Many thanks to the authors who blog together at The Outfit.

During the summer, Libby Hellman,  Michael Allen Dymmoch, Kevin Guilfoile and Marcus Sakey conducted crime writing workshops for teenagers and adults in a program sponsored by the Chicago Public Library.

Among the many topics the authors discussed were the importance of opening lines.

Anyone who writes or reads — and that would be all of us, right? — knows the importance of opening lines to engage the reader, the keep the reader and to motivate the reader.

Likewise, this opening line does the same thing for author, making them engage with the plot and characters, keeping them in the story and motivating them to find out what’s going to happen with their creations.

In her blog, Libby says that she ”often can’t start writing a new book until I have the first line. I may change it later, when a better line materializes, but that first line is critical – if it’s good, it gives the reader — and me — an indication of the pace… setting… and mood of the story.”

(By the way, the other authors who blog at The Outfit include Laura Caldwell, Sean Chercover, David Ellis, David Heinzmann, Barbara D’Amato, and Sara Paretsky.)

In her blog, Libby talks more about the importance of first lines.

 And she very kindly included some opening lines that grabbed her. No, that famous one by James Crumley isn’t there — but we all know that one. (If you want a refresher, just look at some of my previous blogs.)

Meanwhile, here’s a few that Libby posted that made me smile, remember and motivated me:

“I was trapped in a house with a lawyer, a bare-breasted woman, and a dead man. The rattlesnake in the paper sack only complicated matters.”
Fat Tuesday, by Earl Emerson

“My bodyguard was mowing the yard wearing her pink bikini when the man fell from the sky.”
Dead Over Heels, by Charlaine Harris

“The man with ten minutes to live was laughing.”
The Fist of God by Frederick Forsyth

“Some women give birth to murderers, some go to bed with them, and some marry them.”
Before The Fact, by Francis Iles (basis for Hitchcock’s Suspicion)

“For a week, the feeling had been with him, and all week long young Paul LeBeau had been afraid.”
Iron Lake, William Kent Krueger

What’s your favorite first line?

Photo: Libby Hellman photo by Jason Creps