By: Jennie Nash
My mission as a book coach is to help writers write the best
books they can, which means paying attention to:
- the macro elements (the story or argument the book makes)
- the micro elements (the words on the page)
- the emotional realities of the writing life (the habits that lead to success)
I’ve developed a series of posts to help you learn how to
write one really great chapter so that you can take those
lessons and apply them to all your work. Up first? How to write a great opening
line.
Hook Your Reader With a
Great Opening Line
Readers in the Information Age are expert consumers, and they
tend to make lightning-fast decisions about whether to buy a book or to keep
reading it. Many times, they make a judgment based on just a few opening lines.
Why read further, after all, when there’s another book – or a post or a podcast
or a funny meme about cats — just a click away?
It pays to write a great opening line that hooks your reader
and yanks them into your story. A great first line can give your readers the
DNA of the whole book, which serves as a promise and an invitation we can’t
refuse.
As Stephen King says:
“An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story.
It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.”
A quick clarification: what do I mean by the first line? I am
not being strict here; it doesn’t have to be just one sentence or just one
actual line of text. Think of it as the first breath of the novel, the first
gulp.
Key Elements of a Great
Opening Line
. . .
To read the rest of the post, click here:
~*~
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