Organization or Event Event? Organization? Grounding a Book "At the back of my mind I had a sense of us sitting about waiting for some terrible event, and then I would remember that it had already happened." Ian McEwan Let us search the recent winning titles of the Booker, the Pulitzer, and the New York Times Bestsellers (ranked by time on the list) on for those that start with Organization or Event. This is a less-represented category, but as you’ll see has some strong candi

How Droll Is That? Shopping for a new book? The author will have put her most work into the first lines and the last. Pay attention, and perhaps you’ll buy the book you want. Pay attention and perhaps your own first lines will become the immediate link to your best reader. Don't follow (a Writer's Digest) Formula. This Isn’t Kansas Anymore Let the reader think they are in the regular universe, and then throw in a shock so that they are disoriented and asking, Where the hell

Consider the First Lines This is not one of those formulaic pieces of advice where you are exhorted to include two or four or five key elements in your first sentence in order to have a winning start to your book. Writers Digest tells you to use direction, (no static) characterization, distinctive voice, and basic plot (conflict), but then, they are into pat answers. Instead, there is a list of examples that could be used as deep reads—how did the author do that? First lines