As writers, we obsess over introductions. Introducing our characters, their goals and conflicts, our setting and story world. But one element many writers fail to conquer is one of the most important: the introduction to your work itself, or the very first line.
The first line is what gets you past your editor. The whole of the story has to do its part, but if the first line fails, the rest never gets a chance. Many readers – this one included – read the first line or two of a book by an unknown author before we’ll consider buying it. The rest of your book might be marvelous, but if your first line is clunky or cliched, we’ll never know.
In an advice article on The Writer, Josh Sippie, Director of Contests and Conferences at Gotham Writers Workshop, suggests ways you can make your first line a compelling invitation to your readers. Your best shot is to open with an intriguing statement that raises questions in the reader’s mind. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood opens with the following: “We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.”
Count the questions: Who is “we” and why are they sleeping in a gymnasium? Why does the narrator refer to it as a former gymnasium? Where are they and what circumstances have brought them to this spot, to what “once had been” a gym? A simple sentence, but most readers are going to immediately want to know more. You can also try to introduce tension right off the bat. Can you suggest danger or some kind of tribulation facing your characters? Can you open with conflict? Using your first sentence to put two characters or elements in conflict is tricky – you run the risk of confusing your readers, especially if the nature of the conflict doesn’t raise the stakes high enough.
Sippie has other suggestions and saves one important piece of advice til the end. “You’re never going to please everyone,” he says, correctly. “All you want is for those first few lines to allow for a substantial line of credit being opened up by your reader. If you can do that, you’ve done all you can.”
