How Do You Start the First Line of a Book? – All Us Writers Have Been There

First, let’s clear this out: there is no famous opening line in a non-famous novel.

Opening lines only stand on their own when a piece of work has already received wide recognition. Your first line can only do so much; it will not sell your book like Tolstoy’s.

How Crucial Is Writing a Memorable Opening Line?

An opening line serves an essential purpose. A powerful opener will not propel you to the top of the Amazon Bestseller List, but it will magnetize readers to do the one thing you want them to do: read your book!

People love books most when they are invested, hooked, and intrigued from the beginning. Nobody likes to work on “getting into” a novel. You also don’t want readers feeling “meh” after the first few pages and returning to their Kindle home screen to try another sample.

So, if you believe you have a fantastic work that hooks readers’ attention, you should spend some time planning how to make them want to read it from the start. In an interview with the Atlantic, Stephen King discussed spending weeks and even months writing the first lines of a new book.

The way you write your first line won’t make your book important. But it may just be the most important line of the book.

There are as many ways to start a novel as there are stories, but here are nine different opening line strategies, each with an example.

Introduce The Narrative Voice

Sometimes, the first line introduces what the book will be about, how it will read, and how your narrator will address you. This is an excellent way to make an impactful beginning since it gives your reader an immediate taste for the rest of the book and establishes a connection immediately.

Lolita, the light of my life, the fire of my loins. – Lolita and Vladimir Nabokov

Is there a stronger voice in fiction? Even the first nine words indicate you’re in for an incredible ride. Perhaps you don’t expect the horror that builds up, but the story is defined by a powerful obsession that hits you between the eyes from the first paragraph.

Another distinct narrative voice you’ve likely read or heard before comes from The Catcher in the Rye:

If you want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll possibly want to know is where I was born, what my awful childhood was like, how my parents were occupied before they had me, and all that David Copperfield type of crap, but I don’t want to go into it if you want to know the truth. –The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

If you plan to start writing a book colloquially or informally, start with an excellent example of this style. People will sit with you while you tell them a story as if they were in your front room.

You better not tell anyone but God. – The Color Purple, Alice Walker

Introduce the Overall Topic

Let us consider Jane Austen’s famous opening sentence from Pride and Prejudice:

It is universally acknowledged truth that a single man with a possession of a good fortune must be looking for a wife. – Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen

This is a book about marriage and money.

Your theme is usually exposed in the first chapter, but it’s also an excellent choice for how you write your opening line.

The Great Gatsby, widely regarded as one of the greatest books of all time, begins with the narrator plainly defining the novel’s theme.

In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice, and I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. He told me that whenever you felt like criticizing someone, just remember that not all people in the world have the advantages that you have had. – The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

And my final example, simple to understand and relatable to many:

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. – Anna Karenina and Leo Tolstoy

Begin with Something Weird or Curious

This may be the most common and successful technique: stimulate your reader’s attention, and they’ll be compelled to continue reading.

It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. – 1984 by George Orwell.

Thirteen? Huh. Go on.

Or take Middlesex:

I was born twice: once as a baby girl on a remarkably smog-free Detroit day in January 1960 and again as a teenage boy in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August 1974. – Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides

Begin with the impossible; your reader will want to know what made it feasible.

I’m writing this sitting at the kitchen sink. – I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith

Ok. How? Why? I need to know.

Here are a few more favorites:

It was the day my grandmother exploded. – Crow Road, Iain Banks

Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr. Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that took place in this huge apartment building over the previous three months. – High Rise, J.G. Ballard.

Set The Scene

Write the first line so the reader is immediately immersed in your universe. They’re in your palm.

Briefly describe what is happening:

Not for the first time, an argument had broken out over breakfast at number four, Privet Drive. – Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, JK Rowling

Sometimes, setting the scene entails a little more explicit worldbuilding:

In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of a worm and an oozy smell, nor a dry, bare sandy hole with nothing to sit on or eat: it was a hobbit hole, which meant comfort. – The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

But be cautious: if you’re worldbuilding, don’t begin by describing a location or the weather where nothing happens or fail to introduce any characters or themes. The Hobbit example is effective because it presents the concept of a Hobbit as well as a Hobbit hole that is unlike any hole you can imagine.

Set The Mood

The Bell Jar captured the imagination and ethereal dark mood of so many. The initial line makes a lot of effort to establish that mood:

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. – The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Can you catch the mood? Captivate a reader’s attention with a distinct and intriguing location or feelings. Is it peaceful? Moody? Intrepid? Should we feel terrified? Cold? Harsh? Make us think that you’ve already done half the work.

Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities is an excellent example. These famous twelve words capture the novel’s alternating moods of love and conflict.

It was the best of the ties, and it was the worst of times. – A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

High-stakes

Introducing high stakes is a specific approach to writing a memorable opening line that will captivate your reader. Charles Dickens was excellent at this.

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life or whether that station will be held by someone else, these pages must show – David Copperfield and Charles Dickens.

Shock Them

They shot the white girl first. – Paradise, Toni Morrison

Horror, shock, brevity, and intrigue—you can’t ask for much more from an author. This does not necessarily imply that you want to read the entire book now, but you do want to read the following sentence.

I sent one boy to the gas chamber in Huntsville. – No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy

This one punches you in the stomach. Not simply a boy was sent to a gas chamber, but the first-person narrative: “I sent a boy.” The reader is listening    1X to someone they most likely never expected to hear from.

Establish An Emotional Connection

Establish an emotional connection. Either by introducing the fragility of the character or situation, opening with a profoundly relatable feeling, or with a casual introduction, like in the inimitable Moby Dick:

Call me Ishmael. – Moby Dick, Heman Melville

Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left home, spent a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death. – The Fault In Our Stars John Green

This is an excellent opening. It is vulnerable, relatable, and contains some humor, which brings me to it.

Be Witty

This does not require much explanation. Here are a few of my favorite examples:

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun. – The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

I come from Des Moines. Someone had to. – The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson

When a day you know to be Wednesday starts off with the sound of Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere. – The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham

It’s a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even if their own child is the most disgusting little blister you can imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful. – Matilda by Roald Dahl

Summing it Up!

Stephen King’s fiction writing advice says:

An opening words should entice the reader to start the story. It should say, “Listen.” Come in here. You want to know about this.

So do it—any way you can.

And if you can’t, procrastinate the day away from your actual writing by writing the worst opening line you can for a fictional work and submitting it.

Write well or write badly, but whatever you do, write.

FAQ’s – Frequently Asked Questions