In an article for The Writer, Alison Acheson says there are three elements that create a strong opening sentence. “Your opening sentence is second only to your closing sentence,” she says. “The stakes are high, and it is worth spending time to find the elements that create a story beginning that will cause it to come to life.”
Acheson suggests there are three keys to a great opening line:
- Character. “You need some piece or sense of your main character,” Acheson writes. “If you were standing next to this person, hearing their voice, aware of the sort of space their body inhabits, what would you be experiencing?”
- Setting. Again, you need to provide a suggestion of the place and time of your story.
- Emotion. This one is trickier, but you should try to evoke the overall mood of your story and your main character.
Acheson suggests reading the first sentence of a dozen or more of your favorite novels. Did each of them use the three elements? How did they do it? Were they successful? How did the opening sentence signal the rest of the book?
