FIRST AND LAST LINES IN NOVELS
The most important line in the story is the last line, but the reader will never get there unless you have a first line that will make them keep reading. Here are some favorite first and last lines from famous classics:
Openings
QUOTE LIKE: You can clearly see it as a quote that stands on its own.
- “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” –Leo Tolstoy in Anna Karenina
- From this first line, you know that the author is going to talk about an unhappy family.
- “When we are confronted by the unknown, the known –however disagreeable– attains new value in our eyes.” –Edna Lee in A Web of Days
Here seems like the protagonist comes to new appreciation of the known by confronting the unknown, which perhaps might not be that pleasant.
In Defense of Fantasy Literature
“When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking”
Albert Einstein
I don’t know what people have against imagination and consequently, against fantasy literature, but without this ability with which God has endowed mankind, we would still live in caves and battle with bats. In order for us to create something new that will help us to move a step ahead in the improvement of our lives, we must first imagine it. That is, to think it up and add a picture to it. The best example is God Himself, who created the universe from nothing. He didn’t copy it from some pre-existing reality but was first born in His thought, that is, His imagination. What process He used isn’t that important. What’s important is that He created a universe into which He included all the science we know and that which we still don’t know. In essence, mankind simply discovers from an already existing material. Only God creates from nothing. Even so, mankind, in order to discover anything, will have first to imagine it. Scientific theories have been propounded long before someone was able to prove them. That is why Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” It’s impossible to invent something if you don’t have first a picture for it in your mind. I find, therefore, that the contempt and marginalization of fantasy has no logical basis at all, no excuse aside from ignorance.
THE COLOR OF BEING
Do you ever dream? They say that dreams are usually black and white. I was astounded the first time I read this, because my dreams have always had color, and I remember dreams even from my childhood years. But I don’t remember to have ever dreamt in black and white. Things like that make me wonder sometimes if I don’t live in a different parallel. That would also explain why I am so often invisible to people.
Something happened to me years ago, which made me notice my own invisibility and could have badly offended me, if it wasn’t so funny. I was in a café with a friend, when a common acquaintance walked in and coming straight to our table, she started talking to my companion. After a while, she suddenly seemed to take notice of me and said, “Elena! Were you here all the time? I didn’t see you!” I laughed and said, “I am transparent,” and at times I have wondered if it isn’t true.
I started to wonder what was it that made me invisible to people sometimes. I think the best answer I could give is the comment someone made while I was visiting at their home. He said, “She has a very discreet presence.” Which means, I don’t make noise –and I don’t find the reason to do so.
On the other hand, I have very much been noticed as a female, especially in my younger years, which was very much annoying because I knew that these very people, did not see the person in me. And you can imagine that in the rare occasions when someone noticed the person I was, the real me, I felt extremely happy and valuable. There is nothing more precious than having in our life someone, who can capture the true essence of our being and treasure it. We all deserve that. Actually, everything that is alive deserves that, whether it’s a human being, an animal or a plant.
People, who see us and value us, are like my colored dreams; they make us alive and colorful because in their presence we do exist –the true ‘us’ and not just the vessel that holds it, or their prejudiced image of us.
by Έlενα Τίngα
LIFE: COMEDY OR TRAGEDY?
In very general terms, tragedy starts with happy times and ends in catastrophic events, whereas comedy starts with misfortune and ends in triumph. The point here is whether we write our own story or is it partly written by the meddling of others and by what we call fate, or - if we do write our story- to what extend does this happen?
My grandmother used to say, “What [life] writes does not un-write.” It sounds fatalistic but it shows how traditionally people believed in the predestination of every person’s path. That was until somewhere in the eighties. Then we got a strong infusion of “positive thinking”, and of “you-can-create-your-own-destiny” thing, and the resulting amalgam was the loss of self-esteem and the idolization of anything foreign.
Are we free to “write” our own destiny, or is it pre-written and we can do very little to change it? What are we talking about when we talk about changing, or having the control of our lives? I read sometimes articles written by authors who seem to believe that any person in the world can take control of their lives and change their destiny. And I wonder when I read them whether they had taken into account the poor and destitute of this world. Did they consider the thousands who live in the streets or in paper-box-homes? Did they think of the children who are not likely to grow old enough to go to school because hunger and malnutrition will catch up with them? Did they consider the smart and talented in unprivileged countries? Because if it’s true that we can create our own destiny, it must be true for everybody.