When I am trying to decide if I should buy a book, or someone asks me to give them feedback on some writing, I look for exactly the same thing.

Where is the first conflict in the story?

The truth is you don’t have very long to impress a reader anymore. When you’re trying to sell your book, agents and editors often don’t read any more than the first five pages. And, people looking around in book stores certainly aren’t going to get away with browsing more than the first page.

The first page of a book is often your best bet for snaring readers, agents and contracts with publishers and a good way to get people reading is to introduce a conflict in the first line. Or, at least, something that sets up for conflict in the very near future. (If you don’t have a conflict on the first page, you’re pretty much out of the game at this point…)

Conflict, more than anything else, get’s people’s attention. You’ll need a good plot, strong characters and a steady writing style to keep it—but if you don’t have something good to keep them reading in the first place, they’re never going to reach that awesome character development in chapter three.

So, what the hell do I mean by conflict?

I’ll give you two examples. This was my original opening line from ‘I, Aratika’:

“Purple autumn berries hung in swollen abundance, nestled in crowns of gold and red.”

Sorry if you fell asleep while reading that. It goes on like that for several pages, but thankfully I saw fit to edit all that away before very many people saw it. The new opening line is:

“Come along, Aratika. We are going to lose mother!”

It’s far from ideal—however, there is conflict and we know some things about the characters, right off the bat. First, they are children; secondly they are about to lose their mother. Losing one’s mother in the middle of a busy street is a pretty small conflict—however, it IS a conflict and it quickly leads to another: a heated argument with a store owner and then the primary conflict of chapter one—Aratika being brutally mauled.

Here’s a list of ten opening lines—some poached from fictionpress and some from published works. Read each one and consider carefully which lines inspire you to read on:

1. umber whunnnn
Yerrrnnn umber whunnnn
Fayunnnn
these sounds: even in the haze.

2. I don’t know how I lost you.

3. His footsteps clicking on the broken stones of the street, the boy approaches an old building.

4. Something was in the bread.

5. Connor had received his G2 a couple of months ago but he was still able to drive anywhere he wished.

6. Mark woke up.

7. There are only three truly important questions in the world.

8. I’m an entomologist and curate of insects at Farrow Museum and I write the occasional scientific paper to supplement my earnings, I am not a nobel prize winner, I’m asked occasionally to give speeches but I rarely take up those opportunities.

9. “Well Mrs. Miquire your sink is fixed.”

10. Asengai’s torturers were regular in their habits—they always left off at sunset.

Okay, you probably have your opinions on these, so now we’ll go through them and I’ll express my own and tell you where they came from.

1. Stephen King, Misery. I had to open with a doozy. It’s a hell of an opening line and I retained the punctuation as it is because it’s part of the build. Now let’s face it, we all want to read on and find out what those sounds ARE. Mr King has opened with a mystery and it works.

2. China Mieville, Looking For Jake. I do so love this line. It’s not the catchiest opening line ever—but there is a conflict, someone has lost someone and it projects an air of melancholy which speaks volumes of the relationship between the characters.

3. Unknown author, fictionpress.net. This sentence is a little convoluted. There is the suggestion of future tension: what will happen in the old building? And the ‘broken stones’ give us some idea of the context and setting.

4. China Mieville, Go Between. Pure brilliance. Right away, every readers wants to know WHAT is in the bread, not only because it’s a mystery, but because it’s FOOD. That thing in the bread could have ended up in your mouth! The tension is instantaneous.

5. Unknown author, fictionpress.net. Once again, there is the suggestion of future tension. Anyone with a TV, a phone or access to a newspaper knows how dangerous cars are and what tends to happen when teenagers drive around in them. This story still might be better served with action and immediacy.

6. Unknown author, fictionpress.net. It feels logical to some people as our days start when we wake; scenes should start that way too. Generally, however, it’s a very bad idea. Unless someone is waking up to a gun in their face—and even then it’s better if they don’t. Start with the action.

7. Tansy Rayner Roberts, Splashdance Silver. Another mystery. What are those three questions? I dare anyone to not show a little interest when someone is proposing to know the ONLY important questions in the world.

8. Unknown author, fictionpress.net. This has some punctuation problems. It is also, sadly, as dull as dishwater. There is information here that would be better shown than told and there clearly isn’t any conflict or urgency at all.

9. Unknown author, fictionpress.net. Things not to do: open a scene as the conflict ends. This line does tell us a considerable amount about the setting though—for example there is a married woman present and a repair man and the setting has indoor plumbing.

10. Lynn Flewelling, Luck in the Shadows. I saved the best for last. I picked up this book, read that single line and brought every book by Lynn in the store. At the time, it was two—however I’ve pre-ordered every book she has written since. That’s conflict at its best.

Hopefully reading through those quotes--and my opinions of them--has helped you re-assess how you will approach your own opening lines. A good opening line can sell a book (or two) and a bad one might leave you back on the shelf.

But remember—the perfect opening line is for the second draft! Spending six months obsessing about it before writing another page will NOT get your book written.

Happy writing!

 

Copyright. Talitha Kalago. 2008