In this, the very first of a new series of Writing Tips blogs — where we’ll be exploring some of the tools, tips, tricks, and techniques to help master your craft and turn a good first draft into an undeniable manuscript — I thought it might be wise to start at the very beginning; after all, that is a very good place to start!
With that in mind, here are some methods you might want to try using to draw your readers into your story from the very first sentence, rather than confuse them into putting your novel down. Please bear in mind that not all of these suggestions will suit your narrative, and as with any of the advice given here on Fortelling, please ensure the suggestion fits your vibe and the story you’re trying to tell before trying it.
1. Be deliberately cryptic or vague.
In my WIP (work-in-progress) novel Fallout Protocol, my very first sentence reads
“I remember it clearly”.
Who remembers it? What do they remember? Why are they specifying and emphasizing that they clearly remember it?
There are already questions. There’s already curiosity. Simple, easy, effective. Immediately you want to know more. You’re instantly looking to the next sentence for more clarity or elaboration. You’re hooked. This sentence follows a 3-point structure which goes like this:
a) Use Pronouns — Pronouns instead of proper names keep things more mysterious and intriguing, so opt for “I”, “we”, “they”, “he”, “she” or “it” to refer to something or someone which you will reveal in the immediate future. If you can manage two pronouns in the first sentence, even better, as this creates potential tension between the characters or whatever it may be.
b) KISS; Keep It Short and Simple —Notice how there are only 4 words in my opening sentence. It doesn’t necessarily have to be that short, but what you don’t want is a long-winded, 3-part sentence with lots of exposition and explanation right off the bat, when you’re trying to be cryptic and vague. This will confuse and disorient your readers into closing the cover. You want to pique their interest rather than overwhelm, so keep the first sentence as short as possible, roughly under 10 words if you can. Reviewing this during your editing phase after not seeing your opener for a while will certainly help, as with fresh eyes, you may spot a more succinct way to get your thought across.
c) Make the Situation Dynamic — I haven’t chosen the strongest approach to this with “remember”, but it performs an action and suggests that in the next sentence, whoever this character is, will reveal what they remember and that more clues are imminent. Typically, someone remembering something is an event, so the suggestion is that an event will be described, and there will be some dynamism involved in what follows. Others get straight to it by using verbs such as “looking” or “met” to make it already feel like something is happening as soon as the reader is dropped into their world.
2. Use Foreshadowing PLUS an Event
When used individually, while not inherently bad, only using one of these two things may not necessarily be the best thing for your first sentence, but together, that’s where their strength lies. Here’s an example of only using foreshadowing:
“When winter came, so too did a wave of death.”
Okay? We have a sense of setting with Winter, and we know there’s a wave of death coming as the story unfolds, but no event; just foreshadowing.
What if we flipped it and only used an event?
“The vision of a tiny, outstretched hand from the little boy was the last thing I saw as he slipped beneath the water after falling through the ice.”
Haunting, sure, but that’s just an event. We know we’re going to learn more about that particular event, but then what? We’ve been told enough detail about how he died, but we haven’t been given much of a reason to continue beyond that sentence.
So when we combine the two, we can strengthen both ideas and hook the reader in.
“The haunting vision of the little boy’s outstretched hand when he fell through the ice on that fateful Winter’s day was only the first of many deaths to plague the townsfolk as the new year began in the bleakest way.”
While this is a longer sentence, it fully illustrates the same point for the boy’s death but also hints at a plague of deaths ahead for the town. Additionally, it has the bonus of narrowing down on setting, as we now know it’s not just Winter, but at the start of the year.
3. Have Action PLUS Tension
Much like with the 2nd tip, this tip works best when two things are combined. For example, we could start with:
“A stranger came into town”.
Simple, sure, but boring. That is, in fact, an action, yes, but no one cares that a stranger arrived in town. What would make them care is if that stranger seemed out of place in the town.
Maybe instead of them arriving in town, they arrive in a jazz club, but that jazz club is set in the 1930s at the tail end of Prohibition, but still during segregation, and maybe it’s an all-black venue in the run-down, poor part of town, but a white man walks in, having assumed it’s either whites-only, or an integrated speakeasy.
“The thunder-cracks from the storm outside drowned out the music in the bar, as everybody stopped and stared at the white man standing in the doorway, drenched from the rain — he quickly realized he wasn’t as welcome as he had hoped.”
Immediately the focus shifts from some dude arriving into town to “that white man doesn’t belong here,” creating instant tension given the time and setting — thankfully, segregation is no longer a thing in most parts of the world, and many people can freely enjoy jazz clubs or any other kind of venue without harassment.
Our starting sentence could still fall flat, though. We know the setting and the time period, so for us as the writers, this reads fine, but the reader has no idea what kind of world this white guy is in or why people are staring. So if we expand this idea a little further, we can add some character as well, which can really help to draw readers into a specific and different world. A good example here would be:reader has no idea what kind of world this white guy is inor why people are staring. So if we expand this idea a little further, we can add some character as well, which can really help to draw readers into a specific and different world. A good example here would be:
“Benny was up on stage and up to his usual tricks — taking away the lead from the others in the trio and rattling out a solo on the drums — when the door to Josie’s bar flung open to the sound of a thunder-crack from the storm outside, and there, stood in the threshold was the palest, wettest hite man in a business suit I ever did see; at first I thought it was a raid, coming to take the liquor again, but it turned out to just be some poor fool in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Not only does this introduce a named character as well as the narrator and the poorly-placed white man, but it also gives us a sense of action — and a bonus of voice. We can hear how the narrator talks as they describe the action of the drummer, Benny, stealing the spotlight from his pals in the trio (as this often happens in jazz groups, where they each get a turn performing a solo), implying the kind of music being played without outright stating it, and we can also hear how they view the white man walking in through the door as it flings open wildly with the weather.
