How to derive a first sentence from a story?
There is much advice out there on "how to write a killer opening line". Usually these blog posts or how-to-write book chapters list examples of first sentences from recognized masterworks or group them into categories such as:
- A statement of eternal principle
- A statement of simple fact
- A statement of paired facts
and so on.
Using that advice, I can come up with a hundred intriguing opening sentences, none of which fit my book. Because what none of the advice out there tells me is:
How to write a killer opening line for my book. Not just some random opening for a non-existent book, but one that opens my story.
To find a first sentence for a story I have plotted, I cannot simply use the advice to write "a statement of eternal principle". A sentence such as "The sun rises in the east" does not fit many books, although it is a statement of an eternal principle.
So there has to be something more to writing an opening sentence. There has to be some way to find the opening that is inherent in your story. Some way to boil down your story until the first sentence remains.
So what proven methods are there to derive an opening line from a story?
This question is not about beginnings, which I have asked about here.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/35826. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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This may depend on the writer and their style; what I think is a great opening line, and what you think is a great opening line, may be quite different things.
Speaking for myself, I write stories. Not literature, not poetry, not deep philosophy. Stories, about some person, often about learning their place in the world. I don't write repeating characters, my MC is transformed from who she is on page 1, to who she is on page 350 (or whatever).
Thus, my opening line will be about my character doing something, with a minor problem (not yet her major issue that drives the story), that reveals something of her character and setting. Typically not her superpower or what makes her unique, but a secondary characteristic I still think is important: She has compassion, perhaps. She relies heavily on somebody else, perhaps. She doesn't like her boss, perhaps.
The first line is "in media res" on a throw-away problem unnecessary to the plot. It isn't the whole thing, that takes a page or two, but the first line is character driven, contains a conflict for her, and in that first paragraph at least she is feeling some kind of conflict emotion. Dissatisfaction, anger, worry, frustration, resentment, disbelief, etc.
I say "throw-away" because the point of this problem (or issue) is not important to the plot; I want it to pass and the reader to forget about it! This is about immediately investing the reader in my character, her thoughts, her feeling, and how she deals with such a problem. That is all I want them to remember, not that she burned her toast, but that she is a human being that burns her toast. The reader will realize gradually she is a brilliant young researcher in bioenergy, well within the reader's "accept anything" range, but it is not something to open with. From her POV she doesn't think of that, so the information must come from context and other characters she meets in her job.
For now, she is alone, she got distracted thinking, she burned her toast, and is running late. All that is a little more than the first line, I admit. But the first line is the best killer line I can come up with to describe the moment that Brit realizes -- that smell is her toast burning.
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I don't usually write stories. But my theory about the difficulty of begining writing something is, it depends on assumptions about the audiences. If the story still subject to change, the audience may change too, and make the first line feel different.
In the case I write for myself and didn't intend to publish it anywhere, there could be 2 interpretations. 1. I'm the sole reader, and I simply skip the introduction because I know exactly what it is. 2. I don't know the readers at all yet, and it becomes much more difficult to come up with the first line than all other cases.
It appears to require much work for me to think of a general rule. But the idea is, to have some general idea about your story and your audiences first. Try to contain some hints about how your audiences should have supposedly found this work, instead of making it more meaningful in the story. It's natural that the first line doesn't provide much useful information to non-audiences.
For example, it could sound obvious, or contain details that doesn't matter in most cases. But everything the writer writes is supposedly either things the writer already know, similar to being obvious to the writer, or arbitrary for aesthetic reasons. Just not until the writer had the story in mind. The first sentence could be the most obvious or the most arbitrary thing, that the writer doesn't feel necessary to state explicitly if it wasn't the first sentence, possibly even before they had the story in mind, but as a useful baseline for the reader to expect in the rest of the work.
I come up with two bad enough examples (not a native speaker). Just write something better than these:
- I saw a man dying after being shot by a gun. ("Someone shot him" is enough if it's elsewhere.)
- I heard that from my grandma. (Who cares?)
Anyway it probably shouldn't be the best sentence in the whole work in the normal means. Arguably it can be the worst (but don't make your story deliberately worse, just the worst in it), and tells the audience everything else is better, if you choose this option.
You could reinterpret the options from other sources yourself similarly, such as "external principle" as "the most unfounded or unproven", "simple fact" as "the part of the settings farthest from reality", "introduce voice" as "the most ignorant or unreasonable", etc. But not every option is like this.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35837. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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While there is no one single way, here's a practical approach.
