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.

1. 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)
2. 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. 
3. 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.
4. 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. 
5. 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).
6. Don’t be mysterious or vague! Specificity and sensory details are great tools to introduce the reader to your setting and characters.
7. Don’t wait to establish character names. Readers must know who these characters are ASAP.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.

1. 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?
2. 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.
3. 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!).
4. 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.
5. 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. 
6. Remember: sometimes, less is more. Of course you love your words–every single one of them–but sometimes, it’s better to release them. 
7. Establish at least two of these in your first paragraph: goal, motivation, or/and conflict.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.

1. 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
2. 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 
3. 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
4. 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
5. 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
6. I would have lived in peace. But my enemies brought me war. – Red Rising
7. 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
8. Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest. – Ready Player One
9. 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 
10. 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
11. “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast. – Charlotte’s Web
12. I’m pretty much fucked. That’s my considered opinion. Fucked. – The Martian
13. The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. – The Last Unicorn
14. 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
15. 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 
16. The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. – The Gunslinger
17. 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
18. 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
19. We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
20. 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:

1. It wasn’t until Lela’s third portrait that she realized the drawings were coming to life.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. It wasn’t until my thirteenth life that I started to remember my previous incarnations.
6. Trevor wasn’t her first love or her last, but throughout all of her centuries, he was the only man who always found her.
7. When the fate of six friends hinges on a slip of paper in your pocket, you know you’ve made some shitty decisions.

Whether you are new to the realm of publishing, writing your first book, or even launching under a pen name, the one element we often pain over is writing that Author Bio. No worries, 4HP has your back! Here are some things you should keep in mind to make this easier to write and maintain. Anytime you are asked for your bio, take a moment to look it over and freshen it up. It’s by far one of the most important introductory tools between an author and their readership. It’s okay to dive into your favorite authors and look at their bios and pick apart what connects with you and doesn’t work for you as a reader. So, let’s talk about making your own author bio with some simple questions and what they should be doing for you and your readers.

How Long Should A Bio Be?

There’s some art and marketing sense that needs to go into it. Every author should be keeping a GDOC or Document on their system with their bio written in three formats. The idea is to be concise and limit fluff while maximizing keywords. Here are three types of bios I’ve been asked for and recommend having ready:

• Long bio (300-350 words)
• Regular or Short bio (100-150 words)
• Snippet (50 words)

Having these prepared beforehand will make your life easier when you need to update them and meet all the social media, conference, and blogging needs. The most common one used is your regular or short bio of about 100-150 words.

What goes into a Bio?

You are trying to do a lot of things with a bio with a very small word count. The 100-150 bio is the backbone commonly used for book blurbs, about the author sections within your books, and serves as a foundation for the long bio and snippet. Here are SEVEN simple questions to amp up your bio and ability to increase marketing and searchability :

