Whether you’re trying to hook a reader or entice an agent/publisher, your first line makes or breaks your piece. This vital line or opening paragraph/page is the sole reason why anyone continues to read or puts your story down. Here are some tips and examples of what makes a strong opening.
Don’t
Here are a couple of turn-offs we’ve discovered during the submission process. There’s always an exception to the rule, but if you intend to break the rule, make sure your submission brings a unique spin.
- Don’t open with the main character waking up or going to bed. Place readers into the action or a moment of significance! (Unless there’s a naked man hanging from the ceiling. LOL)
- Don’t start with a sunset or sunrise scene description. This is a cliche. Make it clear. It’s either night or day, not in transition. Readers just started the story. Don’t lose them to generic scene descriptions.
- Don’t open with dialogue unless you establish at least two of the following: the setting, a character, conflict, or goal/motivation. Without context, you aren’t giving the reader a reason to care about the main character.
- Don’t show the reader–The End of the World–before the story even gets started. This robs readers of a sense of setting and characters; give them a chance to care about the world before you end it.
- Don’t tell… SHOW READERS. Make the scene unfold and engage the reader, enticing them to lean into your story (like a good action flick).
- Don’t be mysterious or vague! Specificity and sensory details are great tools to introduce the reader to your setting and characters.
- Don’t wait to establish character names. Readers must know who these characters are ASAP.
- Don’t give lengthy setting descriptions–and derail the story’s opening–until after you hook the reader. No one picks up a romance novel expecting to read a page or more of cafe descriptions.
- Don’t begin with something ending (like a break-up, career upset, catastrophic life event, etc.) unless the genre specifically calls for it. This trope works in a romance but not in thrillers.
- Don’t disregard genre expectations. Certain audiences want specific tropes in their stories (especially in romance and erotica). Yes, it’s been done a million times–they know that and love it.
Do
It’s not all bad news. Here are some pointers on how to make your opening line stand out. Readers want to be invested in your story and characters immediately. Take the time to explain things. Remember, even when it feels obvious, readers don’t live in your head; they won’t interpret your words the same way. If you can, get beta readers to review/critique your first lines and/or pages.
- Start with ACTION! Place readers in the moment, whether it’s essential to the plot or not. Make them feel like they’ve just been shoved onto a train. They don’t know where it’s heading, but they’re excited to find out! Make them say, Wait! What?
- Rely on universally-experienced motivations, conflicts, or goals. Readers understand the fears of starting a new job or the hesitation to knock on their crush’s front door. The motivation/conflict/goal doesn’t have to be grand. Just give enough for the reader to immediately identify with the main character or action.
- Decide on a point of view and stick with it! Often, new writers start with one POV, then randomly shift to another. This will confuse the reader (and shows you need more editing!).
- Give readers a strong sense of your character(s). They are the vehicles your readers travel within. The readers will want to know if your character is the right fit for them as soon as possible.
- Use your setting to establish your story’s overall genre/tone. Characters can also handle this, but don’t rule out the usefulness of a properly described setting.
- Remember: sometimes, less is more. Of course you love your words–every single one of them–but sometimes, it’s better to release them.
- Establish at least two of these in your first paragraph: goal, motivation, or/and conflict.
- Stick to one tense! Stories that constantly shift from present to past confuse readers (and suggest you need closer editing). Remember, certain genres have specific tense expectations.
- Beware of the order in which you deliver details to the reader. The information shared in dialogue is very different from how it’s written for readers. Pull the reader smoothly into your world (like a camera lens zooming in/out of a scene) instead of jolting the camera around.
- Support your title, genre, and blurb with your opening lines.
Our Favorite Book Openings
Here are a few famous book openings we love at 4 Horsemen Publications. Revisiting your favorite reads is a great way to compare and contrast strong first pages.
- It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife… – Pride and Prejudice
- It was a nice day. All the days had been nice. There had been rather more than seven of them so far, and rain hadn’t been invented yet. – Good Omens
- When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton. – The Fellowship of the Ring
- The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul-erosion produced by high gambling—a compost of greed and fear and nervous tension—becomes unbearable and the senses awake and revolt from it. – Casino Royale
- When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home. – The Outsiders
- I would have lived in peace. But my enemies brought me war. – Red Rising
- Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler’s pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die. – Fight Club
- Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest. – Ready Player One
- Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. – One Hundred Years of Solitude
- There are some men who enter a woman’s life and screw it up forever. Joseph Morelli did this to me—not forever, but periodically. – One for the Money
- “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast. – Charlotte’s Web
- I’m pretty much fucked. That’s my considered opinion. Fucked. – The Martian
- The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. – The Last Unicorn
- Like a baby harp seal, I’m all white. My forearms are thickly bandaged, heavy as clubs. My thighs are wrapped tightly, too; white gauze peeks out from the shorts Nurse Ava pulled from the lost and found box behind the nurses’ station. – Girl in Pieces
- Your father picks you up from prison in a stolen Dodge Neon, with an 8-ball of coke in the glove compartment and a hooker named Mandy in the back seat. – Until Gwen
- The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. – The Gunslinger
- The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it, no paper notices on downtown posts and billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. – The Night Circus
- A girl is running for her life. The summer air burns at her back, but there are no torches, no angry mobs, only the distant lanterns of the wedding party, the reddish glow of the sun as it breaks against the horizon, cracks and spills across the hills, and the girl runs, skirts tangling in the grass as she surges toward the woods, trying to beat the dying light. – The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
- We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
- This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it. – The Princess Bride
Practice Makes Perfect!
Take time to write strong opening lines. This exercise is a great way to create a story prompt for later! Try different ways to start: use the same scene but in different ways (changing POV, genre, or starting point). Or mimic your favorite opening paragraph and see how it shifts your story’s first line.
Here are some flash fiction samples from writer Bre Brixus (Thank you for letting us hijack these!). These are strong examples of opening lines/paragraphs:
- It wasn’t until Lela’s third portrait that she realized the drawings were coming to life.
- As a mortician, I’ve heard a lifetime of jokes about being the best person to hide a body. I never imagined I’d be shoving a corpse into a dumb waiter.
- Jake fell from the 34th floor scaffold, delighted at the thought of making the ten o’clock news. But when he never hit the sidewalk, he feared making headlines for a very different reason.
- Jasmine, more a lover than a fighter, declared her arcane duel weapon–a tube of lipstick. When she kissed her rival, the enchantment was sealed: anyone she kissed fell obsessively in love with her.
- It wasn’t until my thirteenth life that I started to remember my previous incarnations.
- Trevor wasn’t her first love or her last, but throughout all of her centuries, he was the only man who always found her.
- When the fate of six friends hinges on a slip of paper in your pocket, you know you’ve made some shitty decisions.
