Exit Lines
Last night's pleasure reading got me thinking about opening lines. The book in question was John Scalzi's Old Man's War, and it opens with a winner:
I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the Army.
I'm a sucker for a catchy opening, I must admit. Not for me the slow seduction of scene-setting, wherein each curve of the road or leaf of the tree is described in loving, lyrical detail. Not for me the lazy pan of the camera across the town as an unseen narrator relates its history. If I want a picture, I'll go to a museum. No, I want those opening lines to delight or surprise or madden me. Anything but indifference. I want them to draw me into the story irresistibly, inescapably.
All children, except one, grow up.
It was a pleasure to burn.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
But as I sat there happily remembering favorite opening lines--and it's quite a collection, by now--I realized that I couldn't think of any favorite closing lines. Not one. And that felt to me like a great omission. Surely how the story ends is every bit as important as how it begins?
I know that Hamlet's final words are "The rest is silence." But those are the character's last words, not the close of the play.
Many of you LJ friends are great writers and readers. Do any of you collect closing lines? Have you written a closing of which you're particularly fond/proud?
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wordswoman) wrote,
