“Take the first sentence from your favorite book and make it the first sentence of your post.“

I’m not really a fan of this post.

The first line in a book usually isn’t that interesting. And it would take much to long for me to sit and figure out which book out of all the ones I have read to use.

Most of the time I read series, so it is the overall storyline that I like, rather than an individual book.

I also don’t see how using the first sentence of a book would benefit the rest of the post, either.

What am I supposed to write about afterwards? How much I liked the book? What the sentence met to me?

It just seems like a waste of a post to me. There’s not direction to it.

“Do something.”

K?… Why?…

In my opinion a single sentence isn’t the key to an awesome story. It’s a single sentence in relation to all of the others that you have read.

Picking just one and presenting it without any of the backstory I feel takes it out of context, and it loses the power it originally had. You don’t have the epic build up to support that defining moment. There’s no connection.

I will say, that my favorite scene in a book occurred in Blood of the Fold by Terry Goodkind.

It’s a book in the Sword of Truth series, where the main character, Richard, finds out he’s a wizard and goes on crazy adventures of bad-assery.

In Blood of the Fold he is still fairly new with his powers, and ends up traveling to a school to learn more about magic.

Through his adventures he ends up befriending a Gar, which is sort of like an evil flying raptor. They’re super vicious, and if you ever meet one it’s pretty much a death sentence.

Richard had encountered a adult Gar, and killed it, only to later discover that it had been a female with an offspring. Richard couldn’t bring himself to kill the baby, and instead took care of it, feeding it and helping it survive.

He ended up naming the Gar Gretch, and they traveled together for a fair amount of time.

Eventually Richard reached his destination. Gretch couldn’t go into the city without people trying to kill him, so Richard had him stay in a nearby forest. One that people believed monsters lived inside of, so no one ventured into it if it could be helped.

Things were going alright at first, but Richard soon had enemies within the school he was going to, and he feared for Gretch. He couldn’t bear the though of losing his companion.

I believe in the story there was a group who was going to go into the forest and search for something. I don’t remember if it was Gretch specifically or something else, but people were going to be going into the forest, and the danger to Gretch was very immediate.

Richard ran from the school, trying to reach the forest first so he could warn Gretch, so he could convince the Gar to leave.

Gretch didn’t understand though. Richard kept trying to push Gretch away, to get him to leave, to get as far away as possible. But Gretch loved Richard, and he didn’t understand how Richard could want him to go away.

Time was running out. The people would be in the forest soon. Richard was at a loss. He didn’t know what to do to save his friend. But he had to do something. He had to save Gretch.

He started screaming, yelling. He started saying hateful things to drive Gretch away.

He yelled, “I don’ t love you! I never loved you!”

And that was when Gretch ‘understood’.

Richard didn’t want him anymore. Richard didn’t care about him anymore.

And so Gretch left, sad and rejected, feeling as if his parent, the being who had raised him, hated him. No longer loved him or cared.

Gretch left, flying away into the night, leaving Richard alone in the forest, fallen to his knees, crying because he didn’t mean it. He hadn’t meant anything he had said. He loved Gretch, so much. And now Gretch wasn’t there, would never be there. He was gone, forever.

Part of Richard was crushed. But he was also happy.

Happy that Gretch was alive. That even if the Gar didn’t really understand, that at least he would live.

That scene moved me so much I literally cried.

Gretch was one of my favorite characters, so much so that I named my first snake after him.

Seeing the whole scenario, the companionship before the scene, the shared moments of friendship and bonding, and then the panic from Richard, his desperation to save his friend, and Gretch’s confusion and hurt. I could feel for both of the characters, and my heart broke with Richard’s as he did the only thing he could to save someone he loved.

There is no way that could have been summed up in one sentence. There is no single sentence through the whole book, which could define one character or the other.

You have to have all of them to appreciate the picture in its entirety.