Character, voice, conflict, and some of the setting is a lot to get in upfront, but this is where to hook your readers with a compelling first line.
Recently, I attended a webinar where writers submitted their first lines for review by an editor. The editor was straightforward and no-nonsense. She gave several suggestions to help make the first lines better.
I reviewed the first lines I submitted after the webinar ended, keeping in mind all that was said. The more recent manuscript had a reasonably good first line. But the other one, written a few years ago and set aside…good grief. That first line is a sad wispy creature in need of beefing up.
Below are some of the suggestions I gleaned, all of which I plan to use.
3 Must-Have First Line Elements
Character
Great first lines weave an interesting character. An important rule of writing is to bring out your character and the situation right away. If your main characters are intriguing, the readers will keep turning those pages to find out what they do next.
“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”
— One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
This next first line gives a lot of information. The narrator is likely an angsty teenager who is well read and somewhat cynical.
“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.”
— The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger
Voice
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen” –1984 George Orwell
George Orwell’s 1984, written in 1949, presents a dystopian setting with the use of clocks “striking thirteen,” showing the readers that the story happens in a world with different rules.
Think about the first line as a close up to the action. If you’re stuck for a first line, fast forward five minutes into the story and write the first sentence from that perspective. This first line feels like it’s starting smack in the middle of the action.
“There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.” — The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
Tone
The tone of the first line gives the reader a sense of genre and the age group for which the book is meant. “The green cigarette smoke thwacked Ashley’s brain through the bandages of a broken nose.” A first line that mentions green cigarette smoke fits fantasy, perhaps science fiction, and hints at YA or older readers.
A short first line can be as good as a lengthy one. It may not include a lot of detail, but can pack a mighty punch. Here, the main character is already in a hot mess. “I’m pretty much fucked.”
― The Martian, Andy Weir
Further Reading: here are some great opening lines in literature.
Other suggestions from the editor
- Don’t have too many things happening in the sentence.
- Boring is bad.
- Forget the mundane and make the first line interesting.
- Instead of focusing on looking inside a refrigerator concentrate on what’s in it and why.
- Steer clear of passive construction and purple prose—overwritten.
- Be personal, specific.
- Get rid of parenthetical phrases.
- Include a character to connect with the reader otherwise it’s hard to get invested in the story.
- Beware of redundancies such as back-to-back prepositional phrases.
- If it’s 4 AM and early morning, we already know that 4 AM is early.
- Don’t wake up in the first line. Waking up isn’t interesting.
- Too many facial expressions as these are awkward.
- Avoid cliches and exclamation points.
- Don’t write a first line that gives the reader an excuse to put down your book such as, “If you are proper, strait-laced person, stop reading this book.” Even if you’re writing this line to be funny, it may not come off that way.
Instead of writing your opening line with reams of gorgeous sentences about the landscape and the character’s backstory, dig into a scene that starts with a bang, beginning with a compelling first line.
What are your favorite first lines? How do you like to start your stories? Please share your insights with us — including your first line if you wish — below in the comments!
