Will this parody of an opening line work for my meta isekai?

[Deleted member 93348]

I realized a lot of popular novels across the world (How To Train Your Dragon, Overlord, Twilight, etc.) begin with an opening line of the MC. Others have told me I don't need to do this if I'm writing a fantasy, but since I wanted to set an obvious tone from the get go, I stole and tweaked the first line of A Christmas Carol without an ounce of shame. If my novel's gonna be a meta isekai, it might as well go ham with the references and absurdist humor.

Here's my opening line. Please let me know if it works:

Spoiler

Hokori was dead: to begin with. There was no doubt whatever about that. But there was no clergyman, clerk, undertaker, or chief mourner to sign the register of his burial, nor was there anything to sign in the first place. He was still six feet under, alright—six feet under a heap of boredom. Sheer, utter, sincere boredom. So for now, this story must take a quick detour into something else entirely.

After this opening line, the story briefly talks about the world, its setting, and the hometown of my MC. But then, a scary monster comes out of nowhere and terrorizes the villagers, and he saves the day (cliché, I know). These events happen in about 14 short paragraphs.

 

[Fox-Trot-9]

I've read Dickens' Christmas Carrol, and the tone and style of his 3rd-person narration is really cool for a meta-isekai, so I think it actually fits. You've just gotta maintain that for the whole story. And man, that can get a bit tiring, creatively. It's like, you've gotta enter this headspace to keep up the narrative voice of your story, but if you can maintain it, I think it's golden.

 

[Deleted member 54065]

I realized a lot of popular novels across the world (How To Train Your Dragon, Overlord, Twilight, etc.) begin with an opening line of the MC. Others have told me I don't need to do this if I'm writing a fantasy, but since I wanted to set an obvious tone from the get go, I stole and tweaked the first line of A Christmas Carol without an ounce of shame. If my novel's gonna be a meta isekai, it might as well go ham with the references and absurdist humor.

Here's my opening line. Please let me know if it works:

Spoiler

Hokori was dead: to begin with. There was no doubt whatever about that. But there was no clergyman, clerk, undertaker, or chief mourner to sign the register of his burial, nor was there anything to sign in the first place. He was still six feet under, alright—six feet under a heap of boredom. Sheer, utter, sincere boredom. So for now, this story must take a quick detour into something else entirely.

After this opening line, the story briefly talks about the world, its setting, and the hometown of my MC. But then, a scary monster comes out of nowhere and terrorizes the villagers, and he saves the day (cliché, I know). These events happen in about 14 short paragraphs.

Well, there are readers who prefer their story without the 4th wall break, simply because it removes the 'immersion' on the work. I don't know why, but it's comedy ffs; why do they take it seriously?

While personally, I think your narration is good--even treats the reader as a 'friend' (tone, 4th wall stuff), do take note that the line, "this story must take a quick detour" seemed a 4th wall break.

(Also, 'Hokori was dead, to begin with.')

Aside from those, I think the opening is fine.

 

[StainedGlassThreads]

The colon in the first sentence strikes me as completely unnecessary, either replace with a comma or remove altogether, but otherwise, a good first sentence.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

Your title is a promise.
Your first sentence is what sells the first paragraph.
The first paragraph sells a question. The question can only be answered by reading the book.

KEEP YOUR PROMISE AND ANSWER THE QUESTION.

 

[Deleted member 93348]

The colon in the first sentence strikes me as completely unnecessary, either replace with a comma or remove altogether, but otherwise, a good first sentence.

It's a deliberate reference to how Charles Dickens used a colon on the “Marley was dead” sentence rather than a comma.