A really silly first line will stop me from reading the rest of the book, and a really good first line will prompt me to take the book up to the cash register. Because of this I have always put a lot of effort into my first lines. A good first line tends to lead to a good first page, and a good first page tends to lead to a good first chapter, and so on and so forth.

One of the ways I generate first lines is by picturing the story I have in mind and then reading a couple of my favorite first lines. After I review my favorite lines I set a timer for ten minutes. In those ten minutes I focus on writing as many first lines as I can. After the ten minutes are over I take a break and then review the lines, removing and refining my favorite first line.

This is our writing prompt for today, but in case you don’t have any of your favorite first lines handy I have included some of my favorite first lines below, to get you started.

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” —Gabriel García Márquez, A Hundred Years of Solitude

“It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.” —Paul Auster, City of Glass