The opening sentence of your story can either make a reader want to dive into your book… or run away from it.
So let’s discuss some good openings, then practice writing a bunch of our own together!
During the last stream, we went over how to write a good opening sentence.
You can watch the full video here to or scroll down for notes/highlights.
Let’s Practice Writing Opening Sentences!
- The opening sentence of your story is the most important part
- You need to have a fun/hooky opening to grab the reader’s attention right away, or they won’t bother to read the rest
- But you also need to ground the reader in the world/story you want to tell and not get too crazy either or else they’ll feel lost
- Typically, the best openings find a balance between those two
Fun/Hooky Opening Examples
Examples that focus on grabbing your attention
- “I’m pretty much f*cked.” (The Martian by Andy Weir)
- “History has failed us, but no matter.” (Pachinko by Min Jin Lee)
- “When I think of my wife, I always think of her head.” (Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn)
- “Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest.” (Ready Player One by Ernest Cline)
- “I’ve seen Steelheart bleed.” (Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson)
- “I shouldn’t have come to this party.” (The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas)
- “This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.” (The Princess Bride by William Goldman)
– These openings get the reader’s attention, but they have some work to do in the following sentences to ground the reader and set the scene/tone
– Short and punchy openings here are good because the reader doesn’t know what’s going on, so you don’t want to linger on it and frustrate them
Grounding Opening Examples
Examples of openings that focus on setting the scene/tone
- “When I wake up, the other side of my bed is cold.” (The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins)
- “There once was a boy named Milo who didn’t know what to do with himself—not just sometimes, but always.” (The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster)
- “It was 7 minutes after midnight.” (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon)
- “It was night again.” (The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss)
- “The elevator continued its impossibly slow ascent.” (Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami)
- “My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down.” (Twilight by Stephenie Meyer)
– These openings ground the reader and set the scene/tone, but they have some work to do in the following sentences to really get the reader’s attention
– Short and punchy openings here are good because we don’t need a ton of details in one sentence or else you’ll overwhelm
Hybrid Opening Examples
Examples of openings that balance between fun/grounding
- “Hello. I am Ivan. I am a gorilla. It’s not as easy as it looks.” (The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate)
- “One dark season, Grandible became certain that there was something living in his domain within the cheese tunnels.” (A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge)
- “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of Number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by JK Rowling)
- “I have never been what you call a crying man.” (11/22/63 by Stephen King)
- “The Scythe arrived late on a cold November afternoon.” (Scythe by Neal Shusterman)
- “Look, I am aware that you’re here for an epic tale of intrigue and mystery and adventures and near death and actual death, but in order to get to that (unless you want to skip to chapter 13—I’m not your boss), you’re going to have to deal with the fact that I, April May, in addition to being one of the most important things that has ever happened to the human race, am also a woman in her twenties who has made some mistakes.” (An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green)
– These openings do a good job of grounding the reader/setting the scene and tone, while also grabbing their attention.
– These can be longer because they’re not as confusing as fun/hooky openings, and not as bland as the grounding openings
– You can get away with longer ones especially if there’s a strong voice
Bad Opening Examples
- “I scowl with frustration at myself in the mirror.” (Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James)
- “Ho, Diomed, well met! Do you sup with Glaucus to-night?” said a young man of small stature, who wore his tunic in those loose and effeminate folds which proved him to be a gentleman and a coxcomb.” (The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward Bulwer-Lytton)
- “I’m Theresa, the younger daughter of Edward and Elizabeth Sullivan, and I hope it’s not bragging to say I was cute as heck at age ten.” (Empress Theresa by Norman Boutin)
– These openings do not grab/ground the reader, and they set the scene/tone in an overwhelming/boring way.
After that, we generated three random story ideas and chat came up with some opening sentences for each of them.
Here’s some highlights:
#1. Fred is a ogre fuelled by lust, who watches children and keeps their heads in a jar.
henryof7898: “It’s not easy being a horny ogre, especially when your kink is decapitated children.”
Dragonflyghter: “A child’s mind is a wonderful gift, especially when pickled and giftwrapped.”
samuraimonkey: “When the sun set over the hamlet, Friedrick still had not returned home.”
LNDGryphon: “As Fred awoke from his slumber he looked over at his jars and noticed, there was space for one more head.”
cozyrogers: “There were twelve heads in the room, and only eleven jars.”
Justintoonz: “The night was filled with the cries of children.”
SIXSIXseve_N: “I have a six-year Pennsylvanian female on tap,” Fred said as he dusted off a glass for the night’s first customer.
#2. Story: The hero is a wizard from Sanford who can turn anybody into a sheep.
mezz09: “As long as they had visitors, Sanford would never lack wool again.”
henryof7898: “The sheep stared at me as it chewed the grass, silently plotting its revenge.”
cozyrogers: “What is the difference between a man and a sheep?”
samuraimonkey94: “Bah, bah, black sheep, have you any wool?” The crazed old man half-sang, half-mumbled the old nursery rhyme as he drew the glyphs around the table.
QuezBT: “Sanford walked by his sheep pen, only for Firebeard, the former Lord of Flame, to trot up to him and demand headpats.”
bobicus_: “A Change was coming to the tyrants of the world.”
SIXSIXseve_n: “If one more person made a sheep-f*cking joke, Joseph swore he would turn them into a sheep themself and make their wish come true.”
#3. When a fire fighter from Geneva decides to join a band, not everybody is supportive.
samuraimonkey94: “The cathedral burned on 4th and main.”
cozyrogers: “One day I realized I’d rather start fires than put them out.”
Dragonflyghter: If it wasn’t for the fact that Carl had a voice like a smoke alarm, maybe he’d stand a chance in a band.
justintoonz: “Blood rushed through my veins with a white-hot viscosity as i walked on to the stage.”
bobicus_: I carried out the guitar from the flames, cradling it in my arms like a child.
Be sure to check out the video for more discussion and examples!
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you join us on Twitch.
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Featured image: Pakutaso