Accent Craftclass x Baylina Pu I The First Sentence
“First sentences are doors to worlds.” —Ursula K. Le Guin
That’s exactly what a first sentence does: It opens. It grabs. It lunges. Sometimes, it screams. In this course, we will uncover what makes a memorable first sentence that captures and holds hostage the reader’s attention. Every story starts with a sentence: a combination of words that casts a spell upon the reader.
In this class, you will be asked to notice phrases you encounter in your everyday life that glitter, that crackle, that feel charged with first-line energy. You’ll analyze what attracts you to a first sentence, whether it’s a compelling hook, beautiful language, or a strong sense of voice, and you’ll read examples of first sentences to learn what patterns and strategies authors have used in the past to reel in their readers. Finally, you will write many, many first sentences that you’ll be able to use as springboards for your own writing projects.
We will be reading first sentences and excerpts by the likes of Ha Jin, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, George Saunders, Jesmyn Ward—and your classmates. By the end of this class, you will have a bank of first sentences to draw from, a hall full of doors to expand into worlds.
Themes to be discussed:
The Plot Twist: We’ll examine first sentences that start normally, then suddenly careen in a completely unexpected direction. These subversive, whiplash-inducing sentences generate momentum that keeps you reading.
The Most Unbelievable Thing: One of the most common and effective ways to begin a story is to start with the most unbelievable thing. No throat-clearing or table-setting—just straight to the weirdness of it all.
The Gnomic Mood: This is a grammatical mood used in some of the most iconic first sentences of all time, favored by writers from Jane Austen to Leo Tolstoy. We’ll talk about what this mood is and why it works so well for first sentences.
The Voice: Ever start reading something and immediately fall in love with the narrator’s voice? We’ll study first sentences that instantly immerse us in a unique perspective, and we’ll discover how to make that magic happen in our own work.
The Unconventional: Sometimes, a sentence is just so strange, beautiful, or otherwise unconventional that it demands one’s attention. We’ll explore sentences whose distinctiveness and peculiarity keep the reader hooked.
Baylina Pu graduated from Yale in 2023. Her work has been published in Michigan Quarterly Review Online, New Ohio Review, Black Warrior Review Online, The Yale Literary Magazine, Dirt, and more. She received her MFA from Columbia University, where she was awarded the Felipe De Alba Fellowship, and her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net. She has served as Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University and currently teaches at Gotham Writers Workshop and The Center for Fiction.
Read Baylina's short story, "Y/N," published in Black Warrior Review Online: https://bwr.ua.edu/y-n/ !