Constructing the Perfect Opening Line

Examples and tips on doing it well

Sure, I’ll tell you where I buried the body.

But first, you must finish reading this article on crafting a flawless opening sentence. (See what I did there?)

Constructing an opening sentence is the worst part of every writing venture. I’ll go ahead an say it: it sucks. I hate it and I’m not ashamed. I’m not ashamed because bad first sentences don’t make you a bad writer — they represent your impatience.

This isn’t an article about “big major keys” or writing hacks, but if there was a secret it would be: have patience. Opening sentences are important — they’re the first impression of the story the readers have coming at them. It doesn’t matter what the words of the sentence are, but the sentence must introduce your reader to the narrator’s voice, set the mood for the story, and set an audience’s expectations.

Your audience expectations should always be high. You’re proud of your work, right? That’s why opening lines must be exceptional. Read on to find out how.

An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.

— Stephen King

Setting the Mood

You have to know the tone and mood you want to set for your story, and more importantly, the voice of the narrator. The mood, or tone, of a story is important for how your reader reacts to events, just how you might buy red light bulbs and rose pedals for a Tinder date that’s en route, but you’d put on Fox News, plastic your couch, and make tea if your grandmother was en route. Different interactions require different moods.

Take the opening line of Jonathon Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels:

My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the third of five sons.

— Jonathon Swift, Gulliver’s Travels

Swift, right off the bat, is establishing this matter-of-fact tone with the narrator. He continues:

He sent me to Emanuel College in Cambridge, at fourteen years old, where I resided three years and applied myself close to my studies; but the charge of maintaining me, although I had a very scanty allowance, being too great for a narrow fortune, I was bound apprentice to Mr. James Bates…

— Jonathon Swift, Gulliver’s Travels

The narrator never lies — that’s what Swift is showing us. He’s to the point, lending credence all the more to the story he’s about to share, a story of tiny people and giants, lost worlds and the vast expanse of our imaginations.

But it’s the paragraph that has the effect, not only the sentence. Let’s look at a more shocking opening line for this. Take Ulrica Hume’s Poppies:

I was born upside down, the umbilical cord looped twice around my neck.

— Ulricha Hume, Poppies

That’s much more straightforward. The opening line sets an abrasive tone, jerks you at the soul for a moment, and is perfect for the dark and tender first-love story it’s about dive in to.

Establishing the Setting

Great first-lines can be used to establish the setting of a story, in perfect harmony with the tone of the story. The most cited example of perfect opening lines come from George Orwell’s 1984, reading:

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

— George Orwell, 1984

Thirteen? That can’t be true. You must read on to find out how that could be possible. Everyone gets hung up on the clock-striking-thirteen bit, but just as important is the bright-cold-day-in-April bit. It gives us a time, and it gives us an image. As Orwell moves forward painting this dystopian future, the cold, blue tones setting influences how we feel as readers. Scared, downtrodden, cold but hopeful.

One of my favorite lines of all times — the line to rule all lines, so to say — is straight from Tolkien’s The Hobbit:

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Tolkien relies more on a descriptive setting than shock value, but all the same it builds a wonderful contrast between what we’re given at the start and what’s about to happen. It’s a Hobbit-hole, which means comfort, but the inhabitant is about to be slung into the most uncomfortable situation of any Hobbit’s life in Hobbit-history.

Remember These Two Things

First, remember that patience is the key to crafting an intriguing, witty, profound opener. You don’t need to wait months or years, but I wouldn’t spend an hour staring at a wall forcing it to come. It may come naturally, you just have to think about the story, and recognize something within it that you could allude to in the opener. What opening line would make you read this story if you didn’t write it?

Second, along with the first, is that your opening line shouldn’t be the best line in your entire story. The opener sets the expectations, and if it’s great, the rest of the story should be, too. Read any of the greatest openers and imagine the second sentence is, “Then I took poo.” It’s awful writing, gross, and would completely mask the perfection of the line before it. Openers don’t have to be perfect; they just have to be good as long as you’re consistent. Initial intrigue may carry the reader through another paragraph or two of bad writing, but they will give up eventually.

As for where I buried the body…read my article on suspense later this week to find out.