Another piece of advice coming out of the Book Passage writer’s conference was to look at the first lines of books to see how they both draw the reader in and already begin telling what the story is really like.

Here are a few powerful first lines that I have recently come across.

“From the twisting, smoke-filled clouds, blood rained down.”

-from Steven Erikson’s Midnight Tides

“The summer of 1972, before I turned nine, danger began knocking on doors all over China.”

-from Yin Chang Compestine’s Revolution is Not a Dinner Party

“Captain Ahab was neither my first husband not my last.”

-from Sena Jeter Nashland’s Ahab’s Wife

Great first lines, each making me want to keep reading.