The First Five Lines

When you open a new book, what makes you continue reading it?

Where do you make your decision that the book is worth the investment of your time --first line, first five lines, first page, first chapter? Do you keep going until you reach the end, no matter what? Or will you stop reading when you become bored, confused, disgusted, etc.?

These are important questions to book publishers, literary agents, bookstores and, of course, to authors so that you'll keep reading -- and buying -- books.

I recently entered a blog contest judged by author Sophie Littlefield on the basis of a manuscript's first five lines. It's fascinating how much you can learn about a book -- or what piques your interest -- from five sentences.

Want to see what I mean? Look at the first five sentences of works by the Sisters in Crime New England members who'll join me to discuss "Beach Read" recommendations at a July 29 event at RiverRun Bookstore in Portsmouth --and see if you can match them with these mystery titles:

"Drive Time" (Hank Phillippi Ryan)
"Red Delicious Death" (Sheila Connolly)
"Under the Eye of Kali" (Susan Oleksiw)
"Who Wrote the Book of Death?" (Steve Liskow)
"Murder Most Municipal" (Pat Remick)

A."They're all dead."

"What?" Meg Corey dragged her gaze from the orderly row of apple trees that marched over the hill. Almost all were past bloom now, and some of them had what even a novice farmer like Meg could identify as apples. Small, maybe, but it was a start. She turned her attention to Carl Frederickson, her beekeeper.

B. I can't wait to tell our secret. And I'll get to do it if we're not all killed first.

We're 10 minutes away from Channel 3 when suddenly the Boston skyline disappears. Murky slush spatters across our windshield, kicked up from the tires of the rattletrap big rig that just swerved in fron tof us on the now slick highway. Eighteen wheels of obstacle, stubbornly obeying the Massachusetts turnpike speed limit.

C. KC Dunham pointed toward the large erasable white board announcing the Question of the Day in precise black lettering: “Who invented peanut butter? Winner gets a free muffin.”

“The Incas, although most people think it was George Washington Carver,” she said without hesitation. “You can keep the muffin.”

The woman holding a steaming pot of coffee behind the cracked Formica counter laughed. “I was beginning to think I'd never find anyone in this town who appreciates the long and glorious history of my favorite food, after chocolate that is, though they're damn fine together too."

D. No way in Hell her real name is Taliesyn Holroyd.

Everything else about her strikes Greg Nines as unreal, too, from her energy level—which could eclipse a heavy metal band even if she were unplugged—to her clothes, Sex And The City meets Pirates of The Caribbean.

“I need to do this,” Taliesyn—“call me ‘Tally’”—says. Her stiletto boots make her Nines’s six-one. He’s offered her a chair twice, but she keeps pacing, her strut turning her calf-length leather skirt into a major event.

E. Guests from various foreign countries began filling up the Hotel Delite dining room, taking every seat at the main table--this was a small hotel,only eight rooms, with the owner's, Meena Nayar's, suite on the top floor, and that of her niece, Anita Ray, above a separate garage.

Tired after being woken in the middle of the night by festival drumming from a narby temple, Anita sat at a small table along the wall and only half-listened to the guests placing their orders and asking the usual questions. "What is this?" "What does it taste like?"

To see the answers, click here: How did you do? To learn more about the authors, visit:

www.hankphillippiryan.com

http://www.sheilaconnolly.com/

http://www.susanoleksiw.com/

http://www.steveliskow.com/

http://www.patremick.com/

Memories and facts

I attended three very different events over the past week that not only were extremely thought-provoking, they also all were related to historical perspective in some way.

The first was a presentation by the nation’s foremost historical photo detective. Maureen Taylor can determine the era, and often the exact year, of old photos by the type of photography used and the clothing and other items in a picture. She also may attempt to guess the story behind photos by the composition and body language of the people in them. For example, as she told my Sisters in Crime New England chapter, a wide gap between what appears to be a husband and wife in a family grouping might indicate emotional distance as well.

It concerns me to think about someone trying to interpret our photographs decades from now. To prevent this, maybe we should all stand close to loved ones in future photographs, label old pictures the way we choose, and destroy any that could be interpreted the wrong way. On the other hand, a photo detective’s stories might be much more interesting to our heirs than reality.

Speaking of reality, New York Times cultural reporter David Carr visited my local independent bookstore to give a fascinating talk about his new book “The Night of the Gun: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of His Life. His Own.” Carr, a journalist who became a cokehead and alcoholic with 15 arrests and five trips to rehab, researched his past by interviewing (and videotaping) people from the dark periods in his life.

Carr says the “night of the gun” refers to a watershed event that made him realize he’d hit bottom. He recalls becoming so violent that a childhood friend pulled out a gun in self-defense. Only later did Carr learn through his interviews that he was the one with the gun, something he finds baffling because he doesn’t remember even owning one. While addiction obviously affected his perspective, it took methodical research to reveal the inaccuracies in his personal history.

If you interviewed people from your past, would they remember the stories of your life the same way you do? (Another reason to label those photographs?) The bigger question might be – whose historical perspective is the truth?

History is very important to the “American Treasure” Music Hall of Portsmouth, a 900-seat theater built in 1878 that celebrated the grand opening of its new lobby this past weekend. The challenge facing the oldest performing arts theater in NH and the 14th oldest in the United States was not only to remove tons of shale to extend its bottom floor into a magnificent vestibule, but also to create something new and magical while honoring its past. That history includes hosting a wide variety of performers and luminaries, including such diverse people as John Barrymore, Frederick Douglas, Buffalo Bill Cody, John Wayne and Pulitzer Prize winner Doris Kearns Goodwin. One solution was to design special wallpaper reflecting memorabilia from the Music Hall's archives: ticket stubs, advertisements for shows and newspaper clippings.

Think about your memorabilia. Does it accurately reflect your past? Does it need to? (And how would it look on wallpaper?)

I certainly don't have the answers to any of these questions. But these three events have me thinking about the many ways we recall the past and how memories shape who we are today, what we become and how we're remembered.

This is good to keep in mind when writing fiction but probably even more so when it comes to writing--and reading--non-fiction. As ABC television anchor Diane Sawyer reportedly said, "I'm always fascinated by the way memory diffuses fact." Me, too.