Week #44 – The Stand by Stephen King

Last year on Mondays we had fun with books. This year, we'll look at most of the same books but also some new ones, and see if the first line [or first paragraph] met the goal of a first line which is ==> to hook the reader's attention.

Here are some tips on writing a first line

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/tips-for-writing-the-opening-line-of-your-novel

Week #44 –   The Stand by Stephen King

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stand

First published:  October 3, 1978

Here's what the story is about: Stephen King's longest novel at close to 500,000 words. A post-apocalyptic story. The Department of Defense develops an extremely contagious and lethal strain of influenza, resistant to medications and vaccines, as a biological weapon. It is accidentally released, killing most of the world's population. The book follows people struggling to survive and reestablish a society. 

First line/paragraph:

“Sally.”
A mutter.
“Wake up now, Sally”
A louder mutter: leeme lone.
He shook her harder.
“Wake up. You got to wake up!”
Charlie.
Charlie’s voice. Calling her. For how long?
Sally swam up out of sleep.
First she glanced at the clock on the night table and saw it was quarter past two in the morning. Charlie shouldn’t even be here; he should be on shift. Then she got her first good look at him and something leaped up inside her, some deadly intuition.

This story starts in what appears to be the third person POV of Charlie but then looks like the third person POV of Sally. The story starts in media res, with Sally shaken awake by Charlie. We learn it's 2:15am, Charlie should be at work, he's telling her she HAS to wake up, and something about the way he looks makes her deathly afraid. At this point we don't know if either one of these characters is the protagonist, but we know they are in the middle of something scary. Well, it's Stephen King so that last observation is obvious. I'm NOT a fan of Stephen King [I'm a wimp] so I might be enticed to read the first chapter but probably not more than that. However, if I was a fan of horror stories and/or Stephen King, I'd definitely want to read more. This is a great opening page.

Does this first line/paragraph hook your attention? If you had never heard of this story, would you buy this book in 2024? Knowing the story, would you change the first line? Tell us in the comments!