༉˚*ೃ 𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐒.
first sentences of stories need to punch. i know that when you're writing fanfiction, it's not necessarily as important because people aren't always here for novel-quality writing, but if you're writing a professional book that you plan to publish, or an original novel, the first sentence is always number one. it's the first line of your novel a publisher will look at, the first people will read in a bookstore. in many ways, it's the foundation of your novel. a punchy, memorable first line will always be more likely to be read than one that holds no meaning at all.
stephen king once said, in an article in the atlantic:
. & → ¹
" an opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. it should say, listen. come in here. you want to know about this. "
in the telegraph, simon kernick stated:
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" for me, the most important bit is that you grip your reader from the start. all good writers really need to think about the first line, it's hugely important. if you spend too much time setting things up, these days it's not going to work. "
MEMORABLE FIRST LINES. → * . &
here are my favourite memorable first lines from celebrated novels. let these inspire you!:
. & ━ "it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife" → jane austen, pride and prejudice (1813). an unforgettable line that almost everybody knows .
. & ━ "no live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. hill house, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steady against the wood and stone of hill house, and whatever walked there, walked alone." → shirley jackson, the haunting of hill house (1959). the most BRILLIANT opening lines of a horror novel ever, beautiful and eerie and just magnificent. one of the most memorable opening paragraph of literature for me. also GO watch the netflix show, it's scary but more focused on grief and humanity, and it's SO amazing, my favourite horror i've ever seen and i bawled my eyes out like three times at the dialogue alone .
. & ━ "a screaming comes across the sky." → thomas pynchon, gravity's rainbow (1973) .
. & ━ "riverrun, past eve and adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to howth castle and environs." → james joyce, finnegans wake (1939). an experimental novel with a fantastic opening .
. & ━ "this is the saddest story i have ever heard." → ford madox ford, the good soldier (1915) .
. & ━ "time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space." → margaret atwood, cat's eye (1988) .
. & ━ "to the best of my understandably shaky recollection, the first time i died, it went something like this." → james patterson, private (2010) .
. & ━ "124 was spiteful." → toni morrison, beloved (1987) .
. & ━ "i sent one boy to the gas chamber at huntsville." → cormac mcarthy, no country for old men (2005) .
. & ━ "in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort." → j.r.r. tolkien, the hobbit (1937). another of the most iconic, famous opening lines of a novel .
. & ━ "they shoot the white girl first. with the rest they take their time." → toni morrison, paradise (1997) .
. & ━ "we slept in what had once been the gymnasium." → margaret atwood, the handmaid's tale (1985). a brilliant opening for such a dark, dystopian novel where women have been reverted to the roles of objects and servants. i recommend the show .
. & ━ "the circus arrives without warning. no announcements precede it, no paper notices on downtown posts and billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. it is simply there, when yesterday it was not." → erin morgenstern, the night circus (2011). a great opening that uses the hook of mystery and wonder .
. & ━ "many years later, as he faced the firing squad, colonel aureliano buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." → gabriel garcía márquez, one hundred years of solitude (1967) .
. & ━ "it was a bright cold day in april, and the clocks were striking thirteen." → george orwell, nineteen eighty-four (1949). one of the MOST intriguing and celebrated opening lines in april. we know that we experience the same weather, the same months, yet the number thirteen on an analog clock is so foreign to us, also associated with bad luck .
. & ━ "he was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the gulf stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish." → ernest hemingway, the old man and the sea (1952) .
. & ━ "it was a pleasure to burn." → ray bradbury, farenheit 451 (1953) .
. & ━ "if i am out of my mind, it's alright with me, thought moses herzog." → saul bellow, herzog (1961) .
. & ━ ""chrismas won't be christmas without any presents", grumbled jo, lying on the rug." → lousia may alcott, little women (1868) .
