He, himself the living Author,
wakes to life the sacred Word,
reads with us its holy pages
and reveals our risen Lord.
He it is who works within us,
teaching rebel hearts to pray,
he whose holy intercessions
rise for us both night and day.— ”For Your Gift of God the Spirit,” by Margaret Clarkson
Fine first lines of stories recently loved
These past few weeks I’ve mostly been reading short fiction. This is also the form I’m writing right now (and it will be my focus when I attend a writing retreat in Massachusetts this June.)
Today I’d like to share a few beginnings from my recent readings. Rather than a first line or first paragraph I’m going to share the first two. I love to see how even a couple of lines can fit together and spark. I wonder about the writing process behind them (did they come out together in the first draft–find each other in revision?) Isolating lines in this way also has me revisiting some of my own beginnings–thinking about how they might hit my reader’s mind.
These beginnings differ in length, style, and tone. Some invite the reader in by plainly offering the occasion for the story, while others get right into the emotional architecture of a character. Perhaps some seem rather…unremarkable on their own, but they really do serve their story remarkably well (finish the story and you’ll see).
So here we go–a few fine first lines of stories recently loved:
. . .
Once there was a man who happened to buy God’s overcoat. He was rummaging through a thrift store when he found it hanging on a rack by the fire exit, nestled between a birch-colored fisherman’s sweater and a cotton blazer with a suede patch on one of the elbows.
— “A Fable with Slips of White Paper Spilling From the Pockets” by Kevin Brockmeier
. . .
Lenore was happy to sever her friendships. It’s for a higher cause, she wrote in her journal the day before they left.
— “Spanish Moss” by Chad Gusler
. . .
Syl had put up pictures of Brian in every room in the house–she had the ones Evan and Angie emailed printed at Black’s because she wanted the baby around all the time, as if he lived in their house instead of so far away. The snapshot in the kitchen was from the baby’s first moments on earth, flushed and scrunched, pink and blue, wailing and naked.
— “Sweet” by Rebecca Rosenblum
. . .
I am quitting a boy like people quit smoking. I am not quitting smoking.
— “Carry Me Home, Sisters of Saint Joseph” by Marie-Helene Bertino
. . .
We liked the house because, apart from its being old and spacious (in a day when old houses go down for a profitable auction of their construction materials), it kept the memories of great-grandparents, our paternal grandfather, our parents and the whole of childhood.
Irene and I got used to staying in the house by ourselves, which was crazy, eight people could have lived in that place and not have gotten in each other’s way.
— “House Taken Over” by Julio Cortazar
. . .
It was summer, the middle of July, the middle of the twentieth century, and in the city of Toronto one hundred people were boarding an airplane.
“Right this way,” the lipsticked stewardess cried.
— “Home” by Carol Shields
. . .
The twilight of evening. Big flakes of wet snow are whirling lazily about the street lamps, which have just been lighted, and lying in a thin soft layer on roofs, horses’ backs, shoulders, caps.
— “Misery” by Anton Chekhov
. . .
And fellow short story readers, I’d love to hear from you. Read any fine first lines lately?
Like this:
Building homes and hope in Haiti
Recently I joined the writing staff of an international relief and development agency which serves individuals affected by poverty, hunger, disaster, and injustice. It can be a challenge to mobilize support for brothers and sisters in these situations. I have much to learn about them and from them; I want to serve their stories well.
This month I wrote a short update for The Banner on CRWRC’s housing work in Haiti with survivors of the massive 2010 earthquake. It is a cooperative disaster relief project–one which equips local people to restore livelihoods and communities.
Here’s an excerpt:
“Having a strong and beautiful house is the greatest blessing…”
After the earthquake, Daniel Joseph and his family lived in an improvised tent for nearly two years. Like many of the more than one million people displaced by the disaster, Daniel, 27, and his family had to find another home.
With nothing to keep him in Port-au-Prince, Daniel moved his family back to the rural mountain community of Cablen in Leogane. They lived in a small, leaky tent constructed from tarpaulins—a tent made even more crowded when a new baby arrived.
Two years later, the family was still housed in this temporary shelter. Living so far from where the relief efforts were centered, Daniel wondered whether he and his loved ones would ever sleep under a real roof again.
Then he and others in the same situation came into contact with Christian Reformed World Relief Committee workers who were in the area providing training, seeds, livestock, and other supplies to Haitian farmers as part of the Life Restoration Program.
(Continue reading here)
Like this:
Whispering Along a Thin Trembling Thread
“What if we writers are able to tell stories of hurt and joy only because something in us is dulled enough to look them full in the face?
What a mission we might have then, to introduce the truth of brokenness and redemption to our brothers and sisters terrified to hear it. We’d have to whisper our little truths of moans and water pools in hopes that our stories would turn others back to their own hidden stories, thereby sparking that blessed epiphany we readers have experienced and which keeps us coming back to the writers we love, the epiphany that can be summed up in this way:
Yes, I have felt this too, and I see you have felt it, and so I am not alone.”
— Tony Woodlief, in his brave and beautiful post on the Image blog today
