Your First Sentence(s)

[moderntimes]

First brief paras of my short horror story "The Stump":

“I gotta be nuts.”
Mike Denton lay flat on his bed and stared at the dingy waterspotted ceiling of his apartment, pondering his dilemma. Once more he’d diagnosed himself, reaching the same conclusion already decided eleven times this evening.
“Nuts!”
Make that an even dozen.

Here, I establish the protagonist, caught in a trap of some sort, possibly of his own making. I tell the reader a bit about the guy's shabby lifestyle, his snippy emotions, and set the mood.

In modern fiction, especially short stories, the author needs to grab the reader quickly. Some authors may yearn for a more placid and sedate writing environment but that's long gone, just like the neoplatonists and the emotionally dry era prior to WW-I. Today, it's essential to set up the "puzzle" of the story, or at least hint at it, in the first paragraph, if not the lead sentence. The days of spending 3 pages to establish a moody Heathcliff and his brooding are long gone.

I'm not saying that all fiction needs to be rattatat quick, but it does need to jump into the depth of the story quite quickly, in medias res, perhaps.

[Shinyfox]

Well you certainly drew me in with that little snippet. It is definitely something I would keep reading if I'd picked it up. Thank you for the advice and explanation! I really appreciate it =)

[moderntimes]

Glad to help. Remember that we're all here to help one another. And that I'm just one person and that my opinion need to be taken w. the proverbial grain of salt.

Here's another 1st para from my vampire horror story "So Many Nests":

I was already crouched low in the driver’s seat, but when the motel door opened I slid down a bit further and peered through the steering wheel spokes. I’d been my usual careful self during this assignment and there was no sense being spotted now. Not when I was so near another nest.

Here, I establish a persona of the character -- on the prowl -- and the surroundings (modern day, likely a city), and the somewhat ambiguous term "nest" to establish that it's not just a bunch of crooks he's spying on.

[Johntherobert]

I started using drugs when I was thirteen years old.

[moderntimes]

I started using drugs when I was thirteen years old.

Excellent! I'd even trim it down a bit further, which may increase the impact:

"I started using drugs when I was thirteen."

Followed by, maybe:

"First I took the meds from my aunt's pill bottles in the bathroom. Some got me high, some just made me puke. But I kept up. My first actual purchase was from the older brother of my classmate. They made me feel like a superhero and later I learned they were uppers."

undsoweiter...
(and so on)

[zoikes319]

“Michael has a ghost in his room.”

It's a woman talking but you don't find out who she is and her relationship to the one she is speaking to until it slowly is pulled into being later in the book.

[RussetDivinity]

"I wonder if it's strange that the stablest people in my life are a group of neo-bohemians."

This isn't the first sentence of anything I'm working on right now, but I'd like to work on a novel that starts out this way. I'd just have to make sure the neo-bohemians in my life don't mind that I'm borrowing them for information. The first sentence of a serial I'm currently writing is:

"The sanctuary was nestled in a little hollow among the mountains, with a lake full of clear, fresh water and a few copses of trees scattered among the grass and gardens."

[haikudude]

I could feel her staring at my dimples, waiting for me to wake up. I took in a big
bag of air and squeezed them tighter. She was getting a real show. "I love
your dimples, Cowboy. Mind if I kiss 'em? I'll let you kiss mine." She dropped her jeans
and spun to reveal two winks winking at me from atop a perfect derriere.
"Deal."

[CharlotteWolf]

"I've been avoiding it for quite some time now, but as I looked into his eyes. I knew it was time."