Great Leads From All Kinds of Writing : A Giant Ongoing Lead Board

[Barry Lane]

Here is an idea from my book Reviser's Toolbox that we can do together. Lets create a massive collection of the best leads from literature, non-fiction and fiction, picture books etc. and fill this forum with them. Writers can draw inspiration and teachers can cut and paste into a Word file to share with their students.

What is a lead? A lead is the opening of a piece of writing. It can be a sentence or a paragraph or even a page or two. It is the door that opens the piece or as John Mcphee says, the magic flashlight that shines down through a piece of writing. Leads make the reader want to read and the writer want to write.

Just post one lead per entry.

[Barry Lane]

WOW! What s strong lead!

Valdosta said:

My all-time favorite lead comes from a former second grade student of mine:

"Cannonball Carson was the only flying gecko in the world. He just didn't know it yet."

--Jacob

[Jason Lilly]

Here's one from the realm of young adult literature:

"My name is India Opal Buloni, and last summer my daddy, the preacher, sent me to the store for a box of macaroni-and-cheese, some white rice, and two tomatoes and I came back with a dog."
-- Kate DiCamillo, Because of Winn-Dixie

I love that book so much. If you've read it, you already know that Opal is one of the most unique and admirable protagonists in literature. The book is also an excellent tool for teaching voice.

[Valdosta]

I love that book, too! Thanks, Jason, for giving it space (and don't you love the mouse scene for voice!)!

[Jason Lilly]

This one is from a book written by a friend of mine, Belinda Anderson. It is from a collection of short stories titled The Bingo Cheaters.

"First I heard the roar of a bulldozer. Then I felt the whack of a shovel against my casket." -- Belinda Anderson, "Twilight Dawn"

If you're interested, more info on the book is available at http://www.belindaanderson.com/bingo-cheaters.html

[Christy Sowell]

"In fairy-tales, witches always wear silly black hats and black cloaks, and they ride on broomsticks. But this is not a fairy-tale."

Roald Dahl, The Witches

[Gayle Greenwald]

Where's Pa going with that axe? Charlotte's Web

[Sue]

"When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner's pick, a woodcarver's gouge, a surgeon's probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow." The Writing LIfe by Annie Dillard

[Ken C]

"Things had been getting a little better until I got a letter from my dead sister."

-- from the YA book, Dead Girls Don't Write Letters by Gail Giles.

[Jason Lilly]

"All this happened, more or less." Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

[Jason Lilly]

"It was love at first sight." Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

[Ken C]

"All happy teachers are alike; each unhappy teacher is unhappy in her own way."

-- Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, Professoranna Karenina

[Manuel Garces Jr.]

"Alternative" by Dr. Rene Saldana Jr.

"For this to work, you've got to back off, give me a little bit of storytelling room, especially when you start thinking what I'm telling you isn't making so much sense, like a story should you'd read in a book. It won't be at all exciting and action-packed like The Count of Monte Cristo ; or scary like Edgar Allen Poe' stories (I'm thinking about the one where there's the heart beating somewhere under the guy's house and he can't figure out where from); or about love and death like in Romeo and Juliet , not even like in the movie with that skinny punk DiCaprio, who all the girls at school fall totally in love with.

Because this is what Mr. Ramirez, my all-day teacher at the Alternative Center, calls autobiography, or personal narrative. En otras palabras, it's got to be true what I tell about myself. Mr. Ramirez says we all got a story. "And if you look hard enough," he says, "you'll see you have many more to tell."

I've got nothing but time here in the Center, where I was sent about a month ago. So I'll give it a try."