You need to be capable of answering a few crucial questions about your work:
- What is the work's overall feel and style?
- What, about the very first couple of pages, do you hope is going to grab the reader's attention, and earn their interest in the story?
- What are the most urgent goals for you the writer in your opening paragraphs and pages?
What you're aiming for is something written in your style, and working towards your goals, that also introduces a reader-attention hook as quickly as possible.
Keep all these in mind, and you'll know what you're trying to do, how to do it in a way that reflects the entire piece. how to lure your reader into tagging along.
An Example
One of the most famous first lines in all of fiction is Jane Austen's immortal opening for Pride and Prejudice:
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
The novel's tone is one of formal, sober prose, but full of wry wit and observations of Austen's society. Therefore, opening on a single, condensed wry observation, stated as a formal certainty, does a great job both introducing Austen's style and encapsulating it in a single line. "If you like this line, you're going to be on board for this novel."
The author's immediate goals include establishing the Bennet family and their situation, and introducing the central conflict of matchmaking to assure one's future -- both one's happiness and one's financial security. This line makes the theme clear and explicit, and sets us up to segue into the specifics of the Bennets and their responses to the new arrival in the neighborhood. This means the line doesn't feel out of place -- it has a purpose; it is advancing the story; it is necessary.
And what of the reader's interest? How does the first line help the reader want to continue reading? Here, there is a double hook: humor, and impending conflict. A reader intrigued by the obvious irony and cynicism of the opening, may read on, to read more things that will make them laugh. And the second hook is the tension of wanting to find out more, of wanting to see what will happen -- who is the young bachelor; what does he really want; how will he respond to the implied attentions he is about to receive? The reader has ample reason to turn the page and read on.
Austen's answers to my three questions aren't trivial, and yours don't need to be, either -- although easy answers work just as well.
- Examples of "feel and style" can be the zany energy of a humor piece; the cerebral curiosity of a Hard SF story; the unique voice of one particular character.
- "What is the first thing I want to grab the reader's attention" might be riveting action; a delicious turn of phrase; a philosophical conundrum; a promise of a sex scene just round the corner.
- "Immediate author goals" might be getting in some crucial exposition; kick off the murder investigation; get the reader's blood pumping; establish where this story falls in the canon of a beloved series.
This is about as close to a pragmatic set of instructions as you're likely to get. Simply because constructing the first sentence of a creeping horror story centering on a sympathetic-but-offbeat character, is by nature entirely different from constructing the first sentence of a satirical fairy tale about the bleakness of the modern human condition.
But I think these three questions will focus you, into very clear goals and constraints. Once you have such a concrete idea of what you're aiming for, ideas tend to surge and offer themselves -- and you can try a dozen different variations until you feel like you're homing in on something that works.
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As you have already stated the most important part is to have the finished story ready so that you really know what will happen - plans are great, but they never survive the first contact with a beta reader.
Beta readers are an important aspect of finding out what fits your style. Especially because you have to find out what your general style is. Do you always write long sentences and seem to love describing scenery? Then your first sentences should be long and describe the stage. Do you prefer short sentences, focusing on the actions of your characters? Starting with a fast scene might be perfect. Are you good at describing emotions? The feelings of your protagonist in the first scene might be a good starting point. Are you funny? A little joke might be a good icebreaker. Your beta readers can tell you what you are good at. Not what you think you are good at - but what you really are good at.
By making sure that you know what readers think the style of your book is you can make sure that potential readers can discern whether they like your style with a couple sentences. Don't write a long philosophical everlasting-principle-phrase when you want to get your reader on to a rollercoaster ride of emotions. Don't write a long beautiful scenery description if your focus will later be on the amount of ammunition left in the magazines of the people shooting at your protagonist. Don't write a short shout-out if you are later going for detailed descriptions.
Your goal is to set the stage and show your reader what to expect from your style.
Hooking your reader is worthless if they put the book aside two pages later because your style seems to have changed dramatically.
After that you have to think about when, where and how to incorporate this. You already have a "finished" book, but you can still add a sentence or two or cut some off. It depends on your work and in the end it's up to you to decide the specific details.
Maybe you planned to start with your protagonist thinking back to a heist that just happened and talking with others about what to do next, but your readers told you that the best parts were the action scenes. Why not start a few minutes earlier with the heist? You are trying to reach action fans after all - so give them action! The same obviously applies to other styles.
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