It is a truth universally acknowledged -

- that the opening lines of a novel must grab the reader's attention immediately.

Having chosen a name for my central character, and decided exactly when the story is to take place,  I'm now thinking about the first chapter.

Most editors and agents agree that the novel should begin when the action begins. So no long scenes of introspection as the heroine looks back over her life to this point (that's what flashbacks are for, after all). She needs to start her new job/meet the hero/find the body within the first few pages.

It's unlikely that the extended infodump with which Jane Austen began her first published novel, Sense and Sensibility, would get it beyond the slush pile today. Nor the long and convoluted sentence with which Dickens began his first published novel:

The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the following entry in the Transactions of the Pickwick Club, which the editor of these papers feels the highest pleasure in laying before his readers, as a proof of the careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination, with which his search among the multifarious documents confided to him has been conducted.

Other authors managed to be more concise in their opening lines: 

In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army.

I returned from the City about three o’clock on that May afternoon pretty well disgusted with life.

'Oh damn!' said Lord Peter Wimsey at Piccadilly Circus.

Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

Mr and Mrs Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

It started at one thirty on a cold Tuesday morning in January when Martin Turner, street performer and, in his own words, apprentice gigolo, tripped over a body in front of the East Portico of St Paul’s at Covent Garden.

Dorothy L. Sayers managed to compress the most information about character and setting into the smallest number of words. She was an advertising copywriter who knew how to get a message across succinctly.

It's desirable to include dialogue as early as possible, but that means someone has to be provided for the character to talk to.  Lord Peter is speaking to a taxi driver, who is there solely for that purpose and plays no further part in the story. 

I already know that my character will have a friend and what the friend's personality will be.  I think that instead of introducing her later, as I originally planned, she and my central character will bump into each other, and have a conversation, in the first few pages.

Now I need to decide on the friend's name  - and on the opening sentence.

The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month

1914
'Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,
Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
And all the little emptiness of love!'

February 1918
'Then we walked for miles over the duckboards till finally we got to Glencorse Wood and Polygon Wood. These consist of a few score of torn and splintered stumps only. But the view of the battlefield is remarkable. Desolation reigns on every side. Litter, mud, rusty wire and pock marked ground.... The Passchendaele ridge was too far away for us to reach but the whole immense area of slaughter was visible. Nearly 80,000 of our British men have shed their blood and lost their lives here during 3½ years of unceasing conflict.... Death seems as commonplace and as little alarming as the undertaker. Quite a natural event, which might happen to any one at any moment, as it happened to all these scores of thousands who lie together in this vast cemetery, ennobled and rendered forever glorious by their brave memory.' 

November 1918
'It was a few minutes before the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. I stood at the window of my room looking up Northumberland Avenue towards Trafalgar Square, waiting for Big Ben to tell that the War was over....  And then suddenly the first stroke of the chime. I looked again at the broad street beneath me. It was deserted. From the portals of one of the large hotels absorbed by Government Departments darted the slight figure of a girl clerk, distractedly gesticulating while another stroke resounded. Then from all sides men and women came scurrying into the street. Streams of people poured out of all the buildings. The bells of London began to clash. Northumberland Avenue was now crowded with people in hundreds, nay thousands, rushing hither and thither in a frantic manner, shouting and screaming with joy. I could see that Trafalgar Square was already swarming. Around me in our very headquarters... disorder had broken out. Doors banged. Feet clattered down corridors. Everyone rose from the desk and cast aside pen and paper.... The tumult grew. It grew like a gale, but from all sides simultaneously. The street was now a seething mass of humanity.  Flags appeared as if by magic. Streams of men and women flowed from the Embankment. They mingled with torrents pouring down the Strand on their way to acclaim the King. Almost before the last stroke had died away, the strict, war-straitened, regulated streets of London had become a pandemonium.'

1923
'I had a walk round and eventually sat on a seat on the Embankment. I must have dozed off because it was dark as I woke up, so I decided to stay put till morning. I woke as the dawn was breaking and what a sight it was. All the seats were full of old soldiers in all sorts of dress - mostly khaki - and a lot more were lying on the steps, some wrapped up in old newspapers. Men who had fought in the trenches, now unwanted and left to starve were all huddled together.'

Past vs Present

I've been reading this blog, which is following the proposals for the redevelopment of part of Deptford. Deptford is a run down area of south east London which is certainly in need of regeneration.

However, the area which it is proposed to redevelop is historically significant. It is the site of the first Royal Dockyard which dates from the time of Henry VIII. It is also the site of Sayes Court, home of the diarist John Evelyn, and of his garden.

Those who object to the proposals argue that they do not give proper consideration to the historical importance of the area; that they risk damaging or destroying archaeological evidence;  that they do not allow for community access to and appreciation of some of the historically important aspects of the site.

Yet homes are needed, as is investment that will bring jobs to the area. How should these needs be balanced with the desire to preserve the past?

The question of past versus present can be asked elsewhere. How much should local authorities spend on archive services when services for children and the elderly may be facing cuts?

Should the owners of  historic buildings be restricted in what they can do with their properties?  Yes, it is desirable that that old buildings should be preserved whenever possible. Timber and brick are almost always more attractive than concrete.

(It would be even better if planning authorities took account of scale and context when deciding what to preserve.)  

Most houses have been altered over the years. Fireplaces and chimney stacks have replaced open hearths. Tiled roofs have replaced thatch. Extensions have been added, rooms knocked through or partitioned off or converted to different uses. New windows and doors have been fitted. Mains drainage, water, gas and electricity have been added.

Why should it be decided that at some arbitrary date in the twenty first century a building should stop evolving to meet the needs and wants of the people who live there?