The Key Element That Makes a Great First Line

Whether you’re writing the next 1984 or conjuring a regency proposal a la Bridgerton, a great opening will make or break your fiction book. 

But how do you really hook a reader?

This video shows you the top element to focus on when crafting your first line or paragraph. Focus on it and you should successfully cover all the main jobs a stellar opening is tasked with.

The basic question is this: How can you begin a scene in a way that, while symbolizing or hinting at the main conflict, introduces and creates empathy for your main character, builds urgency, sets an overall tone, and generates curiosity?

As you watch the video, think about your pitch or query, which you need to send to agents and publishers if you’re doing traditional publishing. The first paragraph of your query letter always summarizes what the book is about, focusing on the primary tension, unknown, or problem to be solved. Writing an airtight first line or paragraph to your book will clarify exactly where the drama is, which will make developing the first query paragraph significantly easier.

[Transcript summary]

We’ve all heard famous opening lines.

“It was a dark and stormy night.”

“Once upon a time, there was a fluffy pink unicorn named Pinky Sparkles Puff.”

But what really makes a first line work?

All great lines do a couple of heavy-hitting jobs.

So, first, you want to introduce the main character. The goal is to spark some immediate empathy so the reader latches on, like the character is a real person.

Secondly, create a sense of urgency. Building a sense of immediacy helps readers feel invested and motivates them to keep reading.

Set the tone for the entire book or genre. Is it funny, super sad, mysterious maybe? What can the reader expect in terms of how the book feels?

Lastly, generate curiosity. Get the reader to start asking questions about the characters and what’s going to happen next. Create a little puzzle for the reader to find the answer to.

You can make sure that your first line or paragraph does all of these jobs simultaneously if you focus on hinting at the central conflict of your book.

Anna flashed her spatula from one side of the hot pan to the other, willing the freshly cracked eggs to stay centered where she had the best control. She glanced at the rooster clock on the wall, irritated as her husband ran-plodded down the stairs. She wouldn’t be able to clean up her mess right away, but she was determined at least not to make it any worse.

So, when we think of character introduction, we see this woman, Anna, and right away we get a picture of her personality, the way she’s trying to control the eggs, not make her mess worse. We get the sense that she’s a little type A. We get this reference to the clock while she’s in the middle of cooking, you know, she’s rushed, her husband’s interrupting. And yet, she makes this statement about mess that implies she’s gonna have to go back. So, in terms of tone, there’s already a lot of tension and seriousness going on in the way that she’s fighting the clock and trying to keep everything together. And there are all these questions, like, why is she trying so hard to control things? Why is she irritated by her husband? And are we even really talking about the eggs when she’s talking about cleaning up her mess? And all of this hints at the central conflict that there’s something in her life that’s gotten messy that she needs to go back and fix.

So, when you are trying to figure out your opening line, proceed only when you understand what the primary conflict of your book is. Once you understand that and you know how the main characters fit into that, you can go ahead and focus on making sure that the opening hits those four key points of empathy, urgency, tone, and curiosity.