A big THANK YOU to IAF 2016, The Alliance of Independent Authors, and The International Rubery Book Award for selecting my sentence as the winner of this year's Opening Line Competition.
"Jay's first set of eyes (not including the ones he'd been born with) had come as part of a bulk discount at Giant Tiger."
is the first sentence of a short story called THE EYES HAVE IT which started as a comment from a friend about an eye store she had on 'Second Life'. The title came to me right away, the first line landed in my head about an hour later. I'd had a couple of people suggest changes to the sentence, and as I respect their opinions, I tend to listen. But I stuck to my guns on this one: this sentence was true. It set the tone, set the scene, set the mood, set the genre and had an interesting hook.
Writing is a craft, and while ALL parts of a story are important, I think there is nothing more critical in a story than the opening. I spend a lot of time working on my openings, and THE EYES HAVE IT is by far my favourite. I'm flattered and excited that others think so, too.
For some good information on Great Openers, check out this article by Brian Klems.
