
How to Write an Opening Sentence - techdog
http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2013/01/how-to-write-opening-sentence.html
======
Angostura
I was a journalist for 15 years on trade magazines, and not surprisingly
journalist training pays a lot of attention to story leads.

One thing that the post neglects to say is: "it depends entirely on the type
of article you are writing" a hard news story will have a different lead to a
feature, column or colour piece.

Most traditional news stories are structured so that can be 'cut from the
bottom' - get the salient facts into the first sentence and broaden out from
there, so that if your piece gets cut for the sake of space, the sub knows
that (s)he can safely cut the bottom paragraph first, then if more space is
required, cut the paragraph before that, and that, so that if at the end of
the day, your previous page 1 lead has been trimmed to a 1 sentence news in
brief, the original opening sentence will still get the story told.

With the demise of paper, 'cutting from the bottom' isn't so relevant, but the
same discipline still holds true when writing a story for the busy reader.

All that said _How do you write the opening sentence_? For a news story, or
press release, my first editor gave me the best advice I ever received:

"Imagine you're walking into a pub to meet your friend and the story you're
writing has just happened. Your friend is intelligent, inquisitive, but not
necessarily an expert in your detailed field. You sit down, pick up your pint
and say: "You'll never guess what - XXXXXXX"

That XXXX is your opening sentence.

... or at least it's the first draft. The exercise is good way of immediately
revealing what your mind thinks are the most important elements or a sometimes
very complex story.

~~~
gbog
This 'cut from the bottom' structure is maybe necessary but really fatiguing.

When I was learning Chinese, we had to read such news articles. When you have
to analyze it word by word, it becomes evident that the authors is just
diluting the sauce, adding more water every paragraph.

Maybe it is one of the reason for journalism to be a living dead. Interesting
writings, the ones that hook their readship, are just the opposite: the more
you read, the deeper you are immerged in the story (for fiction), the more you
understand and discover (for non-fiction).

BTW: Just checked a bit pg's papers: they are not 'cut from the bottom', not
at all.

~~~
Angostura
I don;t understand why you think it's fatiguing. With a news story, the idea
is that you should only have to read the first sentence to get the gist and to
decide whether you want to read further.

Each subsequent sentence adds further detail, with the most salient facts
always coming first. So you stop reading when you have as much detail as you
want, safe in the knowleddge you're not missing anything too important.

If the author is diluting, simply repeating things already written at greater
length they're not doing it correctly.

Just to reiterate, PG's articles aren't news stories so there is no need to
follow this pattern. There are many other kinds of journalistic leads - the
colour intro, the delayed drop, etc.

------
arethuza
Iain Banks manages to provide both one of the most memorable opening
sentences:

"It was the day my grandmother exploded."

and my favourite opening paragraph (or two):

"Two days ago I decided to kill myself. I would walk and hitch and sail away
from this dark city to the bright spaces of the wet west coast, and there
throw myself into the tall, glittering seas beyond Iona (with its cargo of
mouldering kings) to let the gulls and seals and tides have their way with my
remains, and in my dying moments look forward to an encounter with Staffa’s
six-sided columns and Fingal’s cave; or I might head south to Corryvrecken, to
be spun inside the whirlpool and listen with my waterlogged deaf ears to its
mile-wide voice ringing over the wave-race; or be borne north, to where the
white sands sing and coral hides, pink-fingered and hard-soft, beneath the
ocean swell, and the rampart cliffs climb thousand-foot above the seething
acres of milky foam, rainbow-buttressed.

Last night I changed my mind and decided to stay alive. Everything that
follows is . . . just to try and explain."

From _The Crow Road_ and _Espedair Street_ respectively.

~~~
koralatov
Even though I'm not a great fan of his work, Banks did write one of the most
memorable opening lines ever in _The Crow Road_.

Two other great examples:

William Gibson's _Neuromancer_ : "The sky above the port was the color of
television, tuned to a dead channel."

Herman Melville's _Moby Dick_ : "Call me Ishmael."

Neither strictly tells the reader what the books are about, but they're great
hooks.

~~~
mcguire
" _William Gibson's Neuromancer: 'The sky above the port was the color of
television, tuned to a dead channel.'_ "

That is one of my favorite openers, too, but it has seemed weirdly
anachronistic for a while. Does anyone under the age of 30 remember television
static? Will anyone in Gibson's future?

~~~
bhaak
Youtube shows static when there's been some kind of error.

Which is kind a funny, considering nobody will understand that. :)

~~~
Florin_Andrei
If it becomes common enough (i.e. a "meme") then suddenly everybody will
"understand" it.

