Writing a gripping first line

Joseph Schmol

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When I think of him and think of her, I want to slap out with my hands until their noses bleed. He comes home late at night and tells me it was work and all the time there's this smell, this cloud around him and it's her perfume, heavy and sweet like orange velvet, the smell of her on his fingers.
QUOTE]

That, sir, is beautiful writing. I love the old feel to it. Thank you for sharing.
 

Simone.Garick

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To write a gripping first line you have to identify three things.

1. What sort of emotion do you want to evoke in your reader with the story.
2. What sort of emotion are you trying to evoke in the first scene.
3. What kind of story are you writing.

For short fiction it is very important to identify a tone and stick with it. Every sentence, paragraph and scene must be in service to the emotional theme of the work.
 

Old Hack

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To write a gripping first line you have to identify three things.

1. What sort of emotion do you want to evoke in your reader with the story.
2. What sort of emotion are you trying to evoke in the first scene.
3. What kind of story are you writing.

For short fiction it is very important to identify a tone and stick with it.

Or you could just write it, without all the analysis, and see what happens. Which is my preferred method. It seems to work for me: I've had quite a few shorts published, and have won a good number of prizes for my short fiction.

Every sentence, paragraph and scene must be in service to the emotional theme of the work.

I agree with this, though. No matter what you're writing you can't afford to have a single word out of place, and the shorter the work the more important that becomes.
 

tommyb

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For me, a short story has to have a gripping first line (or really any other writing). I have to 'care' to read on.

'Two officers stood over the dead hobo in a ditch.' Do I care? No.
'Two detectives stood just off the road in an industrial area, looking down at a dead hobo whose mangled body betrayed more than just a late night hit-n-run.' Do I care? More than with the first one. I have a little more info to work with and to help get my imagination fired up.
'Two detectives stood over a dead hobo reported anonymously, one noting skin under the dead man's nails, and his partners absentminded rubbing of his chest.' Do I care? Yes. I have a dead hobo, and a cop that seems to suspect his partner might know more, we have skin so we will have results coming in...I can make it til then.
 

Joseph Schmol

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For me, a short story has to have a gripping first line (or really any other writing). I have to 'care' to read on.

'Two officers stood over the dead hobo in a ditch.
' Do I care? No.
'Two detectives stood just off the road in an industrial area, looking down at a dead hobo whose mangled body betrayed more than just a late night hit-n-run.' Do I care? More than with the first one. I have a little more info to work with and to help get my imagination fired up.
'Two detectives stood over a dead hobo reported anonymously, one noting skin under the dead man's nails, and his partners absentminded rubbing of his chest.' Do I care? Yes. I have a dead hobo, and a cop that seems to suspect his partner might know more, we have skin so we will have results coming in...I can make it til then.

I prefer the first example. Sometimes short is sweet.

And should you decide to change the "officers" into coppers, and the "hobo" into bum, well ... can I have it?
 
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Jason

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Two cops stood over the dead bum, one noting the skin under the fingernails while the other tried to keep his gag reflex in check by rubbing his chest reflexively.
 

quicklime

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I like gripping first lines, and paragraphs.

I like a good story even better. I believe the best story I have written thus far starts with

He reached the hotel phone by the third ring.


I could have started it with a flaming baby or existential crisis, but that isn't where the STORY started. It started here. Over the next several paragraphs (it was a short story) there's stuff about marital problems, infidelity, mutual resentment, and it (hopefully) builds from there, but the best opening line is the right opening line....sometimes it's flashy as fuck, sometimes it is not. Here's the next couple paragraphs:

He reached the hotel phone by the third ring. He would have ignored it completely, but his cell had gone off a few minutes before, vibrating across the nightstand. He was Chair of his department, and sometimes important people needed to reach him.

"You're killing me, Tom. You know that."

Not someone important, just his wife.

"Is she in there with you, Tom? What does this one look like? Some bleach-blonde Barbie, with perky tits and an airhead giggle?"

"Amy, you're drunk." It was a deliberate slap, and for a moment she hesitated, but only a moment.

"You're deflecting, Tom. But that's what you do, lie and deny, deflect and object, until I just give up."

"There's nobody here, I'm alone. It's late," Tom said.

He smiled at the girl sitting on the bed beside him as he spoke. He could still taste the barest hint of her lips on his own, sweet and floral. Youth.

Eyes lit with mischief, the girl smiled back, sticking her tongue out. They'd met after his conference let out, in one of the bars at the Universal Studios theme park. One of the perks of research was the conferences; dozens each year, all over the world. Vegas, Orlando, San Diego, he'd even been to one in Cannes. He tried for at least four each year, and usually found a girl or three in the time he was away.
 
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Hedwig

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The first time Charlotte Weaver’s mandevilla bush spoke to her, she was running out the door to work.

You say this has been rejected twice? What the . . . I'M SO CURIOUS!

Begin your story in the middle of a scene.

^^That's what I was always taught :D

Great discussion, guys!
 

