Writing Advice from Edith Wharton

I like reading Edith Wharton much more than I like Henry James. I have made this point elsewhere, but it seems worth repeating. Therefore when I saw LitHub published Edith Wharton on How to Write a Vivid First Line, I clicked on the link.

Her advice I had come to while in prison trying to educate myself about writing:

The short-story writer’s first concern, once he has mastered his subject, is to study what musicians call the “attack.” The rule that the first page of a novel ought to contain the germ of the whole is even more applicable to the short story, because in the latter case the trajectory is so short that flash and sound nearly coincide.

I spent a lot of time examining opening lines, copying them out, hoping to see why and they worked.  Give the whole of Wharton's essay a read. It is short, the advice seems on point. I am trying to submit "Colonel Tom", a story I have now been tinkering with for years, and the opening has changed in subtle but important ways. I feel better about it now.

The first sentence should make the reader want to keep reading.

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3/12/22