7 Ways to Create a Killer Opening Line for your Novel WRIT 201
Writing a dynamite first line that captivates readers and encourages them to read on is difficult.
Writer and WD contributor Jacob M. Appel shares several different approaches to writing a killer
opening line (and examples from classic novels to accompany each).
Writing the first line to your book is an incredibly daunting task. This is your first opportunity to
hook readers in. I remember writing and rewriting the opening line to my humor book Oh Boy,
You're Having a Girl over and over again until I finally felt like I nailed it with this:
"If you're a guy and you've opened this book, you either have a daughter, are on the verge of
having a daughter, or are in the delivery room hoping that that sweet bundle of joy that just
emerged from your wife somehow, someway, spontaneously grow a penis. I am here to tell you:
That almost never happens."
If you're having trouble nailing your opening, you're in luck: writer and WD contributor Jacob
M. Appel offers up seven different approaches to writing a killer opening line (he includes
examples from classic novels to accompany each, too). Here they are and they are worth
bookmarking and referencing each time you begin a story.
1. A statement of eternal principle.
This technique is a staple of European classics. Think of Jane Austen’s 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.”) and Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (“Happy families are all alike; every
unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”). Of course, the story or novel you write must
confirm the proposed principle. If it turned out that Mr. Darcy didn’t want to wed, or that Anna
was happily married, these openings would certainly leave readers wanting. (An excellent
contemporary example is from Jane Hamilton’s The Book of Ruth: “What it begins with, I know
finally, is the kernel of meanness in people’s hearts. …”)
2. A statement of simple fact.
The entire weight of the narrative can sometimes be conveyed in a single statement. Think of, “I
had a farm in Africa” (Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa) or, “It was a pleasure to burn” (Ray
Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451) or, “I am an invisible man” (Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man). No
gimmicks. No fireworks. Just—as Mr. Gradgrind demands in the opening line of Charles
Dickens’ Hard Times—the facts.
3. A statement of paired facts.
In many cases, two facts combined are more powerful than either one on its own. The
paradigmatic example is the opening line of Carson McCullers’ The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter:
“In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together.” A town with two mutes is
not necessarily compelling, nor are two inseparable men. But a town with two inseparable
mutes? Now that locks in our interest.
4. A statement of simple fact laced with significance.
Because readers don’t read backward, it’s possible to bury a key piece of a story in an opening so
that, by the time it becomes relevant, the reader has forgotten it. Agatha Christie mysteries do
this often. The key to solving the crime in Murder on the Orient Express, for example, is
embedded innocuously in the opening sentence. So is the key to the heroine’s psyche in Margaret
7 Ways to Create a Killer Opening Line for your Novel WRIT 201
Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, the opening of which explains, “Scarlett O’Hara was
not beautiful. …”
5. A statement to introduce voice.
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.” Vladimir Nabokov’s celebrated opening is not
designed to convey characterization or plot, though both are present, so much as to introduce his
distinctive style. Anthony Burgess opens A Clockwork Orange(“What’s it going to be then, eh?”)
without any plot, characterization or setting at all—merely the ominous voice that will
accompany the reader through the text. Stories that begin with a highly unusual voice often
withhold other craft elements for a few sentences—a reasonable choice, as the reader may need
to adjust to a new form of language before being able to absorb much in the way of content.
6. A statement to establish mood.
Contextual information not directly related to the story can often color our understanding of the
coming narrative. Take Sylvia Plath’s opening to The Bell Jar: “It was a queer, sultry summer,
the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.”
While the Rosenberg execution has nothing to do with the content of the narrative, it sets an
ominous tone for what follows.
7. A statement that serves as a frame.
Sometimes, the best way to begin a story is to announce that you’re about to tell a story. English
storytellers have been doing this since at least the first recorded use of the phrase “Once upon a
time” in the 14th century. Mark Twain’s The Adventures ofHuckleberry Finn starts off this way,
as does J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. After all, a brilliant opening can be as
straightforward as: “You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a Winter’s
Night a Traveler …” (which really does start exactly that way).
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