The fearful, then judgemental undertone and Louisiana vibe is present in the way the words are used, while they also describe that the man is soaked from the rain. There’s action from the music, action from the man arriving, and tension from the man being misplaced and from the narrator judging him. All of this is wrapped up into one opening sentence — albeit along one. Once the reader has gotten through it, however, they’re intrigued to continue on.
A shorter version of this could be:
“Benny was up on stage, stealing the spotlight again from the other two, when the bar door flew open to the sound of thunder, where the palest, wettest white man in a business suit I ever did see stood there looking like he didn’t belong, and as he wasn’t welcome either.”
While there’s certainly nothing wrong with this example and it is a little more succinct, I personally don’t find it breathes enough life into the immediate situation if the intention is to reel folks in to want to learn more. I find it delivers the core information but holds too much back still, so I personally would choose the previous example to start my story, but both are acceptable since you can always deliver more information in the second sentence — but the previous example may be more successful at drawing a reader in. The type of book, genre, and audience are also all factors that play into how engaging a first sentence can be, so don’t be afraid to play around with variations and see what works best with your audience as you develop your story.
4. Set the Table
Much like when you put out place mats, knives and forks on a table to prepare for eating a meal, the idea of “setting the table” in a first sentence is to prepare the reader for reading the book. A sense of place, a sense of character, protagonist and antagonist, description of the world all contribute towards setting the table. If you’ve got a lot of world-building and lore, this can be a good strategy to start delving into that world, withoutinfo-dumping, by beginning with a nugget or two of information.
“Koda the giant mountain lion roamed the hillside playfully, just beyond my view, whilst I stepped out to the cliff-edge from deep within the carved-out guts of the mountain, extinguishing the flame of my torch as I spotted another figure amongst the trees below.”
This sentence gives us much to feast on. We’re introduced to Koda, a protective and friendly giant mountain lion to the narrator. Is this story a fantasy if there’s a giant beast which is also friendly? We are obviously also introduced to the narrator. We have a sense of place in that the POV character is on a cliff-edge, emerging from the descriptively hinted-at cave inside the mountain.
They don’t just turn off their torch but extinguish it; this gives you the visual of a hunk of wood which has been set ablaze, and a clue as to the potential period this story is set in. There is also a mysterious figure below, which then intrigues us to read on and find out more about them. Did our narrator extinguish their flame so as not to be seen, or did they extinguish it because it is now daylight? These and more questions arise from setting the table. The genre is potentially spelled out, three characters are introduced, and we get a sense of place for what is about to occur, but we know more is to be revealed from these nuggets. The table is set enough for us to take another bite of our feast.
5. Initiate Inciting Incident
You knew this was coming, surely? It’s a very common piece of advice for first chapters, but how many people place it in the first sentence? We of course need the inciting incident to set off the chain of events which unfold throughout the story, but if you can make it fit into the first sentence, you have an instant hook.
Don’t just start with this though:
“There was an almighty explosion sound!”
That’s not good enough. We don’t want to withhold too much information from the reader. A loud bang doesn’t read as one on the page without a little more information or context. What kind of loud bang? Caused by what? Who is involved? Where? When? This next example helps answer a lot of those questions:
“In the dead of a late April night, a neighbour opened their garage door from the driveway, revealing another person sat tied to a stool in the middle, and as they stepped under the door to meet the restrained individual, they clicked a button to begin the automated lowering of the door back to the ground before slipping a vintage revolver out from the back pocket of their jeans and pulling the trigger with a thunderous and metallic crack sound ricocheting off the aluminium garage door, setting off the nearby alarms of the other residents’ cars in the sleepy suburban street.”
This longer description is indeed one sentence but could be split up to form a whole paragraph. It’s left as a single sentence for pacing though, as you can feel the tension increasing with one action after another, and reveal after reveal, until the crescendo with the gunshot.
We know it’s night-time, in a sleepy suburbia at the end of spring. We can picture the streetlamps and the rain puddles, and we can sense the stillness as the residents rest ahead of their busy work days the next morning. Though something sinister unfolds as we learn of the individual in jeopardy, and the malicious intent of the neighbor pulling out not just any gun, but a vintage revolver, and evidently shooting them with it. What happens next? That’s the first and immediate question after reading that longer, much more descriptive sentence. We’ve had the inciting incident; something shocking has happened in the neighborhood. Now what? That’s how you keep them reading.
Remember, you don’t need to try all of these tips for the same first sentence; pick one that works best for you and make it outstanding! Obviously, the principle of keeping it short and simple is at odds with the idea of a longer, more descriptive opener, so be sure to play around to figure out which works best for your story.
I hope you found these 5 tips, examples, and breakdowns helpful. There are many more where those came from! Why not give a new attempt at a first sentence a try? Whether this is for an existing project or something entirely new, we’d love to hear about it, so be sure to let us know.
I’ll be back with another post soon, but for now, have fun exploring different writing techniques and using all the new features as part of Fortelling 5.0!
