On Openings

Or: How to hook the reader

5 am on Pulau Macan (Photo by me)

Anyone who has put words onto a page knows this. Beginnings are hard, and we obsess over getting that opening line perfect. How many times did you rewrite your opening paragraph? What? Never? You have it perfect on the first try. Wouldn’t that be swell? More likely than not, your first draft will suck, suck hard. And that’s OK. Give yourself permission to write this Draft Suck Zero as long as you finish it. All the way to the end, before you start looking at anything again, especially the beginning.

Oh, you shiver with anticipation to go back and hack at those silly first words, for you will most likely wince and shake your head re-reading them, with a big editing hatchet on a first pass, then go and get some more subtle tools to file and tune and sculpt, get rid of any excess clay, until the sight pleases you.

I am not going to go into quantifying how many rewrites you need until you get your final draft, it’s an individual process, and many famous writers have spoken on that subject, as well as on the matter of openings and how to hook the reader, talking about the five Ws, who, what, when, where, and why. You could do an exercise: write five openings, one for each and see which one you like best. Maybe it’s a mix, or all of them combined.

Before we do that, let’s check ten openings from some books on my to-read list, across different genres, in no particular order. How effective are their openings, and how do we decide which of them to read next if we were to judge by these first few lines?

Opening 01

"May I, monsieur, offer my services without running the risk of intruding? I fear you may not be able to make yourself understood by the worthy ape who presides over the fate of this establishment. In fact, he speaks nothing but Dutch. Unless you authorize me to plead your case, he will not guess that you want gin. There, I dare hope he understood me; that nod must mean that he yields to my arguments."

The Fall (1957) by Albert Camus (Fiction/Philosophy)

While I have read this book in English, it is on my reading list in French. Who is talking? The narrator. One could argue the why is in the dialogue, he wants to help. With what? That would be the order. Where is revealed soon after this passage and when is inconsequential, it could be yesterday, today, or tomorrow. What conversation might ensue? Curious? Good! On to the next example.

Opening 02

"Tonight we're going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man." The guy who said that was a sergeant who didn't look five years older than me. So if he'd ever killed a man in combat, silently or otherwise, he'd done it as an infant.

I already knew eighty ways to kill people, but most of them were pretty noisy. I sat up straight in my chair and assumed a look of polite attention and fell asleep with my eyes open.

The Forever War (1974) by Joe Haldeman (SF/Military Fiction)

We get the what and the who, but there is something about the passage that evokes the why, indirectly. He already knows eighty ways. Why does he need eight more, and why silent (we can guess)? The why becomes the prominent question, above where and when, who or what. Would you read on? If not, maybe the next one is for you.

Opening 03

There was a wall. It did not look important. It was built of uncut rocks roughly mortared. An adult could look right over it, and even a child could climb it. Where it crossed the roadway, instead of having a gate it degenerated into mere geometry, a line, an idea of boundary.

The Dispossessed (1974) by Ursula K. Le Guin (SF/F)

It’s a coincidence that I have two titles from the same year! Promise. I read this book ages ago in German, and I need to re-read it in English one of these days. The beginning describes a where (roadway) and a what (wall). Agreed? Do you want to know more? Who built it? And why?

Opening 04

It was in that year when the fashion in cruelty demanded not only the crucifixion of peasant children, but a similar fate for their pets, that I first met Lucifer and was transported into Hell; for the Prince of Darkness wished to strike a bargain with me.

The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981) by Michael Moorcock (Fantasy)

I read a lot of Moorcock in the 80s but never this one, though. This sentence, while it tells us the when – even mentions a specific year (1631) in the sentence following this paragraph – uses all five Ws. Don’t believe me? Who? Narrator (I) / Lucifer. Where? Hell. What? The meeting. Why? The Bargain. Effective opening? Let me know if you think differently.

Opening 05

I see in Lunaya Pravda that Luna City Council has passed on first reading a bill to examine, license, inspect—and tax—public food vendors operating inside municipal pressure. I see also is to be mass meeting tonight to organize “Sons of Revolution” talk-talk.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) by Robert A. Heinlein (Fiction/Science Fiction)

Another 5-in-1 opening. We are told what (bill) has been passed by who and where. When is not explicitly mentioned but is linked to the time when the bill is passed and why. Taxes! Coincidentally, I received my invitation to declare my taxes online today. Coming back to the text: The narrator’s broken dialect stands out. Does it make us curious?

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Half time! Remember, we are looking at effective openings that hook the reader. How are we doing so far? Take note of your favourite, and let’s have a quick recap before we proceed.

Openings lay the scene in fair Verona or other places (see, there is a bit of intertextuality here, referencing another beginning, something I briefly touched on in THE PAWN, which is not set in Italy). Openings can also convey the central theme of the story. Perhaps in an unusual, foreboding way, a detail that sparks the reader’s curiosity. Did you raise the stakes enough? What about the character’s voice (see Heinlein’s opening), or focus more on introducing your distinctive narrative style? Let’s look at a few more lines.