------
jonnathanson
Most people stop reading something after the first few sentences. In that
crucial 10 to 15 seconds, a book (or essay, or article, or blog post) has to
make, and win, a subconscious appeal to your attention. Your reader's
attention span is like a snotty doorman at a hot club. Your opening sentence
needs to grab his interest and sneak the rest of the piece into the door.

Consider the following examples from fiction:

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
--George Orwell, _1984_

"It was a pleasure to burn." --Ray Bradbury, _Fahrenheit 451_

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself
transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." --Franz Kafka, _The
Metamorphosis_

Or these examples from nonfiction:

"Air-conditioned, odorless, illuminated by buzzing flourescent tubes, the
American market doesn't present itself as having very much to do with Nature."
--Michael Pollan, _The Omnivore's Dilemma_

"I like to take my time when I pronounce someone dead." --Jane Churchon, "The
Dead Book"

"Out of nowhere I developed this lump." --David Sedaris, "Old Faithful"

This is not to suggest that opening lines should be pure gimmickry, or that
they should be conceived entirely apart from the rest of the piece itself.
Provocation for provocation's sake is a game of diminishing returns. Rather,
the opening line should immediately intrigue the reader by establishing a
compelling tone -- one that the rest of the work will follow.

Compelling does not necessarily mean brief, though in modern practice, the two
are frequently corelated. That being said, some of the best opening lines in
literary history are long and winding. The key is setting up intrigue, however
many words that may take.

~~~
philh
> "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
> --George Orwell, 1984

I think I've frequently heard this called a great opening line, and I've never
worked out why. It doesn't tell me anything that I care about, it doesn't seem
especially clever, and I don't notice myself having any other discernible
emotional reaction to it.

Can someone explain?

~~~
nagrom
It sets the scene really well: "A bright, cold day in April" is evocative of
exactly that. It's not pretentious and it immediately puts a setting in the
readers mind.

"and the clocks were striking thirteen." is an immediate juxtaposition of
something non-intuitive. The first reaction is "Clocks don't strike thirteen!
They strike a maximum of twelve!". It's just nonintuitive enough without
necessarily being obviously nonsense. And so the reader is engaged to read the
next sentence to find out what he means by thirteen. Get the reader to read
the next sentence enough, and you've tricked them into reading the book ;-)

~~~
philh
My first reaction is more like "okay, so it's one o'clock". I never really
noticed that it was weird before, though now it's pointed out I can see that
it is.

~~~
fastball
I think this opening line works better for people that don't use 24 hour time
(namely Americans).

That is interesting, because Orwell was British, and I am fairly certain that
24 hour time was adopted in Britain before 1948.

~~~
pcrh
The 24 hour clock is still not universally adopted in the UK. No English
speaker says says "thirteen O'Clock" the way one might say "treize heures".
English speakers might say "thirteen hundred hours", but only in restricted
circumstances (e.g. in the military).

------
calinet6
The first thing I did was apply this recursively to the article itself.

"When I was a 25-year-old Senior Editor of The Mother Earth News, I did a lot
of rewrite editing."

Not bad! Started with an anecdote that got me interested. And it worked—I was
interested enough to continue reading. Great article with some excellent
writing suggestions for anyone.

~~~
sophacles
Given the title of the link, I approached the article with intent. I answered
the question "What does the opening line do for me?" before continuing. Here
are my results:

* It is straight forward and obviously relates to the title, giving me the impression "An article about writing by someone who may actually know about it".

* It piqued my curiosity: "Is 25 young to be doing this job?" "I bet this was formative... how so?" "WTF is rewrite editing?"

* It nicely sets a tone of "here's some experience for you to chew on" (and the rest of the article keeps it decently.

Note: my opening sentence is a poor mimicry of calinet6's opener and of TFA's
opener. Seems I need some practice :)

~~~
calinet6
Ha! I didn't even consider my opening sentence. Thanks for noticing, I guess?

------
rauljara
Just wanted to add that this advice will necessarily change with the times.
Something sounds trite and cliche if you've heard it (or something like it)
too much. Most of the things that sound trite and cliche now sounded great the
first time you heard them. That's how they got repeated enough to become trite
and cliche in the first place.

If everyone followed the advice in this article, the advice would be terrible.
Most people don't, so it's probably pretty safe for now. The general advice
though, is to pay attention to what feels overdone and then don't do that. And
don't stop paying attention, because it will definitely change.

