O is for Opening.
The opening sentence of your novel has to draw a reader in and keep them interested enough to read the second sentence, then the third, the fourth and so on. There’s a lot of pressure on that one little sentence.
I’ve heard that some people think the first sentence of a piece is the hardest to write because it carries so much weight in the success or failure of hooking a reader’s attention.
The opening sentence is so important there are books written about it. One of my favorites is “Hooked” by Les Edgerton. If you haven’t read it you should check it out. It’s full of good advice and helpful tips.
So, how do you decide when you have the perfect opening sentence? Or opening paragraph (which I think is equally important as that first sentence)?
What is the opening sentence of the project you are working on now? I’m shuffling between two books at the moment. Here are my opening sentences for both:
1. We felt as though we were living in Utopia.
2. That night I dreamt of demons.
Regarding number two, I know some agents and editors say not to start a piece with a dream sequence. But since it isn’t a dream, she’s just telling you what she dreamt, I went with it. Will it work? Who knows?
Share your thoughts on openings with us. What is your WIP’s opening sentence and why/how did you come up with it? Do you find the first sentence to be the hardest to write? I do.
Until “P,”
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Jessica L. Foster
I personally love the second opening sentence. It might have mentioned dreaming, but it caught my attention. I don't usually struggle with an opening sentence. When it comes, it comes.
DL Hammons
Personally, I believe the importance of an opening sentence is over-hyped. I've looked back over a good number of the books I've read…and their opening sentences…MEH for the most part. Just my 2 cents.
Michellepickett
I agree with you to a certain point. It comes down to the individual. Some readers will keep reading for a chapter or two before deciding whether a book grabs them (I'm one). Others won't. It's like cover art. Some readers are drawn in by a cover and others don't even notice it.
Michelle 🙂
Kelly
Hi Michelle – Thanks for stopping by my blog, Sew Alluring! Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with starting with a dream. "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" certainly made me want to keep reading Rebecca!
Michellepickett
Hi Kelly – thanks for the return visit. I don't think there is anything wrong with it either, but agents get prickly about things they like and don't like – which is probably why I haven't found one yet! ha ha
Michelle 🙂
Sara Hill
I'm an aspiring children's book writer and my favorite opening line is from a book titled Each Little Bird that Sings by Deborah Wiles. It's: "I come from a family with a lot of dead people." 🙂
Michellepickett
That is an awesome attention grabber!
Michelle 🙂
carol
I'm not a writer, but I will say when I'm reading opening lines rarely truly strike me. Most just aren't memorable, aren't really a grab on their own.
Michellepickett
That's good for most writers (me included). Most of the meat comes after that first sentence.
Michelle 🙂
Nick Wilford
My opening sentence is OK, I think, but who knows? Here it is: "She had been feeling pretty good about herself that day, until it happened." Hopefully the reader wants to know what happened… but the opening page isn't good after that, it goes into a bit of backstory about her before getting to the event that kickstarts the whole story. So that needs work! Both of yours sound good to me. I want to know more, anyway!
Michellepickett
I like your sentence. What happened? That's what I immediately want to know, so that is good.
Backstory is so hard to deal with, isn't it? I struggle with where and how to work it in without boring the reader to tears.
Thanks, I'm glad you liked mine. Hopefully the rest of the sentences in the novels work…lol!
Michelle 🙂
Carrie-Anne
One of my favoritest opening lines is from The Divine Comedy: "Midway life's journey I became aware/That I had strayed into a dark forest/And the right path appeared not anywhere." I'm also partial to the haunting opening line of Isabella's Leitner's memoir Fragments of Isabella (which was later combined with the sequel, Saving the Fragments, for one volume): "Yesterday, what happened yesterday?"
I got the opening line for my WIP from one of the early lines in the long short story/piece of backstory it originally existed as. (I'm expanding it, several years later, into a full manuscript.) I also got the opening line for one of my other novelettes/collection of stories-turned novel the same way:
Jakob DeJonghe had once a heart full of love and joy for the world, but now he was angry and bitter, and put up an iron wall all around his heart to prevent anyone from reaching him and getting too close to him.
In another lifetime, or another place at least, Amalia von Hinderburg would’ve been starting sixth grade, dreading menarche, developing a bustline, doing the things normal girls her age did.
Michellepickett
Excellent openings. I really liked the second. It is similar to my opening in the novel PODs.
Michelle 🙂
Lucy Adams
Some of the best opening sentences of all time are short, such as "Call me Ishmael," from Moby Dick and "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times," from A Tale of Two Cities.
Lucy
Michellepickett
THose are two of the classics! They instantly pull a reader in.
Thanks for commenting!
Michelle 🙂
Julia Crane
Great post! I'm going to pick up the book you recommended. The first sentence is alway so hard for me.
A-Z
Michellepickett
They are for me, too. They are almost as hard to write as query letters!
Thanks for commenting!
Michelle 🙂