More strong fiction leads that grabbed me

I am continuing to post leads that I consider very strong. Now, since we are all different, what grabs me may not grab you. But I will try to tell you why they grab me. And you might learn from that.

“A cold wind blew off Hanging Dog Mountain and I had no fire, nor dared I strike so much as a spark that might betray my hiding place. Somewhere near an enemy lurked, waiting.” Louis L’Amour, Jubal Sackett

The word “cold” implies trouble. I don’t like being cold. Something’s wrong. “Hanging Dog mountain.” Could you get more eerie than that? “I had no fire.” I see the image of someone with no fire in a campfire pit, huddled up and maybe shivering. “Nor dared I strike so much as a spark” - Ah, not any person. Someone who is thoughtful, who knows language, who has a poetic turn. And of course, the inevitable questions - why doesn’t the person dare? Why is the person here? What’s wrong? What’s going to happen? Will the person survive? Who else is there lurking in the cold, maybe watching? Ah, “an enemy lurking, waiting.” I can’t possible stop myself from reading on. I want to know who this person is and if he or she is able to survive.

“There were two men in one village, and they had the same name–each was called Claus; but one had four horses, and the other only a single horse.” Hans Christian Anderson, Little Claus and Big Claus

This is from a fairly tale, not a book, but the implied threat in those simple words “the other only a single horse” resonates with me and I want to know what happened, because of course, something did happen. And I want to know who these two men are, and what they do to one another.

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

There is no threat here, but what keeps me going is curiosity. What is a hobbit? What kind of comfort can you have in a hole in the ground? And the writing, with its vivid description of the “nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell” leads me to think there will be more of this sort of hole in the story, too. And more great writing. But most of all I want to know who this creature is that lives in a hole in the ground in comfort.
“I must make it clear from the start that ultimately I did have a choice: but that’s always easy to say in hindsight. Right? You hear about this sort of thing all the time: the ‘I don’t want to get involved” syndrome. To myself, I’d rationalized my behaviour over the years as ‘minding my own business,’ something I’d honed to a razor’s edge.”Rick Blechta, When Hell Freezes Over

I relate to this person who would rather not get involved. But it’s clear that there was a choice, and the person chose to get involved. What happened as a result? Who is this person who wanted to stay uninvolved and had honed “minding my own business…to a razor’s edge”? Will I like this person? Is this person like me?

A challenge for you.

1. Take 20 of your favorite books and read the first 2 or 3 lines and analyze them. What questions do they bring to your mind? What feelings do they bring up in you? Do they arouse your curiosity? Your sense of justice? Your interest in a character or a situation?

2. Write down what you can learn from them. Share some of the best here in the comments section.
3. Then go and read some of your own leads and see how they compare.