. & ━ "my name is mary katherine blackwood. i am eighteen years old, and i live with my sister constance. i have often thought that with any luck at all i could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but i have had to be content with what i had. i dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. i like my sister constance, and richard plantagenet, and amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. everyone else in my family is dead." → shirley jackson, we have always lived in the castle (1962). another INCREDIBLE opening by shirley jackson, one of the ones that sticks in my head most. we have always lived in the castle also has one of my favourite, most memorable final line of any novel i've ever read. it's so very eerie, it's just always on my mind. this opening is AMAZING because every single line sets up the whole twist with merricat. the werewolf, the poisonous mushrooms, the murderous richard plantagenet, the fact that constance was the only one to survive. and the fact that she is eighteen, which everyone forgets immediately until later in the story because her narrative voice paints her to be about thirteen years of age. it's just brilliant. i really loved we have always lived in the castle. one of my favourite classic books i've read .
. & ━ "it was reliably reported by several persons that a rain of stones fell from a clear blue sky on carlin street in the town of chamberlain on august 17th." → stephen king, carrie (1974) .
. & ━ "her name is melanie. it means "the black girl", from an ancient greek word, but her skin is actually very fair so she thinks maybe it's not such a good name for her." → m.r. carey, the girl with all the gifts (2014) .
. & ━ "walking to school over the snow-muffled cobbles, karou had no sinister premonitions about the day." → laini taylor, daughter of smoke and bone (2012) .
. & ━ "vlad dracul's heavy brow descended like a storm when the doctor informed him that his wife had given birth to a girl." → kiersten white, and i darken (2016) .
. & ━ "the wind was born of a shepherd-girl playing her lonely flute." → deborah a. wolf, the dragon's legacy (2017) .
. & ━ "one the second sabbat of twelthmoon, in the city of weep, a girl fell from the sky." → laini taylor, strange the dreamer (2017). one of the most beautiful prologues of a book i've ever read and one that is repeated again at the end. cyclical novels always make me so sad. also my all-time favourite book, so go read it. laini taylor is INCREDIBLE .
. & ━ "when i was born, the name for what i was did not exist." → madeline miller, circe (2018). one of the most magnificent, well-written books i've read. each line is amazing. if you like greek mythology or fantasy, i cannot recommend it highly enough .
you can see from the quotes i've picked from above just how many styles of first lines there are, yet they all punch. it's a hook, line and sinker type of deal. all of these lines make me want to read the story, i need to know what happens next.
some establish information about the character or the world, intentions or an emotional response. some are tragic, laying out the path for the future before we've even read their past. some are poetic that establish the nature of the world, fantastical and whimsical. others are single one-liners that just hook, like farenheit 451's, for a dystopian world. but they all succeed in making me read another line.
THE KEY. → * . &
the key to writing first sentences is that in your opening sentence, you want to establish or elicit one of the following:
CHARACTER
the motives, intention, personality, actions, past, nature, traits or aspects of a titular character. it needs to tell you something about them. how they react to a situation, their thoughts or how they are as a person. the example quotes from private, no country for old men, paradise, one hundred years of solitude, the old man and the sea, herzog, little women, we have always lived in the castle, the girl with all the gifts, daughter of smoke and bone, and i darken, andcirce succeed in doing this.
the quote from the girl with all the gifts establishes melanie's young age and her narrative voice, while also showing how incredibly smart she is, though her knowing the definition of the name "melanie". the quote from and i darken immediately establishes lada's father's distaste for the fact he has a daughter, and therefore how she, the protagonist, is raised and views the world. daughter of smoke and bone puts forefront karou's usual suspicions that something will end up sinister. and no country for old men immediately establishes the protagonist's dark past, rather than leading up to it.
they all reel us in by showing us the characters that inhabit this story.
SETTING
something about the world the story takes place in — whether fantasy, science-fiction or real-world — and how it works. about society, dystopia or utopia. this also incorporates time period and genre. pride and prejudice, the haunting of hill house, finnegans wake, cat's eye, the hobbit, the handmaid's tale, the night circus, nineteen eighty-four, little women, carrie, strange the dreamer, and circe all utilise setting for their first sentences.
in pride and prejudice, the expectations of their societies are presented. though it doesn't matter whether it's real-world or fantasy, we immediately learn the divide between men and women's expectations. it's effective at immediately showing the society to be patriarchal and capitalist in some way. the haunting of hill house is an interesting example of this, as it establishes hill house as not only the titular setting, but also a character, as the house is nearly as living as everything else. margaret atwood's cat's eye describes a specific aspect of the world regarding the logistics of time itself. carrie provides us with the setting, a specific date, and the idea that unnatural happenings were occuring.
