How Fiction Writers Can Pen Strong Opening Lines

Whether you’re writing the first line of your book or of one of its many chapters or scenes, penning opening lines can be tricky. You only have a sentence or two to hook readers, to grip their attention strongly enough that they’ll allow you to draw them deeper into the heart of your story world.

Opening lines are your bargaining chips. Your siren songs. Your bait.

If you fail to capture readers’ attention, then they might just set your story aside — or, at the very least, find themselves struggling to care what happens next. No good, right? Fortunately, we can glean quite a bit of inspiration for this task by analyzing popular opening lines from literature.

How do opening lines capture readers’ attention?

In preparing this blog post, I began to consider the many reasons why opening lines might grab readers’ attention. Four particular reasons stood out:

1. Opening lines pique readers’ curiosity.
2. Opening lines create an emotional connection with readers.
3. Opening lines provide entertainment, often via humor.
4. Opening lines have shock factor.

Curiosity seems to be the most common hook, and for good reason. By planting a question in readers’ minds, authors encourage them to keep reading in search of answers.

Take these lines for example:

“Kell wore a very peculiar coat.”

A Darker Shade of Magic, V.E. Schwab
 

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

1984, George Orwell

“First the colors.
Then the humans. 
That’s usually how I see things.
Or at least, how I try.”

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

These opening lines ask questions like, “Why is the coat peculiar?” and “Striking thirteen? How is that possible?” and “Wait, is this narrator not human? What’s going on here?”. 

Many popular opening lines in literature, while piquing curiosity, also hook readers with the use of humor, shock, and emotional connection. Take these additional lines for example:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.”

Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov

“Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.”

The Fault in Our Stars, John Green
 

While posing questions is a key component of successful opening lines, making an additional effort to captivate readers in other ways can lend to the strength of your hook.

How Strong Opening Lines Set the Scene

Mood is the atmosphere, or “vibe,” you’d like readers to feel when reading your book. Introducing mood early in each chapter, often within its opening lines, can help captivate readers by immersing them in the atmosphere of your story (i.e. transporting them to another place and time).

When penning opening lines throughout your book, consider the mood you’d like to convey. Do you want readers to feel a sense of hope or foreboding, whimsy or terror? How about peace, trepidation, or adventure? Try distilling this atmosphere into just one or two descriptive lines.

Often, writers use mood rather than curiosity to immerse readers in new chapters when existing conflict or tension remains unresolved. After all, one doesn’t need to pique readers’ interest when they’re already tearing through the pages to find out what happens next.

Take a look at how V.E. Schwab masters mood in this opening line:

“The city looked positively bleak, shrouded in the dying light, as if everything had been painted over with only black and white, an entire palette dampened to shades of grey.”

A Gathering of Shadows, chapter 5, V.E. Schwab

Of course, not every new chapter needs to open with a strong descriptor. Writers most often employ this method when chapters open in new settings or when mood shifts dramatically between scenes.

Crafting Opening Lines That Pack a Powerful Punch

As I’ve often said, every aspect of your story must serve a purpose — and that includes its opening lines. The more an opening line can introduce or reveal to readers, the better. This may include:

1. Character

“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C. S. Lewis 

2. Theme

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.”

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald 

3. Conflict
 

“The shutters swinging in the storm winds were the only sign of her entry.”

Crown of Midnight, Sarah J. Maas

4. Setting

“Ironically, since the attacks, the sunsets have been glorious.”

Angelfall, Susan Ee

5. World-Building 

“There is one mirror in my house. It is behind a sliding panel in the hallway upstairs. Our faction allows me to stand in front of it on the second day of every third month, the day my mother cuts my hair.”

Divergent, Veronica Roth
 

You can also introduce multiple elements in your opening lines, such as these examples do:
 

“Not for the first time, an argument had broken out over breakfast at number four, Privet Drive.”

Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets, JK Rowling

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

100 Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez

“In my earliest memory, my grandfather is bald as a stone and he takes me to see the tigers.”

The Tiger’s Wife, Téa Obreht

How do you choose which elements to feature in each opening line? Often, it takes writing a scene to understand how best to introduce it. The best opening lines are typically honed in revision.

Framing Your Opening Line

With an understanding of how you’d like to hook readers in place, it’s time to determine how you’ll present this tantalizing bait. Will your opening line feature….

1. Dialogue

"'I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one.'"

Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card

2. Action

“When he grabs mama’s wrist and yanks her toward the wall-hanging like that, it must hurt.”

Bitterblue, Kristin Cashore

3. Internal Narrative.

“The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle.”

Paper Towns, John Green

4. External Narrative

“When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.”

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

5. Description

“Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.”

Ulysses, James Joyce

No particular framework is better than another when it comes to presenting your opening line. In fact, you may enjoy writing different versions of your hook to see which is most effective at snagging readers’ attention.

Feel overwhelmed by all the possibilities available to you? Remember that opening lines are often honed in revision, like any other aspect of a good story. Strong hooks require thought and care, and penning them is a skill that’s often developed in time.

Consider analyzing the opening lines in your favorite books for inspiration, then go ahead and dive in. You’ll never know what incredible opener you’ll create until you try.