~~~
aidenn0
A coworker of mine (25ish) had seen a lot of movies, but not Casablanca. So I
loaned it to him. He said "my first reaction was 'this is so cliched' and then
I realized that it rather was where many cliches came from"

~~~
nthitz
I feel the same way about the sitcom Cheers. Both are great works, but now
seem cliched!

~~~
d23
Reminds me of the "Seinfeld is Unfunny" trope.

<http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny>

------
RyanMcGreal
"Simply tell the reader what the subject is."

There's an awful lot to be said for the practice of forswearing cleverness and
just writing exactly what you want the reader to know.

~~~
sophacles
To an extent I agree, however there is also the Title, so the opener can
wander a bit from pure bluntness.

------
elisehein
I think beginning an academic or a research paper with a question or something
like "Some people say..." or "Recently" or "Nowadays" is often a very good
strategy even though it might be clichéd, because telling the reader exactly
what is going to follow in the text is very much expected. When I read with
the sole intention of finding a specific piece of knowledge, I want to be able
to tell from the introduction (or the abstract) whether I will find that piece
of knowledge in the given text.

That being said, I think all other kinds of texts should be as story-like as
possible, in the sense that they should be gripping and interesting from the
very first sentence -- I _want_ to be a little bit lost and not know where
exactly the writer is taking me. In this case, I really like the idea of
jumping straight into a scenario (or anecdote), I remember having been
suggested by my teachers in middle school to do so. Having opened the text
with a scenario, you can also use it in the conclusion to wrap things up and
let the reader know how the story ended, given the conclusions reached in the
body of the text.

My book recommendation is "How to write a sentence (and how to read one)",
[http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/01/27/how-to-
wri...](http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/01/27/how-to-write-a-
sentence/) It has whole chapters on both first and last sentences.

~~~
smacktoward
"Some people say..." openings can be problematic, because they can get the
reader wondering, who? Who says that? Which pulls them away from the point
you're trying to make. Better to start with a specific example of someone
saying it: "John Smith thought men couldn't get breast cancer. On April 5, he
found out he was wrong."

 _I really like the idea of jumping straight into a scenario (or anecdote), I
remember having been suggested by my teachers in middle school to do so._

Yeah, this is an effective technique that's nearly as old as storytelling
itself. It's called _in medias res_ :

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_medias_res>

The name is Latin for "into the middle of things," which describes the idea:
throw the reader into the middle of the story first, revealing earlier events
later on where necessary. This lets you open on a dramatic note right away,
which grabs the reader's attention, while setting up little enigmas -- who is
this person? Why is she doing what she's doing? What does she want? -- for the
reader to solve, which keeps them involved.

------
Surio
Here's one of my favourite opening lines (all right, make it paragraph!)

 _The Peacemaker Colt has now been in production, without change in design,
for a century. Buy one today and it would ne indistinguishable from the one
Wyatt Earp wore when he was the Master of Dodge City. It is the oldest hand
gun in the world, without question the most famous and, if efficiency in its
designed task of maiming and killing be taken as criterion of its worth, then
it’s also probably the best hand-gun ever made.... When a Peacemaker Bullet
hits your leg you fall to the ground unconscious, and if it hits your thigh
bone and you are lucky to survive the torn arteries and the shock, then you
will never walk again without crutches.. And so I stood motionless, not
breathing, for the Peacemaker colt that started this unpleasant train of
thought was pointed directly at my right thigh..._ [1][2]

\---- Alistair MacLean, when 8 bells toll

[1] [http://jimalexanderwriting.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/first-
li...](http://jimalexanderwriting.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/first-lines-last-
lines/)

[2] [http://docmo.hubpages.com/hub/Writing-Tips-1-Seven-Hooks-
to-...](http://docmo.hubpages.com/hub/Writing-Tips-1-Seven-Hooks-to-Tease-
your-Reader)

------
munificent
This article inspired me to go back over the posts on my blog and look at just
the opening sentences. I found lots of ones that are, in retrospect, duds. But
here's a few that I still like:

> You would think iteration, you know looping over stuff, would be a solved
> problem in programming languages.

> Every now and then, I stumble onto some algorithm or idea that’s so clever
> and such a perfect solution to a problem that I feel like I got smarter or
> gained a new superpower just by learning it.

> Ever since I decided to mesh the worlds of static and dynamic typing
> together in Magpie, I’ve been wondering when the gears would really grind
> together and halt. Today is the day.

> My little language Magpie has a feature that may at first seem really
> limiting: all functions take exactly one argument and return one value, no
> more, no less.

