Make it fly

Some people compare the first sentence of any piece of writing to a speaker clearing his throat before his speech gains momentum. Unlike a speaker, whose listeners usually are tethered to their seats by the rules of etiquette, unable to leave even if they desperately wish to do so, a writer does not have a captive audience and the leisure to tune his instrument. The reader expects a stunning overture right away or will turn the page or dump the book.
But how to begin? This question even inspired a competition for the worst first sentence and the worthiest successor of Bulwer-Lyttons infamous "It was a dark and stormy night."
Lawrence Downes would not win the great prize because he artfully entangles the reader from the start. Published a few weeks after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, his first three words, “The Haitian boy,” clearly indicate that “The Kite Makers” will deal with this tragic event. And yet, it is not simply another story about death and damages.

The Haitian boy’s kite starts with thin sticks — woody reeds or straight twigs scraped smooth with a razor blade and cut to equal length, about eight inches. These are lashed in the middle to make stars of six or eight points, sometimes more. Thin plastic, ideally the wispy kind from dry-cleaning bags, is stretched over the frame and secured with thread. Rag strips are knotted for the tail, then tied with thread to two of the star’s lower points: a Y with a long, long stem. More thread is tied to the kite’s taut chest, the rest spooled on a can or bottle.

By now, I have almost forgotten the Haitian tragedy and rather think about getting up and building a kite myself or simply remember having made one many, many years ago. The writer has ensnared me, and I cannot but continue reading.

The kites are beautiful: some have layers of black and clear plastic forming diamonds and stars. Some have decorative edges, the plastic razor-sliced into piñata fringe. But they work, catching the breeze and jack-rabbiting into the smoky air. Small kites are notoriously hard to fly, but these are perfectly engineered. A boy I met in a camp down the block from the ruins of the Catholic cathedral in Port-au-Prince pointed to the sky. Blinking into the sun, I took forever to find his kite: a darting black dot far above the shattered steeples.

I can see this image, start daydreaming - and right then, the true issue hits me – almost like a benign earthquake:

Making do with next to nothing is the way of life in Haiti, though many earthquake survivors now have less than that...

Another writer's story, also about a flying object, gets off to a far less artful start:

During an occasional moment of reverie, whenever I imagined a journey to discover the source of the Frisbee, my mind had most frequently projected images of long, sandy beaches on the coastline of Southern California: maybe dusk in the shadow of Santa Monica Pier or hanging with some flaxen-haired beach bums in a secret surfing rendezvous, larking about with Frisbees while waiting for the next big wave. Sun-dappled pleasure was the overriding mood, lazy summer afternoons launching Frisbees across park lawns a dominant memory.
So, as the Metro-North train out of Grand Central Station trundled under a lowering sky and past the fading industrial glories and dilapidating warehouses of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and a keen wind from Long Island Sound whipped in a boringly persistent drizzle … (Philipp Dodd, What's in a Name?)

...and so on. Even without the weird grammatical and mental aberrations of a mind that "had most frequently projected [see my post on past tense] images of flaxen-haired beach bums," this introduction lacks the authenticity, even intimacy of "The Kite Makers" and seems contrived and forced. The Frisbee just wobbles before it hits the ground, flat as a cow patty, while the kite really took off.