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Snap judgment of the day.
The library where I go to write has a book recycling box. I picked up a novel called Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer, and since the back cover failed to provide a description, I turned to the first page. The first sentence was "Crude thoughts and fierce forces are my state." I put it back down.
The novel won the Pulitzer Price, but I rejected it based on the projections my mind came up with from that first sentence; well, that, and the fact that a person whose state is crude thoughts and fierce forces probably would not be able to construct that sentence. Apart from the latter, the first sentence might have been a hook as well as the turn-off, and that depended on my own tastes and personality, but it does go to show the importance of the first sentence.
The novel won the Pulitzer Price, but I rejected it based on the projections my mind came up with from that first sentence; well, that, and the fact that a person whose state is crude thoughts and fierce forces probably would not be able to construct that sentence. Apart from the latter, the first sentence might have been a hook as well as the turn-off, and that depended on my own tastes and personality, but it does go to show the importance of the first sentence.