ATMOSPHERE
an important one. the 'feel' of a story, its mood. typically goes hand-in-hand with setting, but is extremely good at setting genre and themes. mysteries and one-liners are always good hooks, utilising this. the quotes from the haunting of hill house, gravity's rainbow, the good soldier, beloved, the night circus, nineteen eighty-four, farenheit 451, and the dragon's legacy use atmosphere for their openings. atmosphere includes eliciting an 'emotional response', whether positive or negative.
the haunting of hill house establishes a kind of eerie atmosphere to the novel. more than just horror, but the feeling of the house being alive, "not sane". the good soldier tells the reader already that a kind of tragedy is to come. the night circus and nineteen eighty-four both lean on a mysterious, unnatural atmosphere as a hook, pulling curious readers along. the dragon's legacy already shows us that this is a book leaning on fantasy and myth, with a poetic type of atmosphere.
SO, GETTING THAT FIRST LINE ON THE PAGE. → * . &
at my first year of my university creative writing degree, we were given the exercise of creating first sentences for a potential story idea or one that we already had, that were effective and punchy. here were a few i wrote:
. & ━ "the moon had seen its fair share of bloodshed in its lifetime."
. & ━ "on the day when black car rolled up the driveway, the clock in the living room ticked a second behind schedule."
. & ━ "it was a well-known fact that monsters liked to return to their prey." → (adapted from a line of one of my fics, static electricity) .
. & ━ "curious girls met curious ends, that was a well-known fact." → (also adapted from a line of one of my fics, wonderland) .
. & ━ "once upon a time, the sky rained blood, and no one could make it end." → (inspired by my fic, the daughters of the dragon, and also inspired by laini taylor's daughter of smoke and bone) .
. & ━ "under the earth, the bones of dragons were crawling with roots and strange flowers." → (inspired by a line from my fic, hiraeth) .
(as you can see, even in my uni class, my fanfics are the main source of my inspiration. this is a good thing, it's good if your own writing and stories inspire you!)
and mine are absolutely nowhere near as good, punchy or memorable as those quoted, but that's because, well, i'm not a renowned publish author yet. all we can do is get better. there's a world of time to improve, so don't be discouraged! be inspired.
if you want an exercise, write out five potential first sentences for either a story you have, or just random ones that could be applied to any story! try to keep them punchy, memorable and effective. you can comment them here if you'd like, or just keep them to yourself.
here are some interesting ways to go about a first line:
. & ━ "once upon a time" → it's overused in fairytales, considered a cliche, but i adore when it's used in an interesting, hook way. if it subverts expectations, and sounds fantastical in a way one might not expect. for example, laini taylor's daughter of smoke and bone series (an all-time favourite of mine) has each section starting with a "once upon a time". a few of my favourite examples from her series (potential spoilers):
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" once upon a time, a little girl was raised by monsters. but angels burned the doorways to their world, and she was all alone. "
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" once upon a time, an angel and a devil held a wishbone between them. and its snap split the world in two. "
and my favourite, towards the end:
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" once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a new way of living—one without massacres and torn throats and bonfires of the fallen, without revenants or bastard armies or children ripped from their mothers' arms to take their turn in the killing and dying. "
. & ━ a glimpse into the future → like the examples of the good soldier or one hundred years of solitude .
. & ━ a glimpse of the past → like stephen king's carrie, or james patterson's private .
. & ━ an aspect of strangeness, a mystery → like the night circus, private, circe or nineteen eighty-four. hooks the reader immediately and urges them to read more .
. & ━ what is now vs what used to be → consider the handmaiden's tale, how much things have changed. particularly good for a dystopian novel or one in which a tragedy occurs. be careful to not give away too much, to leave the readers questioning .
. & ━ tragedy → a line that puts the reader directly in the action by having something tragic occur. a death, war, the loss of a child, anything like that. see paradise by toni morrison .
. & ━ a catchy one-liner → a single line that captures the theme or atmosphere of your story in just a few words. think farenheit 451, beloved, or the good soldier. it needs to snap and punch, but when effective, they can be incredible .
