5 Phenomenal Ways to Write an Irresistible Introduction

You must grab them in the first sentence

Without a strong and compelling introduction, the best headline ever written won’t save you.

Why?

You should write an article as you would a thriller.

Both have to have an introduction that sticks the reader to the screen. Whether in a computer, a sheet of paper, or a movie theater.

If you don’t win the first 15 seconds from your audience, you’re history.

Give them enough to move to the next paragraph, then the next, and so on. But don’t you dare belittle the introduction, or you’ll lose the reader.

You put all your effort, your dedication, and your soul into your pieces. Don’t miss the only thing that can catch the audience.

The introduction.

Imagine you’re running a marathon, and you’re in the last mile. But for some reason, you stop.

With 6 months of working hard on your running skills, your pace, your stamina. All those hours of pain and suffering, to do your primary goal of finishing the 42,195kms of a marathon. And you don’t reach your goal simply by negligence?

Don’t neglect your intro. Do it for you. But mostly, do it for your audience.

This Suspense Is Terrible. I Hope It Will Last.

The art of suspense is the best way for you to practice your intros.

You have to study it as you do on grammar or another writing skill to do so. The best way I found is to read thrillers.

If you read a thriller, you start with an introduction that leaves you nailed to the chair. The first few seconds of reading don’t even let you breathe.

When your face starts to turn purple, then you remember that your lungs need oxygen. But for a few moments, the writer tied you up with his words and doesn’t let you go.

This is the art of a memorable introduction.

Dan Brown’s books turned into movies. And the art of a beautiful introduction is something Brown masters like few.

Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery. He lunged for the nearest painting he could see, a Caravaggio. Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-six-year-old man heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall and Saunière collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas.- Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code

Brown created a story about Robert Langdon. A renowned symbologist who ends up on a quest for the Holy Grail. Sophie Neveu is a cryptologist. She’s the estranged granddaughter of the curator who gets murdered in the prologue.

In an endless chase, they race to find evidence that the Holy Grail isn’t actually a cup. But a cache of evidence that Mary Magdalene had a child by Jesus Christ.

The good news, Brown assures writers staring at a blank page, is that your idea does not have to be startlingly original. Ian Fleming’s James Bond, for example, always defuses the bomb and gets the girl. The critical question is how he does it. “Every single idea has been done over and over and over,” Brown explains in the film. “You don’t need a big idea. You need big hows.”- the Guardian.

He found that the classic lessons for newbies are all true but not especially helpful. A teacher told him: “Write what you know” when he was 16, and he didn’t know much. So, he thought: “Write what I want to know. I wrote a book called Deception Point about glaciology and Nasa. I didn’t know anything. I took a year and educated myself, which was part of the fun.”

You don’t need a big idea. You need big hows.

Repetition Creates the Master

Observing some of the most successful writers, we start to discover a conductive line. A principle on which writers work.

In self-improvement, tips on creative writing, innovation and technology, love, or cooking. Writers don’t shy away from the topics they dominate.

They write hundreds of articles on the same topic but in different ways. That’s the magic of writing. It’s not in the originality of the stories. But in the one thousand and one different ways of telling the same story.

I’m going to share the five significant triggers to an outstanding introduction. But right now, why don’t we see who one of the best writers do it?

Here are three intros from one of the most enticing writers of the moment- Tim Denning:

This idea is extremely weird. But I woke up yesterday feeling like I was stuck in a time warp between 2021 and 2020.

The feeling is odd. It makes you question your life. It forces you to question consciousness. I even had another peculiar thought: Am I stuck in a video game controlled by a being from another planet? Who knows.

The first phrase makes you curious. It grabs you to the next one. Then the question. So, you had something to catch your curiosity and then made you wondering about something. You can’t drop that intro. You want to see the answer.

The movie ‘Soul’ is being hailed as a lesson in the little things. This is a noble lesson…yet extremely boring.

I want to shift your thinking, so you can use the movie ‘Soul’ to inspire you to do your version of fulfilling work.

Some sort of pain shared in the first sentence, more like a disappointment. And then, here you go- a promise: do you know what you have to do? Of course, you want to read the rest. Tim promised to shift your thinking.

I’m not proud of this fact. Ignoring your ethnicity is the ultimate crime against yourself.

Well, I did it. I even hid my ethnicity from my girlfriend.

Why? I was embarrassed. So it’s time for me to come clean. I am half British and half Irish.

Again the pain factor. Then humility and straightforwardness. Finally, curiosity as a trigger.

Final Thoughts

In my intro I started with a phrase about a familiar painful feeling new writers experience.

Then came the question.

I guess I’m starting to find a way to grab my audience, don’t you think? If you came across all my articles and didn’t drop out, there’s some hope for me.

And as I made you the promise to share the five major types of introductions, it’s better to keep that promise.

Introduction #1: The Quote

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.- Albert Einstein

Introduction #2: The Statistic or Fun Fact

I believe that the word “studying” was delivered from the words “students dying.” (Fun fact)

Introduction #3: The Classical Narrative

The wind was fiercely moving like her thoughts while she tried hard to tame her curls into a bun. The old man looked at her and smile, reading her thoughts. He looked at the unsettling sea and said: “All that you have is a reflection of you. Look at all the people you have loved and rejoice in your beauty.” She stopped attempting to tie her hair, let it fly free, and looked at him with a beaming smile.- Ernest Hemingway in The old man and the sea

Introduction #4: The Question

If you had to, would you rather fight a single, horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?

Introduction #5: Setting the Scene

Yesterday was our first wintery cold day in Tennessee. I woke up to take my daughter to school and saw my tire pressure warning light up on the dashboard. Crap. I brought my daughter to school and headed over to the closest gas station to get some air. As a still-new car owner and newish driver, I had never filled air in my tires before. I Googled a bit in the car to make sure I knew what I was doing, but when I stuck my bank card and got the hose running, I realized that I was still clueless.- Shannon Ashley

There is an entire world waiting for you to create powerful introductions. Here, with this writing piece, you have the necessary skills and tools to start working on your intros.

I promised you 5 Phenomenal Ways to Write an Irresistible Introduction. I hope I delivered it as you expected.

I’m not a top writer (yet). But I’m a frenetical learner. And you can be, too.

See every article as a piece of architecture written by engeneers of words. They had to calculate every corner of the structure, or the house would come down.

Start digging your first hole to lay the foundations.

Remember that without them, nothing works. Your foundations are: headline, intro, structure, and deliver or conclusion.

These are the pillars of the houses you have to build.

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