How do some of your favorite books start?

Question

like what are the characters doing?

Answer 1

once upon a time....

seriously...why not have a character doing something that causes the reader to imediately want to know how or why it is happening?

" She wasn't sure if she needed a watermelon or a bowling ball, but..."

Answer 2

a brother and sister named jack and annie came apon a magical treehouse that took them back in time to the dino saurs and they had to complete a mission i dont remmember thow

Answer 3

Eddie Willers is walking down the streets of New York and thinks about a tree that used to grow on the Taggart estate.  He thought that tree could last forever and it looked so healthy, but a sudden storm took it down, and he saw inside it.  It had been rotting from the inside for years.  Eddie notices the shops that used to crowd the streets where he's walking are going out of business and are borded up.

Answer 4

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen"

Answer 5

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

--One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

"Here they come.

And I'm not ready.

How could I be?

I'm a new teacher and learning on the job."

--Teacher Man by Frank McCourt

"What was the worst thing you've ever done?

I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me... the most dreadful thing... "

--Ghost Story by Peter Straub

" 'A pox on this island,' Brock said, staring around the beach and up at the mountains. 'The whole of China at our feets and all we takes be this barren, sodding rock.' "

--Tai-Pan by James Clavell

"The ghost was her father's parting gift, presented by a black-clad secretary in a departure lounge at Narita."

--Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson

"I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster."

--The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

...lots more great first sentences, but that's enough I'd guess...

Answer 6

Hmm...

They are having an internal monologue about how awful school is

Moving (this is the normal boring start)

someone is all "you are the chosen one!!!"

It almost always has some sort of major change happen in their life.