It’s all about the first paragraph, the first page, the first five pages.

Any literary agent will tell you that. You may submit a manuscript of five hundred pages, but if the writing in those first few pages fails to meet expectations, you will be banned to the slush pile.

And who wants to be slushed?

Not I, said the writer, going back to that first paragraph, that first page for what feels like the hundred millionth time.

But that’s what writing is all about. No, no – hit the delete button. What I meant to write is: that’s what getting published is all about. Getting it right. Perfectly right.

So to inspire you to revisit and, if need be, rewrite the opening of your novel, memoir, or other work of great literature, here are some beginning paragraphs that will not soon be forgotten. Note the use of words that appeal to the senses, the feeling and imagery created, the insight into setting or character.

See if you can identify these passages. The answers are at the bottom. (No cheating now!)

1. I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.

2. umber whunnnn yerrrnnn umber whunnnn fayunnnn These sounds: even in the haze.

3. Jewel and I come up from the field, following the path in single file. Although I am fifteen feet ahead    of him, anyone watching us from the cotton house can see Jewel’s frayed and broken straw hat a full head above my own.

4. Only three people were left under the red and white awning of the grease joint: Grady, me, and the fry cook. Grady and I sat at a battered wooden table, each facing a burger on a dented tin plate. The cook was behind the counter, scraping his griddle with the edge of a spatula. He had turned off the fryer some time ago, but the odor of grease lingered.

5.  I wish Giovanni would kiss me.

6. Gestures are all that I have; sometimes they must be grand in nature. And while I occasionally step over the line and into the world of the melodramatic, it is what I must do in order to communicate clearly and effectively. In order to make my point understood without question. I have no words I can rely on because, much to my dismay, my tongue was designed long and flat and loose, and therefore is a horribly ineffective tool for pushing food around my mouth while chewing, and an even less effective tool for making clever and complicated polysyllabic sounds that can be linked together to form sentences. And that’s why I’m here now waiting for Denny to come home – he should be here soon – lying on the cool tiles of the kitchen floor in a puddle of my own urine.

7.  Renowned curator Jacques Sauniere staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery. He lunged for the nearest painting he could see, a Caravaggio. Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-six-year-old man heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall and Sauniere collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas.

8. “Who is John Galt?”

The light was ebbing, and Eddie Willers could not distinguish the  bum’s face. The bum had said it simply, without expression. But        from the sunset far at the end of the street, yellow glints caught         his eyes, and the eyes looked straight at Eddie Willers, mocking and still – as if the question had been addressed to the causeless uneasiness within him.

         9.  When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner’s pick, a woodcarver’s gouge, a surgeon’s robe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory. Is it a dead end, or have you located the real subject? You will know tomorrow, or this time next year.

Answers:

1. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
2. Misery by Stephen King
3. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
4. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
5. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
6. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
7. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
8. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
9. The Writing Life by Annie Dillard