
It is every writer’s goal to create that ‘Hemingway-esque’ opening that stays with the reader even after it has done it’s job of dragging the reader down thousands of words into the story. In Writing, as with relationship, first impression matters. And you have just one shot at it. It is why the start of that story is the hardest, so you stare at the blinking icon and not knowing how to start.
Less experienced writers spend time crafting that jugular ending, some stay with building the body but forget that the opening line is what people read and decide for themselves if they should go on it just use that time and play candy or watch porn. Your opening determines the fate of your work. You might have a powerful idea somewhere in the middle or this mad ass ending, but no one will get to that point –well, except the person trying to fuck you– if your opening doesn’t make them.
Here’s a quote by Jacob M. Appel on Openings in Fiction:
“An Opening Line should have a distinctive voice, a point of view, a rudimentary plot and some hint of characterization.”
Distinctive voice; also read as tone. As momentum. How do you plan on sounding? What pace will you be going with?
A Point of View; First person? Third Person? Second Person? Ominiscient or Limited? Which is the narrator going to be?
A Rudimentary Plot: A short, yet precise idea of what the story is going to be about. Is it something funny? Will we be solving a mystery as we go on?
A Hint of Characterization: What kind of person am I going to be meeting in this read.
I know you’re wondering how an Opening can achieve all these, an opening of merely ten seconds. Yes, ten seconds is how much time you have to make an impression. Ten seconds is how much you have to convince that girl that you’re funny, not stupid. Ten seconds is how much that salesman has to convince you to get that SIM card. How do you achieve this?
– Build Momentum. Come in with a tone and a force. Your first line should be complete on its own, yet leave the reading wanting more.
“In the Beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.” – The Bible.
Clear, complete sentence. A definitive tone. If you want more, you have to continue. And you do know you want more, whether you agree or not.
“Mother died today. Or maybe, yesterday, I can’t be sure.” – The Outsider, Albert Camus.
A complete sentence, but you can’t rest because you want to find out what kind of a son is flippant about the death of his body. The tone is untrustworthy, and you want to find out more. More about this mother, and more about this son. More about mother’s death.
– Please, don’t go into narrations that doesn’t involve actions. Nobody wants to read of people sleeping and waking up, then eating toast bread with jam and trekking to work. If the character’s not-so-weird habits are essential to the story, find someone where to bring them up, don’t start with it.
– Don’t Bite more than you can chew. In your trying to impress, resist the urge to throw in the most compelling hook and end up disappointing the reader as they read on. If the hook is too big, you’ll have trouble maintaining that momentum as you go on. Writing is like music, you don’t hit the highest nite as you start.
– Start at a Distance, then Close in. Start from a far off point then close in on the real point you wish to make. Want to write about Ifeoma in Nekede? Start with Nigeria, then zoom in to Owerri, then close in to her father’s compound in Nekede.
– Don’t confuse and hope to remedy it with more information. Your readers are an impatient bunch, don’t annoy them. Don’t start out with confusion and hope that things will become clearer and they’ll appreciate it more as they read on. They won’t read on. Your opening should have the ability to make sense whether they read on or not.
– Start with a minor mystery
– Again, establish tone, pace, and a bit of character in your first paragraph with as less words as possible.
– Read the masters doing their own openings. You can read up Best American Short Stories. Short story writers are the best when it comes to pulling off the best openings. Read them.
Below are a few powerful starting lines:
“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing on New York.” – Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath.
“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.” —Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude.
“I STAND AT THE window of this great house in the south of France as night falls, the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life.” – Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin.
There are many out there. Read up. Practice many styles, attack it from different angles till you find that one that sticks when you read it aloud to yourself. There are many ways to start, take as much time as you need figuring it out.