How do you grab attention to your story? The start of your story may be the most important thing you write. Some opening lines are so famous, they’ve become part of our everyday conversations. Can you start story with an equally compelling opener to grab attention? Use our tips, along with examples from famous writers, to craft your own inviting, unforgettable opener.
- Start Your Story Strong to Grab Attention
- What Makes a Great Opener to Grab Attention
- What Story Are You Telling?
- Start You Story with Characters That Grab Attention
- Start Your Story with Your Setting to Grab Attention
- Tell the Reader What to Expect to Grab Attention
- Use Your Themes to Start Your Story to Grab Attention
- Set the Mood
- Get Your Story Off to a Strong Start
Start Your Story Strong to Grab Attention
A good opening line—or a strong first paragraph- invites readers in by intriguing them, making them wonder what’s going to happen, or tantalizing them with mystery.
When a reader picks up a book, they typically start by being attracted to the cover, checking out the story blurb on the back, and then opening the first page. A well-written opening will grab attention and make it much more likely that they’ll decide to buy your book.
What Makes a Great Opener to Grab Attention
Your opening line needs to do a lot of work. It must:
- Invoke curiosity.
- Grab the reader’s interest.
- Tempt the reader with the promise of more.
- Hook them emotionally.
- Make them decide to buy the book.
When you write the opener, keep this in mind. Take the time you need to craft an opening that will start the story strong to grab attention and keep the reader hooked.
What Story Are You Telling?
To help you write your opening lines, start by deciding whose story you are telling. Are you focusing on your main character, or the overall theme of the book? If you’re telling a genre story, your opener should meet the conventions of your genre to grab attention.
Start You Story with Characters That Grab Attention
If you want your readers to care about your story, you must make them care about the main character and what happens to them. You can do this by describing the character and their current situation. Make the reader feel an immediate curiosity about how they got there, who they are, what they care about, and what they are going to do next.
Here’s an example:
“Shadow had done three years in prison. He was big enough, and looked don’t-[mess]-with-me-enough, that his biggest problem was killing time. So, he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife.”–Neil Gaiman, American Gods
From this paragraph, you know the character’s name, that he’s in prison (for what?), that he looks tough, and he loves his wife. You learn what matters to him, and that he prefers to avoid trouble. It’s enough to grab attention and make you wonder why he matters and what happens next.
In another example, the opener focuses on a secondary character but still makes us care about what will happen to him:
“Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her.”–Mario Puzo, The Godfather
This opener doesn’t even mention the book’s main character. It describes someone who is troubled and looking for justice after something terrible has happened to his daughter. Will he get it, and what will he do if he doesn’t? If you’ve read the book or seen the movie, you know the answer, but a new reader will be curious.
Start Your Story with Your Setting to Grab Attention
In some books, the setting tells much of the story. Your story might be a fantasy, historical fiction, or feature an international jetsetter. Some writers become known as the “voice” of a particular location because they’re so good at taking you there. Opening with a setting is an effective way to grab attention about where they are going with your book.
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: It was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”–J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
This opener works because “hole in the ground” sounds uninviting, but Tolkien upends your expectations by telling you that a hobbit-hole is different, making you wonder what it’s like and what a hobbit is.
“Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again.”–Daphne DuMaurier, Rebecca
In the example from Rebecca, you don’t yet know what or where Manderley is, but it is obviously important because the writer is still dreaming about it. DuMaurier has invoked wonder, curiosity and a sense of being haunted in one simple sentence.
Tell the Reader What to Expect to Grab Attention
Use your opening to make it clear what type of book they’re about to read. A strong opening paragraph can combine elements of characters, setting, and mood to leave no room for doubt about what’s ahead and grab attention.
That can be straightforward, like this opening that immediately places you into the action:
“Once, there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air raids.”-–C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
That opener reads like the start of a fairy tale, and it lets you know right away who the characters are and when the story takes place. It also makes you wonder what the “something” that happened to them is.
A good opening can also grab attention if it invokes strong emotions, like this one that has made millions of readers feel uneasy, leaving no doubt that they’re about to read something spooky:
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against the hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”–-Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
Use Your Themes to Start Your Story to Grab Attention
What is the overall theme of your book? In Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, the opening lines don’t seem to have anything to do with the plot, but they set out what the author wants to say about themes are relationships, love, and how societal expectations shape them:
“All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”– Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
In another example, the author makes it clear that, although the story is his own, he’s withholding judgment and letting the reader decide whether it’s been a good one:
“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”– Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
Set the Mood
When you start your story, set the mood for your book right away. This is especially important if you’re writing genre fiction. Readers of those books have certain expectations. They’ll lose interest if you don’t meet them.
“If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, but there is also no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle.”–Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events
This opener tells us to expect something dark and mysterious:
“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that, every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husband’s necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”–Raymond Chandler, Red Wind
This attention-grabbing opener lets you know that you’re about to read a tough story that will probably involve violence, mystery, and a hard-bitten detective, all of which is what you expect from a Chandler story.
Get Your Story Off to a Strong Start
A strong opening will hook readers and get your story or novel off to a powerful start. With a little work, you can craft an opener that will compel readers to finish your book to the end.
We hope you found these tips useful. When you finish writing your book, get it professionally printed with help from Dazzle Printing.