I spend a lot of time thinking about this because I think with blogs you have
a _very_ narrow window of time to get the reader's attention before they
"TL;DR" your post and move on. I usually write about programming languages,
which isn't known to be a riveting topic, so this isn't easy. Going back over
them, I think there is a pretty strong correlation between having a strong
start and getting decent traffic.

------
shanellem
Absolutely loved this post. The opening sentence is just as important as the
headline and subheadings. Great copywriters (and blog editors, evidently) know
this. Coming up with original, compelling opening sentences isn't always as
easy as it sounds.

Fantastic read.

~~~
koralatov
In my limited experience, subheds often act as a crutch when the writer
doesn't know how to move the piece forward onto the next point in a more
natural fashion. At Uni, we were advised to avoid them wherever possible.

------
creativename
This kind of reminds me that, although I'll read a lot about programming and
startups, I haven't learned anything about writing (formally) in many many
years.

Does anyone have any good recommendations for books about writing non-fiction?
The OP refers to a few book about writing fiction, which sound interesting
(and that may be helpful), but I was wondering if there was something similar
that targeted maybe copy-writing and just general business writing.

~~~
shalmanese
On Writing Well: [http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-
Nonficti...](http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-
Nonfiction/dp/0060891548)

~~~
creativename
Awesome, I just picked it up on Amazon. I'll give it a shot

------
nnq
How do you write an opening sentence that makes me keep reading the next few
sentences, really?

 _Microscopic attention span_ \- that's what will characterize most online
readers if you're writing something online. In this context, any thought of
"literary value/quality" is useless. As opposed to the OP, most are writing
for maybe readers that have not real intention whatsoever to keep on reading.
I know people that when they see an email longer than 5 lines of text on their
display from someone unknown, they _just throw it away without bothering to
read it at all!_

The questions I'd like answered are:

\- How can you write an opening sentence that the reader's semi-conscious mind
decodes even before he decides to keep on reading or not (with a 90%
probability of the second outcome), and makes him change his mind and keep
reading instead?

\- Should I just add a "TL;DR" section on top of every long article I write
because most people will not read it anyway, and hopefully at least this short
message will get across? Or will this be a spoiler and make all readers just
scan the "TL;DR" and nobody will read the full article now?

\- How to prevent the "scan to see how long it is and decide not to read it if
its too long regardless of title or content" way of thinking of a larger and
larger portion of the population (and not necessarily the most ignorant: a
very smart person told me that we won't read something longer than a paragraph
because "if you can't summarize it in a couple short sentences, the I'll
assume you don't know enough about what you are writing for me to worth
investing the time and attention to read it") So then, are we all condemned to
write only "elevator pitches"?

\- Will overdoing it by using interesting "reader engagement tactics" just
make the reader believe that I'm actually trying to sell them something and
stop reading because of this assumption?

------
vasco
From reading good writing, and by looking at opening sentences specially I
came to the conclusion that the best way to start a chunk of text is by
starting to say what you want to say. Just say what you have to say and don't
think about it as an "opening sentence". By thinking of structure you lose
perspective of the most important thing in any writing, the message.

My favorite writers get to the point quickly and effectively. Adding cruft is
unnecessary and disrespectful to readers and usually only serves to make you
feel better about your writing.

“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there
is nothing left to take away” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

~~~
jilebedev
>My favorite writers get to the point quickly and effectively.

It's not so simple. If the reader is interested in comprehending a large
amount of technical or objective information quickly, then yes, by all means,
start with the point, hold no cards above the table, and get to it.

But even this article demonstrates that _sometimes_ , a different approach is
appropriate. "When I was a 25 year old editor" -- what the hell is a 25-year
old doing being an editor of a paper? What kind of a paper is this anyway?

That - strikes my interest. That makes me want to continue reading. It draws
me in. This is why I read - to shed the dust of everyday life - to be drawn in
and whisked away to a fantasy world much more exciting than my own life.

The way to start a chunk of text is to be keenly aware of who your audience
is, and what they want. And, equally, the way to begin reading a chunk of text
is to either adapt to the the mold of the intended audience or simply reject
the writing. It's not valid to say that starting a book in a coy, crafty,
inviting way is somehow illegitimate because it doesn't get to the point right
away. Some people prefer and enjoy that type of opening.

------
bitsoda
Here's a video on writing I got a lot out of. It also touches on opening
sentences.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLi7gXZ5aEc>

------
plg
I always liked Jay McInerney's opening sentence from Bright Lights, Big City:
"You’re not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of
the morning."