. & ━ a simple fact → consider farenheit 451, or ralph ellison's the invisible man: "i am an invisible man" .
. & ━ an incredibly memorable paragraph → rather than just the single line, aim for the entire paragraph to be just as quotable. obviously, this is what you always want, but for stories like we have always lived in the castle, the entire paragraph is much more memorable and punching than simply the "my name is mary katherine blackwood" .
. & ━ a statement of eternal principle → like jane austen's pride and prejudice or leo tolstoy's anna karenina. of course, the novel must confirm or deny that proposed principle .
. & ━ two facts combined → in carson mcculler's the heart is a lonely hunter: "in the town there were two mutes, and they were always together". a town with two mutes is not necessarily compelling, neither are two inseparable men. but two inseparable mutes makes you want to know more .
. & ━ begin at a life-changing moment .
. & ━ introducing voice → opens to convey a distinct style. george orwell's a clockwork orange succeeds in this — "what's it going to be then, eh?" — introduces the ominous voice that will lead the reader through the text. another example is of daniel keyes' flowers for algernon: "dr strauss says i shoud rite down what i think and remembir and evrey thing that happins to me from now on", difficult to understand upon first starting the novel. these usually withhold other craft elements for a few sentences in order to allow the reader to adjust to the new form of language .
. & ━ a statement that serves as a frame → "once upon a time" is the classic (already stated above), announcing that you're about to tell a story. j.d. salinger's 1951 novel catcher in the rye does this: "if you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where i was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that david copperfield kind of crap, but i don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.". mark twain's the adventures of huckleberry finn and italo calvino's if on a winter's night a traveler do the same .
. & ━ a startling line → jar the readers and make them excited to read on .
. & ━ painting a vivid picture → painting an image that will stay with them for a long time. cormac mcarthy's all the pretty horses does this: "the candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door."
THE FIRST PARAGRAPH. → * . &
what comes after the first line is the first paragraph. almost as important as the singular opening line, the opening paragraph must convince the readers to turn over the page, to read the next one.
generally, in your first paragraph, you want to establish exactly what your character wants. a motive, a drive, an end-goal. it can be the final goal of the entire novel or series (taking back a kingdom, defeating the villain); it can be something simple, elicted by passion or a want (a home, a family); a temporary goal (robbing a bank, escaping); or any other kind of motive. the motive of justice, of creating a better world, of escaping a dystopian society, of "breaking the wheel". maybe they're just trying to get a bullseye, find some flowers for their parents — but that somehow either sets up foreshadowing, a further goal, or is something that will be reflected on later, that simplicity or better times.
establishing these goals — what your character wants — in the first paragraph makes it memorable. try not to state it as exposition, eg. "i want to kill the king", but rather in a way that seamlessly moulds with the paragraph. if not the first paragraph, then the first chapter.
the purpose of art is to elicit a passionate response (whether positive or negative) and the opening paragraph of your story should represent this.
REMEMBERING YOU DON'T HAVE TO GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME. → * . &
try, try again. the opening line and first scene in general is often the hardest to right. not only is it the first glimspe a publisher will see of your book, it also determines to readers if they want to keep reading. it has a lot of weight on those set of words. so remember, you're not always going to get it perfect right away. many authors write the rest of their story first, and then come back to the opening.
don't be discouraged because you're worried it's not snappy enough, not enough of a hook. once you've written the rest of the story, have an idea of the themes and details, then you can come back and rework it. no one's expecting it to be perfect.
RESOURCES. → * . &
why stephen king spends months and even years writing opening sentences , joe fassler . & → source 1 .
. & → article : https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/07/why-stephen-king-spends-months-and-even-years-writing-opening-sentences/278043/
how technology distractions are making novels' first lines even more important , hannah furness . & → source 2 .
. & → article : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/10686441/How-technology-distractions-are-making-novels-first-lines-even-more-important.html
daughter of smoke and bone , laini taylor . & → source 3 . the first book of her triology, really amazing i 100% recommend reading it .
days of blood and starlight , laini taylor . & → sources 4 , 5 . the sequel to her novel daughter of smoke and bone .