1. Who are you and where do you come from?
   • This is your pen name and where doesn’t mean you have to say Florida. Feel free to make something up, or if you’re a memoir or non-fiction writer, you can say, “I come from a long background in game development” or “A skin cancer survivor” as an instant way for someone to connect with you.
2. What genre do you write?
   • It may seem silly to announce this, but you do! You want the reader to have a clear expectation of what kind of stories to associate with your brand name. Often, authors have several pen names to differentiate between genres and readerships. Loyal readers are less likely to dive into a book in a disliked genre, and clarity can prevent confusion in your brand/genre, limiting unnecessary bad reviews. Declaring genre optimizes your ability to include keywords for SEO or Search Engines. Keywords will connect your brand with books and authors of a similar readership.
3. Why do you write this genre &/or what are some favorite books that inspire your writing?
   • Again, this is a great opportunity to connect with the right readership. Let’s be honest, we all geek out when an author has similar taste in books!
4. What is something a little personal or a hobby you enjoy doing?
   • It doesn’t have to be unique. There’s nothing wrong with saying you enjoy playing video games or binge-watching Supernatural on Netflix. It’s a chance to share a little of yourself without getting too personal.
5. Is there anything you want readers to know about you or your books, or something you hope they gain from reading your work?
   • Often this element is missing from Author Bios. Here’s your opportunity to make yourself and your books unique. You can let readers know how you craft your writing, what kind of research you do, or using Question 3 and 4, WHY those books and WHY that hobby.
6. Are you active in your local writing community, or have you won awards?
   • I call this the closer. Most authors tend to place this first in the bio, but I find it has a better hit on the back end. If the readers have gotten this far in your bio, now you’re about to close the deal with them liking you or having more confidence and faith in what they’ve read about you so far. For example, I mention I am “an award-winning fantasy author” to answer question 1, and by question 5, I have supported this with what I read, what I enjoy doing, and the fact I pack mythology and fantasy in my books. Now, with question 6, BAM! I won bronze in Mythology fiction in 2008 for my debut book. That says a lot! And it supports who you are and how well you do it. Other ways to close is to share community involvement, show that you’re passionate, whether you volunteer at the animal shelter or library, or even participate in NaNoWriMo for the last two/ten/last year, or host workshops online. This all adds agency to you as both a person and a writer.
7. Where can we find you?
   • This is more of a MUST HAVE for any author that wants to grow on social media, expand newsletters, and give readers better access to them. Here is where you list all the ways a reader can get in touch or keep up to date with you and your books. Some authors simply have a website link here ( www.willisauthor.com ) which in turn, has all the links and access to all the other social media and newsletter stuffs. It’s completely up to you whether to provide them with a link to your Amazon Author page, list all the social media, sign up newsletter link, or even just a Facebook page/group link. No matter what, your bio should be driving traffic and interaction by the end of it after convincing them how amazing you are!

Now Where Do I Put My Bio?

There’s a lot of places where you will find the bio helpful in your journey as an author. If you’re not sure where this crazy thing goes, here’s some ideas and commons uses to keep in mind as you craft your bio and fine-tune it to bestsell you and your writing:

• Author Bio Page on Website
• Description/Bio on Social Media Pages
• Amazon Author Page
• Back of every book you write as your Author Bio or About the Author Bio
• Back Cover of your book (More common for Non-Fiction and Memoir)
• Conferences and Conventions when they ask
• Book Blog Tours
• Author Interviews (Though I recommend shifting them to be more personal for each place that interviews you. For example, if this is with a paranormal website or magazine, you may want to add more paranormal related flair to the bio.)
• Press Kit or Media Kit (and include all three versions for optimal results)
• Email Signature (Seems weird, but this works well with snippet bio!)
• Introducing yourself online anywhere! (Forums, Social media takeovers, and more!)

Did You Write Your Author Bio? Share it in the comments below!

Slightly damaged books happen sometimes. I love CreateSpace because the few times this has happened, they’ve overnighted a replacement! Another thing is that when we setup and breakdown for events, or leave our stock in the trunk of our cars, or kids… kids… well, books get dented, corners and spines fray, but they’re still good!

What now?

1 A giveaway! Author Harper Sloan is a great example of taking advantage and turning this into a promotional tool. Everyone loves contests and freebies, so use those dents and dings as a way to bring attention and excitement. Link to Giveaway: https://www.facebook.com/harpersloanbooks/posts/995123670649486 

2 Donate your book! Give your book to a library, donate it to a school, or leave it on the community shelf at a coffee shop. Don’t forget to slide in some signed bookmarks. I love to leave a copy of my book in these places and often sign the book, date it, and write the location. You never know when it will come back into your life again!

3 Discount special! This works great if it happened while setting up your table or on the ride there. DISCOUNT. Sell these limited few damaged copies for a steal, driving people to grab them up and most likely another book along with it.

4 Special Gift or Limited Time Offer – Don’t be afraid to even pull a “First 5 buyers get a copy of SAIDBOOK: dents are free” or even “Buy 2 books and get a copy of SAIDBOOK–only 5 in stock!” Always try to use these to your advantage. Make them a marketing tool to bring in readers.

5 ARC or Review copies – I don’t know if it’s me, but most of the giveaway books arrive dented despite how I package them. With that in mind, use these expendable copies to send to book reviewers who prefer paperbacks. Don’t forget to sign the book and say thank you for their time to review inside! If all else fails, book art is trendy and makes a great eye-catching centerpiece for your convention table!