PB First Lines July 2024 Edition

Featuring Becca McMurdie and BUILDING A BEAK: HOW A TOUCAN'S RESCUE INSPIRED THE WORLD

Welcome to the July 2024 edition of PB First Lines!

I'm so glad you're here. Last month, I invited you to post your own first lines for reader feedback and promised to analyze them in my next post. Thanks to Valerie Johnson for sharing her first line.

I am a math kid- brown, capable, and perfectly imperfect!

At first glance, I love that this story is going to be about math. I don’t think there can be enough picture book stories about math. And I love the hint at diversity and embracing imperfection. However, the different elements of this first line don’t seem to have an obvious connection: math, brown (skin), capability, perfect imperfection. As such, I’m not really sure where this story is going. Will it be predominantly about math? Will it be about how the rest works together? I think I want detail that gives me more of a notion of what this story will be about.

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 in 2024 and you’d like to be included in the December collection, fill out the First Line form!

This month, I’m excited to have Becca McMurdie share the revision journey of the first line from her book, Building a Beak: How a Toucan’s Rescue Inspired the World, art by Diana Hernandez.

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Original First Line: 

There was once a toucan who lived in a jungle.

Final First Line: 

High in the Costa Rican treetops, a toucan named Grecia soared from branch to branch, picked berries, preened her feathers, and sang for all the creatures of the rainforest.  

Elements: 

• Introduces main character

• Hints at a universal theme

• Sets the scene of the story

• Engages multiple senses 

At this point in my writing journey. I am keenly aware that your first version of your first line will most certainly not be your final version of your first line. And that’s OK. In fact, sometimes the first version of your first line is just what you need to get the initial story rolling out of your head (where sometimes it’s been for months) and onto the page. Someone once told me the first draft of your story is just putting sand in the sandbox. Once it’s filled, then you really sculpt it into something beautiful. 

BUILDING A BEAK: HOW A TOUCAN’S RESCUE INSPRIED THE WORLD, follows the true story of Grecia, an injured toucan in Costa Rica who received a groundbreaking prosthetic beak and inspired legal protection for wildlife. Since my story is non-fiction, my first draft really focused on getting the sequential facts out. I had a strong idea of the universal message and emotional arc before I started writing, but I didn’t pull that through at the line level of the story until my third or fourth draft. In initially telling this story, I had to not only organize the scene-by-scene development of the injury, the efforts to save Grecia, and the creation of the new beak, but also interweave the social movement inspired by the tragedy that happened simultaneously. My goal was to show that while humans can cause harm and destruction, we are even more capable of innovation, collaboration, and love. Those aspirational human qualities can be demonstrated many ways: through STEM breakthroughs, as well as social action.

After sharing an early draft with my critique group, I received some feedback that the two components of the solution—the creation of a prosthetic beak and the social movement inspired by the injury—seemed too disconnected in the story. To respond to this, I decided to connect these two components through a symbolic refrain: singing. Grecia sang for all the creatures of the rainforest (as all toucans do!), but when she lost her break, she couldn’t any longer. Humans then “sang” for her—and for all the other creatures of the rainforest—when they marched and protested to protect wildlife. In the end, Grecia gets a new beak and is able to sing again, and around the world, many people still “sing” for the rainforest today when they fight to protect it. In weaving this theme of “singing for all the creatures of the rainforest” into my story, my final first line was born. 

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Revision tip: I really love Becca’s original first line because it’s such a great example of just getting a first draft written. The first draft’s ONLY job is to exist. But sometimes we get so caught up in making that first line perfect we get stalled. When often that first line will never be perfect until the rest of the story is figured out. I also love Becca’s final first line. Look at that detail! The original first line was full of vague generalities. The final? Gorgeous specificity! So as you revise, see if each word is as specific as it can possibly be.

If you haven’t already, check out Andrew Hacket’s Daily Dozen Summer Writing Challenge!