Quiz: Can You Match the Opening Line to the Horror Novel?

A memorable opening line can make all the difference between a reader devouring a book faster than Dracula drains a victim—or throwing it in the cemetery of discarded books. Horror master Stephen King knows it; in fact, he did an entire interview with The Atlantic in 2013 about nothing but opening sentences. “A really bad first line can convince me not to buy a book—because, god, I’ve got plenty of books already—and an unappealing style in the first moments is reason enough to scurry off,” he said.

As for what makes a good opening line, “there are all sorts of theories and ideas,” King said. “It's tricky thing, and tough to talk about because I don’t think conceptually while I work on a first draft—I just write. To get scientific about it is a little like trying to catch moonbeams in a jar. But there's one thing I'm sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.”

See how well you can match the opening line to the horror novel it came from in the quiz below—and yes, there’s at least one King novel in there.

Add Mental Floss as a preferred news source!

As for the opening line King chose as his best? At that point, it was from his 1991 novel Needful Things. “The story starts off with an opening line, printed by itself on a page in 20-point type: ‘You’ve been here before,’ ” he explained. “All there by itself on one page, inviting the reader to keep reading. It suggests a familiar story; at the same time, the unusual presentation brings us outside the realm of the ordinary. And this, in a way, is a promise of the book that's going to come. ... I don’t have a lot of books where that opening line is poetry or beautiful. Sometimes it’s perfectly workman-like. You try to find something that's going to offer that crucial way in, any way in, whatever it is as long as it works.”

Take Our Latest Quizzes: