Desiree Villena, a writer with Reedsy, has given us an insightful post on how to craft arresting first lines for your first page. Enjoy.
We’ve all been warned not to make judgments based on book covers, but what about first lines? The opening line of a novel bears a lot of responsibility. When someone picks up your book, those first words extend an invitation: “Come in. Keep reading. Listen to my story.” The reader will then decide whether to put the book down or let themselves be swept along.
Writing something that’s going to hook readers in such a short window is a daunting task. But if you want to know how to craft an irresistible first line, look no further! These five tips should help you pull off an invitation that nobody can turn down.
1. Set the right mood
The first line of your novel should orient your readers in your world as quickly as possible. This doesn’t mean detailing exactly where and when the story is set, nor does it mean rattling off a history of events prior to the opening scene. Instead, it’s about opening with something pithy that sets the mood for the rest of your novel.
The key thing is to set readers’ expectations properly. Your fast-paced, action-packed thriller probably shouldn’t open with a quiet scene in a coffee shop where your brawny hero sits down to write in his journal and watch the world go by while sipping a matcha latte. Likewise, if you’re writing a memoir about a year spent overcoming terrible grief, starting your novel with a thrilling shoot-out might not be the best idea.
Some of my favorite tone-setting first lines come from bestselling author Leigh Bardugo. She’s best-known for her Grishaverse series (currently being adapted on Netflix as Shadow and Bone), but in my opinion, the best first line she’s written appears in her low fantasy novel Ninth House: “By the time Alex managed to get the blood out of her good wool coat, it was too warm to wear it.” This elegant line, brimming sinister implications, immediately sets the reader on edge, letting them know this is going to be a dark, twisty story with no small amount of violence.
Of course, you probably don’t know exactly where your story will go when you first start writing — which is why lots of authors revisit Page One later, during the self-editing process — but like a painter reaching for their first color, you should know what mood to brush that first page with. This is something to keep in mind as we look at a few different ways to start a novel.
2. Pique the reader’s interest
Let’s take a look at another one of the most salient rules for opening lines: appeal to the reader’s curiosity. Wanting, or better yet, needing an answer has an almost magnetic effect on readers — it keeps them turning the pages, because that’s the only way they’ll find what they’re looking for.
Obviously, to create this effect, you’ll need to pose a question. It doesn’t have to be a literal question (though it can be!), just something that switches on the reader’s curiosity by making them puzzle about something: Who is this person? What are they doing? Where is this going? Who else is involved? (Around FtQ we call these story questions. R)
This is actually easier than it sounds. Take the first line of The Hobbit. “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit,” is how Tolkien starts his story. It’s incredibly simple, but intriguing — especially when you picture Elijah Wood in that hole with his pointy ears and huge hairy feet.
You can always be more dramatic as well. In The Secret History (a book that I think should be included on many more lists of best books of all time), Donna Tartt begins: “The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.” Not only does she immediately establish the blackly comic tone of her “whydunnit” murder mystery, but she also makes the reader ask questions about setting, character, and plot. Genius.
3. Start with the unexpected
A surefire way to ignite your reader’s curiosity — as we saw with The Hobbit example — is to say something in your first line that’s never been said before. A brief line with a bit of shock factor makes for a book that’s hard to put down.
One extremely famous example of this can be found in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four: “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” Now, I know that introducing a slightly off-the-wall concept may seem best suited to the realm of science fiction, but you can still aim to include something unusual in your first line, whatever genre you’re writing — so long as it’s consistent with your general theme and mood.
Another iconic first line is the opening of I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith: “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.” There’s nothing inherently outrageous or otherworldly about that, but the reader instantly knows there’s something going on with the heroine of this book — and they definitely want to know more.
4. Launch into action
Stories that open in media res (in the middle of the action) are particularly effective at grabbing readers’ attention because they immediately establish stakes and tension. This is a great way to start a novel, but this tip is perhaps even more helpful when writing a short story, where you don’t have much space for setup.
Let’s look at the first line of Franz Kafka’s most famous short story, The Metamorphosis: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” If you didn’t know the synopsis, you do now, because it’s right there in the opening line. And like any good synopsis, this first line skips all the setup and tells you what you want to know: the situation and the stakes.
That said, starting with a bang doesn’t mean your opening line itself needs to be quite so explosive. Your grabby first page doesn’t have to describe the plane crashing on the island; it could be a character picking through the rubble. It doesn’t have to be a burning building; it could be smoldering ashes floating in the breeze.
It could even be dialogue. Alice Walker starts The Color Purple with words spoken by an abusive father to his daughter, creating some of the most sinister and haunting first lines in fiction: “You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy.”
5. Draw readers into your world
Fireworks and incendiary statements aren’t the only ways to convince someone to read on. You can just as easily intoxicate your audience by taking great care with your language, tone, and pacing as you introduce your story.
From the get-go, readers want to know that the author has a deep understanding of everything they’re writing about. If you can convey mastery via the texture of your novel — the time, place, tone, and language — your reader will relax into your story and take your hand for the ride. But if the writing feels absent and vague, they’ll lose interest; so if you opt for a more contemplative and slow-paced opening, just be sure it still signals you know what you’re doing.
One golden tip when it comes to descriptive openings is to avoid excessive exposition, a.k.a. The Infodump. Instead, choose one defined setting, character, or moment, then draw readers into your world by focusing on the senses — sight, sound, taste, touch, smell — so the scene is almost tangible. Ernest Hemingway always did a beautiful job of this, especially in the opening lines to A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls, the latter of which begins like this:
“He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees. The mountainside sloped gently where he lay; but below it was steep and he could see the dark of the oiled road winding through the pass. There was a stream alongside the road and far down the pass he saw a mill beside the stream and the falling water of the dam, white in the summer sunlight.”
In classic Hemingway fashion, nothing about this opening passage could be called excessive, yet it paints a vivid picture all the same: the ground carpeted in pine needles, the faraway dark road, the bright foamy water. Clearly, this kind of writing can make for a first line (or first lines) that are just as effective as an unexpected statement, a question, or a catastrophe, so long as it immerses readers in the world of the story.
I know that becoming a master of creative writing is easier said than done. But truth be told, there’s no hard-and-fast rule for what works when it comes to starting a story. It’s all about hooking readers with your originality — and hopefully these tips will help you do just that!
Desiree Villena is a writer with Reedsy, a marketplace that connects authors and publishers with the world's best editors, designers, and marketers. Over 2,500 books have been produced via Reedsy since 2015.
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