Standing naked in the shimmering light, he watched as she entered the room, reached out with her delicate hands, and gave him a great big, juicy dolly mixture. Now that I have your attention, I’ll begin.
Ask any writer worth their salt and they’ll tell you that the first sentence is the most important sentence. And if you think about it for a moment, you’ll realise that it’s true. How else could you explain the intoxicating familiarity of the following: it is a truth universally acknowledged many years later, as he faced the firing squad, happy families are all alike, and I am an invisible man somewhere in la Mancha high, high above the North Pole? Admittedly these six great openings of six great novels don’t quite have the same greatness when squashed up against each other by my hapless fingers but that doesn’t make them individually any less great. At least, I hope not.
Whether browsing in a bookstore or flicking through pages on Amazon, the real test of whether or not a reader will part with their hard-earned cash isn’t the cover image, by-line, or blurb (although, that’s no excuse for skimping on any of them), It is what they find inside. Well, more specifically, it’s the opening line of what they find inside. This isn’t to downplay the other 59,010 words of your novel, of course, but if you don’t catch the attention of that passing reader with a good opening line, those other 59,010 words might as well be blah, blah, blah ...
“But why is the opening line so important?” I hear you ask. Well, the opening line will do two things for a reader. Firstly, it will help them decide if they want to spend any more time in your company. Secondly, it will entice them in. There isn’t a lot you can do about the former―readers will either be taken with your writing style or they won’t―but there’s an awful lot you can do about the latter. It’s just a shame that most of it boils down to hours and hours of head scratching and a seemingly endless series of rewrites.
I’m still reading back the opening line of my new book with a mixture of apprehension and confusion. And I know, from painful experience, that I will still be rewriting that same opening line when everything else is said and done (including the aforementioned cover art, by-line, and blurb). Just consider all the different approaches that I could take:
Create a sense of mystery.
Introduce a shadowy threat.
Pose an intriguing question.
Casually mention an odd quirk.
Drop the reader into the middle of the action.
Begin a dramatic verbal exchange.
Present a fascinating character with a mesmerising story to tell about a man obsessed with some monstrous, bloated thing rising up from the deep―well, it worked for E. L. James.
Whatever I do, however, I’m sure of one thing. As I once more embark on the long, arduous journey of writing a novel, I’m going to revisit the opening line again and again and again. And when I do finally put the finishing touches on the cover art, the by-line, and the blurb, the opening line will be nothing like it is now. It will be something that will make passing readers stop, look, and continue reading. At least, I hope so.
Comentarios