Week 11 Harkins

Chapter 8

In this chapter of How to Write a Sentence, Mr. Fish explains the importance of first sentences in any work. Fist sentences are totally unlimited and yet foreshadow everything that will follow it. Mr. Fish states that this hinting, or “an angle of lean” as he calls it, is what propels the reader forward into the rest of the work. “Even the simplest first sentence is on its toes, beckoning us to the next sentence and the next and the next, promising us insights, complication, crises, and, sometimes, resolutions” (100). Any first sentence, no matter what genre or style, will promise these things.

Chapter 9

Mr. Fish says that where the first sentence foreshadows, the last sentence brings closure. “Last sentences can sum up, refuse to sum up, change the subject, leave you satisfied, leave you wanting more, put everything into perspective, or explode perspectives,” (119). Though the last sentence brings everything to an end, it need not always be summary. Also, the last sentence is more constrained than the first sentence because it must follow everything that has happened. However, that need not mean that it is any less interesting, or important, than the first sentence.