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Now that we have done about half of the edits on the chapter we have been working on, it should be greatly improved. Let’s look at some other important features.

The First Sentence-  So many authors spent endless hours perfecting the first line of their novel. They have been advised to do that in countless books on writing. They are instructed to create a spellbinding opening sentence like Dickens.  In his historic novel, A Tale of Two Cities, about the French revolution, Dickens begins with the famous line:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Today I can only surmise that some editor would slash this line unmercifully, calling it a run-on sentence! Taste, like times, change but one thing remains. You need to grab your reader or the acquisitions editor within the first minute.

I wish authors would spend as much time on each sentence as they do with the first line of their work.   To be truthful, if you did you would probably never finish your work. Please spend some time on the first line of each chapter. What you seldom see in those instruction books is what Charles Dickens started each chapter with. Here are some examples from the same novel:

In chapter three, he begins:  “A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!”  Wow!

In chapter five, Dickens starts: “The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the street-stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there.” Another Wow!

My point is that the first line of each chapter, not just the first line of your novel or book, should be your best. Make a big statement. If you can’t make an important proclamation or give the reader an insight, maybe you should question or revisit your entire work. Your reader should be impressed, and able to share your lines as quotes. That is what is special about you! Anyone can tell a story. Can they tell it with flare? Can they make words into music? That is what a writer does.

Today it is common place to promote action, instead of ideas. It is acceptable to use violence, foul language, and unnecessary sex to grab the reader. I say that is the sign of an author with little imagination. When I was younger, I wasn’t told that curses were wrong because they were a sin. I was told that curse words made the speaker look ignorant. Why?  Because he couldn’t think of better words to express his feelings.

We, as Catholic writers, need to buck the trend! Look at the subtitle of the Catholic Writer’s Guild – “The rebirth of Catholic arts and letters.” Let’s be part of that movement. Bring back excellence! And start with the first line, paragraph, and page of your novel and every chapter of your book!

Karen Kelly Boyce lives on a farm in N.J. with her retired husband. She is a mother and grandmother. She is the author of “The Sisters of the Last Straw” series published by Tan Books. You can see her work and learn more about her on her website: www,kkboyce.com