Harlequin

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Hrm. I guess I just don't think about it in those terms.

I feel like setting out to be gripping is a red herring, and can risk sounding gimmicky.

I guess I think of it as starting with the appropriate first line, in the appropriate place. My first lines tens to be quite neutral, a little abstract, and often long.
 

Hedwig

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I feel like setting out to be gripping is a red herring, and can risk sounding gimmicky.

I think you may have a point. There are times when writers may try to be cute by writing something that isn't actually true in their first line just so they can draw the audience in. If I read a story like that, I'd probably throw it down the moment I realized it was a trick.

But there is also great power in doing it the right way.
 

Gidget1225

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What is everyone's opinion on beginning a story with dialogue? I had an agent who replied that he didn't like it because, "It's like starting a movie with voices over a black screen."

My story begins with dialogue: "Adam, close that trunk!"

Am I wrong to think that such a beginning is more than a black screen? Can dialogue not paint a picture --boy, trunk, commanding person out of sight?

When a middle grader read the opening line, I asked him what he thought about it. He replied, "I'm wondering what's in the trunk."

I thought that I finally had nailed it. Now, I'm wondering...
 

Harlequin

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I think you should start with dialogue if it is appropriate. As dialogue openers go, it sounds fine to me. However, I generally give a book a chapter or two or at least a page before making a decision, and I'm told most readers decide on less (agents too).

I've had an agent complain that my ms starts on a beach because that's cliche. NB: the story is set on a tiny island. So it's beach or... next to a beach.

Chronicles of Amber starts with a guy waking up... And having amnesia. But that is the narratively appropriate place for the story to begin and it can't work any other way. Also, Zelazny nails it.

Everything is execution in the end IMO.
 
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Jo Yan

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My story begins with dialogue: "Adam, close that trunk!"

Am I wrong to think that such a beginning is more than a black screen? Can dialogue not paint a picture --boy, trunk, commanding person out of sight?

Who is speaking -- male female voice-over-speaker young old etc? No sense of voice established.

Who is Adam -- young old big small tough timid etc? No sense of character established.

What type of trunk -- auto (type: new old rusty filthy luxury etc) storage trunk travel trunk [elephant trunk :)] etc. No sense of place established.

Now, had line one been used to solidify one, or more, of those variables, a bit of suspense might add intrigue versus confusion.
 
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Scandal665

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This thread is fascinating!

If I'm not happy with an opening to a short story, I sit down and rewrite different variations to the same opening. Kind of a free writing exercise. I'll see how crazy I can make it, or try different tones. Really try to make each one different. Sometimes I use a piece from one example and different line from another. I find this exercise helps create a stronger opening and often gives me some great ideas for first sentences.
 

Harlequin

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I feel like I'm in danger of developing an allergy to hooky openers.

the only thing I want from an opener is an assurance that the story is well written.

Here are the opening lines for one of my favorite short narratives:

"When I was a boy my brother David and I had to go to bed early whether we were sleepy or not. In summer, particularly, bedtime often came before sunset; and because our dormitory was in the east wing of the house, with a broad window facing the central courtyard and thus looking west, the hard, pinkish light sometimes streamed in for hours while we lay staring out at my father's crippled monkey perched on a flaking parapet, or telling stories, one bed to another, with soundless gestures."

-- Does it grab you by the balls and drag you into the text? I wouldn't have said so, but it's just nice to read and doesn't put me off, which is pretty much all I require. The wierdness is brought on so gradually and gently that you hardly realise what has happened.
 
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Shirokitty

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This makes sense, though most of my first lines are dialogue. I can also say with utmost certainty that they're nowhere near the best lines in my story.

Perhaps I'll have to put more effort into my first lines from now on.
 

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I tend to prefer first lines that gradually take me into the story. I want to be able to catch my breath first before taking the plunge. And my published stories so happen to have such beginnings.
It's all about choosing the right words.
 

Paula Davids

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Hey everyone,

How much influence do you think top-forty culture has in promoting the current concern with ‘hooky’ openings? What kind of pressure does it put on agents (and is the internet really helping diversity, or is it just putting pressure on everyone who wants sales to go for the lowest common denominator)?
For comparison, here is an opening line from a bygone era: the story is Somerset Maughams’ ‘Miss King’.

‘It was not till the beginning of September that Ashenden, a writer by profession, who had been abroad at the outbreak of the war, managed to get back to England.

Also, Karel Capek’s apocryphal ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

‘A young English gentleman, Oliver Mendeville, who was making the grand tour of Italy, received news in Florence that his father, Sir William, had departed this life.’
 

pamrobi

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I agree that the internet and the trend towards more cinematic writing has probably influenced readers' expectations about a good story: we want that instant gratification, and need to be caught up in some combination of an interesting situation and/or voice. But there are many, many different ways of doing this.

By chance, I happen to have a copy of The Best American Short Stories 2003 beside me as I type this, and a few of these opening lines leapt out at me:

From Susan Straight's "Mines": They can't shave their heads every day like they wish they could, so their tattoos show through stubble."