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Opening 06

The Scopuli had been taken eight days ago, and Julie Mao was finally ready to be shot.

It had taken all eight days trapped in a storage locker for her to get to that point.

The Expanse – Leviathan Wakes (2011) by James S. A. Corey (Science Fiction)

I am currently reading this one but wanted to include a newer example. I did watch the series before I got into the book. We get told the who and the where. High stakes. Is Julie going to survive? You will have to read and find out for yourself.

Opening 07

This is a suicide note. By the time you lay it aside (and you should always read these things slowly, on the lookout for clues or giveaways), John Self will no longer exist. Or at any rate that's the idea. You never can tell, though, with suicide notes, can you? In the planetary aggregate of all life, there are many more suicide notes than there are suicides.

Money (1984) by Martin Amis (Fiction)

The first sentence gives us the what, followed by the who. You may wonder why and if it is true. There is a certain sense of urgency to read on after these few lines. Can you feel it? Effective enough? Too effective?

Opening 08

The naked child ran out of the hide-covered lean-to toward the rocky beach at the bend in the small river. It didn’t occur to her to look back. Nothing in her experience ever gave her reason to doubt the shelter and those within it would be there when she returned.

The Clan of the Cave Bear (1980) by Jean M. Auel (Fiction/Historical)

The when is implicit and already established before you start reading. The author focuses on the who (child) and where (river), telegraphing that her lack of doubt will be tested. Despite the foreshadowing, we may feel less urgency to continue as with the previous example. However, this is a very active scene. We want to find out what is going to happen to the child. And your imagination now runs wild…

Opening 09

Northumbria, A.D. 866–867

My name is Uhtred. I am the son of Uhtred, who was the son of Uhtred and his father was also called Uhtred. My father’s clerk, a priest called Beocca, spelt it Utred. I do not know if that was how my father would have written it, for he could neither read nor write, but I can do both and sometimes I take the old parchments from their wooden chest and I see the name spelled Uhtred or Utred or Ughtred or Ootred. I look at those parchments, which are deeds saying that Uhtred, son of Uhtred, is the lawful and sole owner of the lands that are carefully marked by stones and by dykes, by oaks and by ash, by marsh and by sea, and I dream of those lands, wavebeaten and wild beneath the winddriven sky.

The Last Kingdom (2004 ) by Bernard Cornwell (Historical Fiction)

I hesitated to include this example but felt it illustrates something the other openings do not. It is elaborate and intricate, and the repetition of the narrator’s name creates a sense of authority and rhythm that I found mesmerising. It tells us who, when and where, maybe the what (parchments) but we do not get a why, not yet. The passage takes us back in time to this mythical land that belongs to the narrator. Maybe you feel otherwise?

Opening 10

Takezō lay among the corpses. There were thousands of them.

"The whole world's gone crazy," he thought dimly. "A man might as well be a dead leaf, floating in the autumn breeze."

He himself looked like one of the lifeless bodies surrounding him.

MUSASHI (1939) by Eiji Yoshikawa (Historic Fiction/Cultural)

We conclude this exercise with an example that throws us into the aftermath (what) of a battle of epic scale, unfathomable, soul-shattering, and we are enticed to find out more about Takezō (who) lying among the corpses (where). We get a sense of the theme, mood and setting of the story in very few words, through the use of strong and vivid imagery. Effective opening? Are you hooked? I am, and I decided to read “Musashi” next.

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How does this help us with our own openings? I find whatever resonates most with you from this (or your own) list is something you might want to try for yourself. As I mentioned, I did the exercise and wrote five openings for each W, none of which I picked in the end but it helped me get to the one I currently use, and I won’t touch it until I have finished the first draft, of which I have written 35k words thus far. Act I is complete (Chapters 1-5), and Chapter 6 will be done by the time this post is published.

Here’s the opening from my other project “CARTER,” which I am planning to serialise after a final editing pass. Effective?

“Celebrating Ancient DNA,” Samuel pronounced each word slowly, pondering the title of his essay while sipping hot tea. The soft pitter-patter of raindrops lured his vacant stare towards the chessboard on the coffee table in front of the window, erect in silent protest against months of neglect. He wondered about his online opponent when the tablet rang. Frowning, he set down his cup and answered the call.

The Chronicles of Samuel Carter (2022) by Alexander Ipfelkofer (Fiction/SF)

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What about those ten openings? Which one did you like best and why? Or which one did not work for you? Have you read any or all of these books? Are you planning on maybe reading one or the other after this? Or are you the kind of reader who checks the ending before committing to a book? Moreover, it not only depends on the quality of the opening lines but also on what follows, as well as the preference and mood of the reader at any given moment (a bit like fishing, which I might talk about in a future post, including lines, hooks and baits).

Let me know what you think in the comments below!

Disclaimer: Excerpts are for educational purposes only.