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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35833
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35833
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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.

Original score: 3