From Emily Ishem Raboteau's "Kavita Through Glass": Now that he had won a lifetime supply of coloured glass, Hassan Hagihossien felt he could endure the vagaries of Ramadan and Kavita Paltooram's moods."

From Sharon Pomerantz's "Ghost Knife": Dimitri and I are half-naked when the woman shows up with the dogs.

Marilene Phipps's "Marie-Ange's Ginen": My name is Marie-Ange Saint-Jaque and I got on that boat.

In each case, I wanted to read further and was not disappointed. I think the key, though, is that each opener is "true" to the story that follows. If, for example, "Mines" had turned out to be about a character at Harvard Law School, I would have been disappointed.
 

Paula Davids

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What do you mean by internet helping with diversity out of interest?

Well… Let me have a go at explaining the paradoxical effect of unfettered access (or at least, give my impression of it). I will take my argument from the music industry which I know quite well (and perhaps you will be able to draw parallels with publishing). Before the internet made it possible for indies to sell their recordings online the only way to get music out to the public was through record companies who put up the considerable capital needed to record, master, press and distribute. A common complaint at the time was that the record companies stifled artistic originality in the narrow pursuit of the profits to be found in high-rotation singles – or top-forty hits. When indie music distribution online became feasible it was first hailed as the dawn of a new era of unfettered artistic freedom – at last musicians could distribute whatever they wanted to. And so they can. But no-one reckoned with the flood of material that would result, the sheer oceanic inundation of information overload. Without canny promotion AND popular appeal even the most original, exquisite work is condemned to oblivion. And so, as a trend, if an artist wants to attract the attention of powerful promoters, they must aim their work at a progressively narrowing aesthetic: they must take care to fit generic expectations and they must promise good returns on investment. Furthermore, because it is driven by the lowest common denominator of populist taste, music is continuing to dumb-down and de-skill – and this is not merely opinion; it is quantifiable.
First, the dumbing down of popular music: if one considers chord changes and melodic patterns to be information then the rate of musical information delivered per second on popular broadcast media has declined steadily over the past seventy years. For example, jazz (heyday 1930-50) contains more information than rock, and rock contains more than rap/hip-hop (increasingly popularity since the 90s) and this can be physically tracked in the rate of note-on, note-off information stored in digital MIDI files – an industry standard code used by computers to control electronic instruments.
Second, the de-skilling of popular music: in the 1950’s every musician was expected to be able to play an instrument or sing. By comparison, I recently attended an electronic dance music festival workshop where none of the aspirant DJs or ‘producers’ had significant instrumental skills, and only a few could sing (the duo giving the workshop had only beginner level skills). Musicians such as these are representative of the artists that dominate the huge dance/house/hiphop market that is the aesthetic plumb-line of young, popular taste.
I believe that there are some parallels with publishing. The increasing volume of self-published material should promise variety and artistic freedom. Instead, something of the same dynamic that affects the music industry seems to be apparent.
I am going to leave things here – I would be interested to hear people’s thoughts on publishing, an area where I am, admittedly, a newbie.
 

Lady Ice

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I would say that the most gripping type of first lines are unexpected or set up significant action. Seeing as I'm too lazy to write my own examples, I'll quote other posters and explain why I think the lines work:

1. As he had every morning for the past month, Jeke Grisham awoke to the sound of his wife, Lorna, screaming.

Unexpected- generally wives don't wake up every morning screaming. Also, immediately plants a question in the reader's mind and thus a motivation to continue reading.

2. I don't know which hurt the most, the fishhook that caught in my ear on Dave's back cast, the lit cigar I dropped down my waders when the fishhook caught in my ear, or the fact that my wife warned me this trip would be a disaster as soon as she learned I was taking Dave with me.

Humour can make for a memorable first line and it warms the reader towards your writing. Also, it makes me wonder why Dave is such a disaster.


3. Back in the Kentucky hills, they say wild ginseng never grows where any man has ever set foot.

This has a wise authoritative tone and sets up the world of the story nicely.

5. I was walking to the door to flip over the closed sign when they came in.

Instantly we are presented with a significant action.

I knew I loved Lydia when I stole her ring.
Snappy and unexpected.

Two cops stood over the dead bum, one noting the skin under the fingernails while the other tried to keep his gag reflex in check by rubbing his chest reflexively.
This doesn't work for me. It's not a bad first line but it's routine. You've got two policemen inspecting a dead body- not even the dead body of a significant person (unless the bum was the main character). If they were not policemen but instead were two schoolchildren, or it was two bums inspecting the body of a policeman, that's gripping because it subverts our expectation. Obviously as a reader I'd be annoyed if that then had nothing to do with the story but it makes me wonder what else might surprise me if I read on.

The first line of a story sets the tone and the style. A tricky witty opening line can work if it's in keeping with the story's tone but it's a cheat if it turns out that the story is a completely different style. You also make it hard for yourself because you have to live up to the one-liner.