It was the best of times, it was the worst of times – pretty much any time you sit down and try to think of a memorable opening line to anything you write.
Indeed there is no more important task than nailing a good opening line to a book.
Great first lines from novels, such as Charles Dickens’ “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” from A Tale of Two Cities or Jane Austen’s “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,” from Pride and Prejudice, are bold statements of intent that stay with us forever. – Perfect lines that we could never imagine the author improving on.
Until now, that is.
Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy author Marc Laidlow came up with the wheeze of adding “and then the murders began” as a second sentence to improve the opening of any book, and Twitter took up his challenge with hilarious results across all genres. Especially children’s fiction.
Here are our favourite examples of what is now known as #LaidlawsRule. Tweet and comment below with any you would care to add!
