𝐀𝐓𝐋𝐀𝐒, WRITING TIPS

* . ʷʳⁱᵗⁱⁿᵍ ᶠⁱʳˢᵗ ˢᵉⁿᵗᵉⁿᶜᵉˢ .

.     &     ━     "no live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. hill house, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steady against the wood and stone of hill house, and whatever walked there, walked alone."   →   shirley jackson, the haunting of hill house (1959). the most BRILLIANT opening lines of a horror novel ever, beautiful and eerie and just magnificent. one of the most memorable opening paragraph of literature for me. also GO watch the netflix show, it's scary but more focused on grief and humanity, and it's SO amazing, my favourite horror i've ever seen and i bawled my eyes out like three times at the dialogue alone .

.     &     ━     "a screaming comes across the sky."   →   thomas pynchon, gravity's rainbow (1973) .

.     &     ━     "riverrun, past eve and adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to howth castle and environs."   →   james joyce, finnegans wake (1939). an experimental novel with a fantastic opening .

.     &     ━     "this is the saddest story i have ever heard."   →   ford madox ford, the good soldier (1915) .

.     &     ━     "time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space."   →   margaret atwood, cat's eye (1988) .

.     &     ━     "to the best of my understandably shaky recollection, the first time i died, it went something like this."   →   james patterson, private (2010) .

.     &     ━     "124 was spiteful."   →   toni morrison, beloved (1987) .

.     &     ━     "i sent one boy to the gas chamber at huntsville."   →   cormac mcarthy, no country for old men (2005) .

.     &     ━     "in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."   →   j.r.r. tolkien, the hobbit (1937). another of the most iconic, famous opening lines of a novel .

.     &     ━     "they shoot the white girl first. with the rest they take their time."   →   toni morrison, paradise (1997) .

.     &     ━     "we slept in what had once been the gymnasium."   →   margaret atwood, the handmaid's tale (1985). a brilliant opening for such a dark, dystopian novel where women have been reverted to the roles of objects and servants. i recommend the show .

.     &     ━     "the circus arrives without warning. no announcements precede it, no paper notices on downtown posts and billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. it is simply there, when yesterday it was not."   →   erin morgenstern, the night circus (2011). a great opening that uses the hook of mystery and wonder .