<story><title>How to Write an Opening Sentence</title><url>http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2013/01/how-to-write-opening-sentence.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>philh</author><text>&amp;#62; &quot;It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.&quot; --George Orwell, 1984&lt;p&gt;I think I&apos;ve frequently heard this called a great opening line, and I&apos;ve never worked out why. It doesn&apos;t tell me anything that I care about, it doesn&apos;t seem especially clever, and I don&apos;t notice myself having any other discernible emotional reaction to it.&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain?</text></item><item><author>jonnathanson</author><text>Most people stop reading something after the first few sentences. In that crucial 10 to 15 seconds, a book (or essay, or article, or blog post) has to make, and win, a subconscious appeal to your attention. Your reader&apos;s attention span is like a snotty doorman at a hot club. Your opening sentence needs to grab his interest and sneak the rest of the piece into the door.&lt;p&gt;Consider the following examples from fiction:&lt;p&gt;&quot;It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.&quot;  --George Orwell, &lt;i&gt;1984&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;It was a pleasure to burn.&quot;  --Ray Bradbury, &lt;i&gt;Fahrenheit 451&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.&quot;  --Franz Kafka, &lt;i&gt;The Metamorphosis&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Or these examples from nonfiction:&lt;p&gt;&quot;Air-conditioned, odorless, illuminated by buzzing flourescent tubes, the American market doesn&apos;t present itself as having very much to do with Nature.&quot;  --Michael Pollan, &lt;i&gt;The Omnivore&apos;s Dilemma&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I like to take my time when I pronounce someone dead.&quot;  --Jane Churchon, &quot;The Dead Book&quot;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Out of nowhere I developed this lump.&quot;  --David Sedaris, &quot;Old Faithful&quot;&lt;p&gt;This is not to suggest that opening lines should be pure gimmickry, or that they should be conceived entirely apart from the rest of the piece itself. Provocation for provocation&apos;s sake is a game of diminishing returns. Rather, the opening line should immediately intrigue the reader by establishing a compelling tone -- one that the rest of the work will follow.&lt;p&gt;Compelling does not necessarily mean brief, though in modern practice, the two are frequently corelated. That being said, some of the best opening lines in literary history are long and winding. The key is setting up intrigue, however many words that may take.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>summerdown2</author><text>We know what the weather is.&lt;p&gt;The word &apos;April&apos; tells us it&apos;s a time and place similar to today.&lt;p&gt;Clocks striking thirteen tells us it&apos;s somewhere different.&lt;p&gt;Thirteen is a traditionally unlucky number.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s a classic science fiction method of establishing setting. We&apos;re someplace similar to today but a little different, all transmitted in very few words. The effect is a tiny bit unsettling... if they changed the clocks to chime on thirteen, what else is wrong?&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s similar to Heinlein&apos;s famous way of indicating we&apos;re in the future in a single line: &quot;The door dilated.&quot;&lt;p&gt;More here:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://fritzfreiheit.com/wiki/About_Five_Thousand_Seven_Hundred_Fifty_Words&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://fritzfreiheit.com/wiki/About_Five_Thousand_Seven_Hund...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>How to Write an Opening Sentence</title><url>http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2013/01/how-to-write-opening-sentence.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>philh</author><text>&amp;#62; &quot;It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.&quot; --George Orwell, 1984&lt;p&gt;I think I&apos;ve frequently heard this called a great opening line, and I&apos;ve never worked out why. It doesn&apos;t tell me anything that I care about, it doesn&apos;t seem especially clever, and I don&apos;t notice myself having any other discernible emotional reaction to it.&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain?</text></item><item><author>jonnathanson</author><text>Most people stop reading something after the first few sentences. In that crucial 10 to 15 seconds, a book (or essay, or article, or blog post) has to make, and win, a subconscious appeal to your attention. Your reader&apos;s attention span is like a snotty doorman at a hot club. Your opening sentence needs to grab his interest and sneak the rest of the piece into the door.&lt;p&gt;Consider the following examples from fiction:&lt;p&gt;&quot;It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.&quot;  --George Orwell, &lt;i&gt;1984&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;It was a pleasure to burn.&quot;  --Ray Bradbury, &lt;i&gt;Fahrenheit 451&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.&quot;  --Franz Kafka, &lt;i&gt;The Metamorphosis&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Or these examples from nonfiction:&lt;p&gt;&quot;Air-conditioned, odorless, illuminated by buzzing flourescent tubes, the American market doesn&apos;t present itself as having very much to do with Nature.&quot;  --Michael Pollan, &lt;i&gt;The Omnivore&apos;s Dilemma&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I like to take my time when I pronounce someone dead.&quot;  --Jane Churchon, &quot;The Dead Book&quot;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Out of nowhere I developed this lump.&quot;  --David Sedaris, &quot;Old Faithful&quot;&lt;p&gt;This is not to suggest that opening lines should be pure gimmickry, or that they should be conceived entirely apart from the rest of the piece itself. Provocation for provocation&apos;s sake is a game of diminishing returns. Rather, the opening line should immediately intrigue the reader by establishing a compelling tone -- one that the rest of the work will follow.&lt;p&gt;Compelling does not necessarily mean brief, though in modern practice, the two are frequently corelated. That being said, some of the best opening lines in literary history are long and winding. The key is setting up intrigue, however many words that may take.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nagrom</author><text>It sets the scene really well: &quot;A bright, cold day in April&quot; is evocative of exactly that. It&apos;s not pretentious and it immediately puts a setting in the readers mind.&lt;p&gt;&quot;and the clocks were striking thirteen.&quot; is an immediate juxtaposition of something non-intuitive. The first reaction is &quot;Clocks don&apos;t strike thirteen! They strike a maximum of twelve!&quot;. It&apos;s just nonintuitive enough without necessarily being obviously nonsense. And so the reader is engaged to read the next sentence to find out what he means by thirteen. Get the reader to read the next sentence enough, and you&apos;ve tricked them into reading the book ;-)</text></comment>