​I’m on page 67 and growing restless.

What went wrong? The novel got terrific reviews. Its plot revolves around a subject that I’m interested in. There are a couple of eccentric characters. The story is set in post Civil War America, so you’ve got all that historical stuff going on. One dead body has appeared. Still, I can’t get excited about the book.

This book and I are almost at V-2. That’s the point I’m told a pilot reaches while speeding down the runway at which he must decide to either pull back on the stick and lift off, or immediately abort his takeoff. How much more time should I invest in this book, I ask myself, before I learn if it ever takes off?

The title of the book shall remain unmentioned because it is a first novel and I don’t want to discourage any new writer. After all, it could possibly just be me that is having a problem. But as a management guru once told those of us attending his seminar, “You’ve got to keep the ball moving down the field.”

I don’t generally care for sports analogies because I don’t like sports. But moving the ball down the field seems appropriate when analyzing business challenges. It also applies to writing, IMHO.

So I’m thinking today about what kinds of books I like best. The more I think about it, a book’s subject doesn’t make much difference to me. If the author keeps the ball moving then he’s got me. This no doubt has something to do with my short attention span.

Generally speaking, I prefer short books—300 to 400 pages. I tried reading War and Peace once but found I didn’t have the endurance. In my view, if an author can’t tell his story in three or four hundred pages then he’s got more than one story. But of course, that’s just me.

I also like short chapters that I can complete in one sitting. I’m not one of those people who reads on the subway or while standing in line at Frank’s Pizza. A doctor’s waiting room is another story. You can usually finish two or three chapters while waiting to see the doctor.

And in addition to short chapters, please give me short paragraphs—and short sentences! I couldn’t get into Thomas Wolfe because he never wrote a sentence that had less than a million words in it. Come on, Tom, give me a break—literally. Break those sentences down into bite sizes. I always wondered how much more popular Thomas Wolfe would be today if Max Perkins, his editor, had reined him in a bit more. As it was, he reined him in lot because he wrote thousands of more pages (by hand) that never made it into print.

I can usually tell if I’m going to like a book after reading the first paragraph. In fact, I can usually tell if I will like a book after the first sentence. I know, I know. This is unfair, and is probably not the best way to judge an entire book. But my own experience has shown me that if a book doesn’t start off well, there’s a good chance it’s not going to get much better. There are exceptions, of course, but I just don’t understand why any writer who has toiled for months or years writing a book can’t at least go back to the beginning and write a first sentence that grabs you.

I went through some of my 2000 books today and pulled out a few that have what I feel are some of the all-time great first sentences. Without even having to open the book, I remembered almost verbatim—thirty years after reading it—the gripping first line in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.

The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call “out there.”

Now does that grab you or what? I immediately want to know more, don’t you?

The “out there” metaphor works well. See how Tom Wolfe uses it to open The Right Stuff.

Within five or ten minutes, no more than that, three of the others had called her on the telephone to ask her if she had heard that something had happened “out there.”

Wow! Here’s a few more of my favorite openers.

I was leaning against a bar in a speak-easy on Fifty-second Street, waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping, when a girl got up from the table where she had been sitting with three other people and came over to me. The Thin Man—Dashiell Hammett.

She was so deeply imbedded in my consciousness that for the first year of school I seemed to have believed that each of my teachers was my mother in disguise. Portnoy’s Complaint—Phillip Roth

When he was nearly thirteen my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the wrist. To Kill a Mockingbird—Harper Lee

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. Lolita—Vladimir Nabokow

I can see by my watch, without taking my hand from the left grip of the cycle, that it is eight-thirty in the morning. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance—Robert Pirsig

I always wondered how Pirsig could drive a motorcycle and write at the same time.

Of course, with some classics you simply must wade through all the boring exposition before the ball starts moving. Take Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, for example. It’s one of my all-time favorite books, which just goes to prove the exception to my own self-imposed rule.

I was born in the Year 1632, in the City of York, of a good Family, tho’ not of the Country, my Father being a Foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull; He got a good Estate by Merchandise, and leaving off his Trade, lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my Mother, whose Relations were named Robinson, a very good Family in that Country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but by the usual Corruption of Words in England, we are now called, nay we called our selves, and write our Name Crusoe, and so my Companions always call’d me.

Thanks, Dan. I’m sure glad you cleared that up before getting into your story. But I prefer something more like this:

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. The Catcher in the Rye—J. D. Salinger
 
And probably the most famous opening line ever written is:
 
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.--Holy Bible

The book in which I’m stuck on page 67 actually has a pretty decent first line. In fact, the whole first chapter was good. But then the ball stopped moving down the field. And it wasn’t long before I was seduced by the first line of another book—one that my wife had just finished reading. Here’s the entire first paragraph:

It’s only midafternoon and already the whole day is a bust. I may only be a sixteen year old girl, but I’m an experienced gambler so I believe in probability, not luck. However on days like this, you really have to wonder. Beginner’s Luck—Laura Pedersen
 
And finally, here’s probably one of the most bizarre opening lines I’ve ever read:

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed into a giant insect. The Metamorphosis—Franz Kafka

Now that gets my attention!