Opening lines can determine how many readers you will have. They set the tone for your novel. They draw a reader into the world you’ve created.
“She’s buried beneath a silver birch tree, down towards the old train tracks, her grave marked with a cairn. Not more than a little pile of stones, really. I didn’t want to draw attention to her resting place, but I couldn’t leave her without remembrance.”
Those are the opening lines from The Girl On The Train. They provide questions that must be answered. Who is “she”? Who is the speaker? What happened? This type of opening is used quite often. Sometimes with success, sometimes not.
What elements make a good opening? What makes it work?
1) Don’t give away everything in the first twenty seconds.
Everyone has gotten an envelope stating they have a chance to win money and prizes. Inside are details of how you can be rich beyond your dreams. But, what if the letter began with a sales pitch? How many would go directly to the trash?
Consider the line, “The first time I saw Alice, she was smiling.” This could be a starting point for a romance or a thriller. The mind is set for many possibilities. Perhaps Alice makes everyone around her smile. Perhaps Alice doesn’t smile anymore. Perhaps Alice’s smile was directed at the narrator. Perhaps has Alice died (maybe at the hands of the narrator).
2) Be original. Or, at least, don’t use worn out beginnings.
Waking from a dream has been done many times over. A catalogue of characters (this is my mom, dad, spouse, friend, bully, lover, enemy) can work in YA at times, but not in most contemporary fiction. A lament over a wasted life. A list of problems. Looking in a mirror. Listing flaws. A statement of being force to move away. All of these things might play a part in your story, but don’t begin this way without building intrigue.
As example, if someone has to move, maybe start with something like...
“I touched the door and tried the handle. All I’d known of life and love was locked inside this home. One more time to smell cinnamon and rosemary. One more time to hear my footsteps echo. One last view from my bedroom window. I stepped back, slipped the key into my pocket, and turned from the only world I’d ever known.”
3) Put the reader in the midst of the story from the first lines.
Everybody has experiences. Happy, sad, scary, wonderful, we have all experienced life. The writer simply uses that knowledge and builds a story around it. I like to use Stephen King examples for two reasons, he knows how to capture a reader’s attention and he knows what details should and shouldn’t be included in the openings, sometimes working for months to get the opening line right.
“You’ve been here before.” is the opening of Needful Things. It is presented as a single line on the first page of the book. He presents a world we can relate to then twists and distorts reality in frighteningly believable ways, taking the reader with him.
“The terror that would not end for another 28 years, if it ever did, began so far as I can know or tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.” It sets up the image of the boat and the gutter and the child who set the boat afloat. Then it gets terrifying.
4) Make the reader care. Use good imagery and let the reader anticipate something that is about to happen.
A good example of this is the opening to Charlotte’s Web: “What’s Papa gonna do with that axe?” An opening can involve sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, memory. The reader will care if they can connect.
As always, there are more concepts to present and more things to learn. But nothing good happens until we get out and do the work. So, as always, and whatever else you do, just keep writing.
The Click Here for today is another selection from Brettinger. Things have gone very wrong and the end is near, for better or worse. The police have been called to Lakewood and find the area in Chaos. A group of citizens have been gathered at Millennium Hall for questioning. When they venture out of the conference room, they find that Millennium Hall is deserted, well, almost deserted.