In a guest post on Jane Friedman’s blog, John Matthew Fox offers advice for writing your first paragraph. “The first paragraph of a book is quite possibly not only the most important impression a reader will get of your book, it’s also the gateway for you to figure out where to start telling your story,” he says. “And if you can identify the right place to start, you’re far ahead of the curve.”
Fox says there are four critical components of a strong first paragraph:
- Characterization
- Energy/tone
- Mystery
- Emotional bedrock
To make his point, Fox examines the opening paragraphs of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Anne Enright’s The Gathering, and Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep.
