The opening line of a book is extremely important, as it has to be intriguing and powerful enough to capture the reader's imagination. Then, the second line has to intensify the intrigue. Coming up with these lines can be pretty difficult, yet one writer came up with a second line that would almost always heighten the intrigue to its peak, and the Internet is going crazy.
"And then the murders began" - that's the clever line Marc Laidlaw came up with. Add it to almost any opening line and you've got yourself a hell of an intriguing book opening. Now people are tweeting famous first lines of books followed by Marc's second line, with the hashtag #LaidlawsRule. The results are absolutely hilarious! See for yourselves below, and feel free to add your own intriguing openings to the list.
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#421
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - with little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. And then the murders began.
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#422
"They're out there. And then the murders (would begin)..." -"Chief" Bromden, One flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, written by Ken Kesey.
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#423
"Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; and then the murders began." (Anne of Green Gables)
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#424
"The sun did not shine, it was too wet to play, so we sat in the house all that cold, cold wet day. And then the murders began." (The Cat in the Hat, Dr. Suess)
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#425
"It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. And then the murders began." (The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling)
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#426
"When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen... and then the murders began." (The Secret Garden, Hodgson Burnett)
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#427
"In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit... and then the murders began." (The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien)
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#428
When your mama was a geek, my dreamlets, Papa would say, She made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypotized with longing. And the the murders began. Geek Love - Katherine Dunn
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#429
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderlay again. And then the murders began.
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#430
It is now nearly fifty years since I first projected a system of verbal classification similar to that on which the present work is founded. And then, the murders began. (Peter Roget's Preface to the First Edition - Roget's Thesaurus - 1852)
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#431
Belinda blinked, it wasn't a dream, the job interviewer had just asked her to remove her jacket and silk blouse. And then the murders began.
(Belinda Blinked, Rocky Flintstone)
(Belinda Blinked, Rocky Flintstone)
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#432
One day when Pooh Bear had nothing else to do, he thought he would do something , so he went round to Piglet's house to see what Piglet was doing. "And then the murders began".
The House at Pooh Corner
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#433
Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of
the kitchen.
the kitchen.
And then the murders began.
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#434
By now I think you know what happened to your sandwich. But you may not know how it happened. So let me tell you.
It all started with the bear.
And then the murders began.
It all started with the bear.
And then the murders began.
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#435
"Chug, chug, chug. Puff, puff, puff. Ding-dong, ding-dong" And then the murders began
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#436
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall Humpty Dumpty had a great fall then the murders began.
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#437
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. And then the murders began. (The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
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#438
The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another, his mother called him, "Wild thing!" And then the murders began.
- Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are
- Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are
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#439
On a rare, warm day in mid-March, when the snow was melting into mud in New Hampshire, I traveled to Boston, where everyone was strolling along the harbor or sitting on benches licking ice cream cones... And then the murders began
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#440
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs kicked in. And then the murders began. - Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
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