockingbird would have never been written if Harper Lee didn’t feel capable. 

What I am saying is that I don’t feel like I am the one to write that story, especially with the story I am working on.

Someday I might be able to write a story with a person of color who is questioning their sexuality at the center of it, but not now. I know I am not ready and I know I not the writer to write that story.

To continue hopping through other great blogs in the monthly #AuthorToolboxBlogHop or to join, click here.