------
sp332
Of course writing fiction (for entertainment) is different from writing
nonfiction (for information). For excellent fiction first-sentences: "Doro
discovered the woman by accident when he went to see what was left of one of
his seed villages." -- _Wild Seed_ , Octavia Butler. It introduces the main
characters, and shows you their relationship and their relative importance to
the plot of the novel.

------
ommunist
Thank you. I worked for the tech magazine for a couple of years and can recall
pretty much the same experiences. Which is strange, since language was not
English. However that problems and solutions listed seems to be language-
agnostic.

------
orangethirty
Take not that this applies to writing good landing page copy. It is very
useful for commercial writing.

------
stevewilhelm
It was a dark and stormy night.

------
kafkaesque
I've been writing 'seriously' for about 17 years.

I think what the OP says is great advice. The list is especially useful for
beginner writers, because it gives them a specific guide to follow.

I was taught the value of an introductory sentence and paragraph differently.
I was told to simply "Be specific!" If you have a look at his dos, this simple
phrase is put to use in all of them. The don'ts are the opposite: they're
vague. I default to this be-specific phrase when I write.

Having said that, writing is such a tricky thing. All throughout my academic
history, I've been taught the 'principles' of style only to have to unlearn
half of them and adapt to a new 'standard'.

As a few people have written, context matters.

In the end (and in practice), you have to consider your audience, how much
time you have to write (if it is your job, because there are hundreds of
content mills), develop your own style (this itself is a trite/clichéd
remark), but most importantly, have a reason to write that word or
punctuation. This last concept is what I adhere to, which is why I only write
short stories and poems. Novels are a completely different beast, though I am
working on one slowly but surely.

I can read Shelley and Keats and love every expressed emotion. Most people
will tell me, "But it's soooooo cheeeesy!" Damn right it is. So? What's your
point? Context. Business writing is not creative writing is not poetry is not
a short story is not a novel. Likewise, romanticism is not modernism is not
postmodernism is not magical realism is not anything.

If you think about it, writing is a very depressing art form. It is one of few
skills that has a low price tag in a society yet is valued by everyone. "Oh,
he's a great writer! Found his book for cheap at a used bookstore! $1 for a
classic!" The only writers that make a good chunk of change are the Stephanie
Meyers or the sci-fi writers that pump out a book a month. Author mills. It is
rumoured that it took Ezra Pound about six months to write a three-verse poem.
Can people even tell the difference? Some say they can.

It's difficult to go in to an interview and act like I really know how to
write. My use of grammar and style is poor. I edit a lot. Revise, revise,
revise. It takes me an hour or more to write a short paragraph. It doesn't
come naturally to me. The only thing I do better than others is spell
correctly.

There is an ongoing joke that is repeated pseudosincerely: the worst thing you
can do is take advice from a writer.

So what do I know.

PS: One of my favourite opening sentences comes from Camus's L'étranger:

Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. (Mother died today.)

This one is from Kafka's Der Prozess:

Jemand mußte Josef K. verleumdet haben, denn ohne daß er etwas Böses getan
hätte, wurde er eines Morgens verhaftet. (Someone must have been telling lies
about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was
arrested.)

------
asimjalis
Should you ask a question as an opening sentence?

~~~
russell
You did and I read your whole post.

------
ucee054
The air was _sultry_.

------
heuristical
Like that time someone told us how to design a well-designed site in 30
minutes, I decided whilst clicking through "How to Write an Opening Sentence"
that I would read the first sentence and then decide whether I should listen
to the guy on "how to write an opening sentence".

It read:

>"When I was a 25-year-old Senior Editor of The Mother Earth News, I did a lot
of rewrite editing. "

I decided against it, so I didn't read any more of the post.

I will, however, tell you how you could write that sentence well:

"When I was 25, I spent three weeks figuring out how to get my articles to
stay at a low reading angle, instead of getting flung back in my face by an
impatient editor: the experience was invaluable, and it's time I shared how to
write a good opening paragraph."

~~~
munificent
> spent three weeks

Unnecessary detail.

> how to get my articles to stay at a low reading angle

I don't know what this even means. What's a "low reading angle"?

> instead of getting flung back in my face by an impatient editor

This is factually incorrect. The author was the editor, and the person doing
the flinging was the founder.

> the experience was invaluable

I'm not a fan of just blunting telling the reader "you should care about
this".

> it's time I shared how to write a good opening paragraph

Redundant. The title of the article is "How to Write an Opening Sentence".

I really don't think what you have here is an improvement.

