PB First Lines August 2024 Edition
Featuring Dorson Plourde and GARBAGE GULLS
Welcome to the August 2024 edition of PB First lines!
I'm so glad you're here.
If you’re interested in feedback on a first line from one of your WIPs, pop it in the substack comments, and I’ll analyze them in the next edition of PB First Lines.
If you have a December holiday-themed book coming out this year, and you’d like to be included in the December collection, fill out the First Line form!
This month, I’m excited to have Dorson Plourde share the revision journey of the first line from her book, Garbage Gulls, a story about a hot summer day and the power of imagination. With temperatures in my neighborhood nearing triple digits the last couple weeks, I feel like I need this reminder to tap into my imagination when I can’t physically get to the beach.
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Garbage Gulls was first scratched on paper in what seems like an entire world ago. This debut story started in 2019 as one of those moments you sometimes hear about with writers. They are the moments and ideas most honest, when you find yourself catching words in your arms as they fall from the sky and hoping you can keep them all. Garbage Gulls’ first lines were lines that fell onto the page and I instantly recognized them as special.
Clicked into the heat.
Legs stuck to the seats.
We are microwave molten goo.
There was a certain directness that helped guide me through the initial problem with this story: how do you write a story that’s set in a parked car? These first four lines were not far off from the story’s final form. I knew I was given something with the tone, but I also knew there was something missing. They were so close! Yet, didn’t tell us anything about the journey yet to come.
One of my favorite exercises is to write out good writing. I’ve been collecting first lines for years now and have a growing document where I write the first line from every new book I’ve fallen for. Sounds simple, and it is, but man do these lines add up. After some time, I noticed a pattern: my favorite first lines are simply the story within a sentence. A declaration almost, or a hint at an essential truth. These first lines may have come in an instant, but that’s also where the real writing took over.
With help from Clelia Gore and my editor Kathleen Keenan, we found what was missing. The final declares the main problem, the setting (MC live in a hotel) and lets us into their world (an abandoned car). The real cherry on top is how illustrator Isabella Fassler captured it all in the first spread.
We know all corners of The Sea, but we’ve never been to the beach.
Legs stuck to the seats
Clicked into the heat.
We are microwave molten goo.
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Revision tip: I love Dorson’s habit of writing out favorite first lines. Through that habit, she’s been able to see what type of first line grabs her attention and replicate that in her own stories. If you wanted to do something similar, check out the archives of PB First Lines on my website. There are nearly 1,000 first lines to study.
