Love storyo last line3/16/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Get readers to ask a question about your story. However, this second tip is the one most blatantly about hook-planting. Actually, all four of the tips we’re looking at here are ways of hooking readers, getting them to sit up, take notice, and say, Yes, this is a book I want to read. But how to plant that hook is somewhat less clear. Ask a QuestionĮverybody knows the most important job of any opening line is that of hooking readers. Your story can be amazing, but if you fail to share that in your opening line, how are readers ever going to know? 2. Your opening line tells readers what your story is about. What it means is that the essence of your story’s questions, its angst, its focus, and its themes should all be swimming in the subtext of your opening line. Naturally, this doesn’t mean spelling out the entire plot (except for when it does). Your opening must do more than hook readers, it must immediately fulfill the promise of your premise’s hook and thematic question. When you know where the story is going, you then have the ability to craft an opening line that asks all the right questions. John Irving is famous for writing his closing line first, and that perhaps is the secret to his opening lines. Whenever possible tell the whole story of the novel in the first sentence.-John Irving (And all the angels sing!) But for all those times when you sit down in excitement to begin your amazing new story, only to spend the first hour staring at the blinking cursor, wondering how in tarnation to find an opening line that works, here are four tips to get your started. Occasionally, lightning will strike and the perfect line will zing from the ether to your brain to your Scrivener doc. One of the top reasons beginnings are hard is because the entry point-the opening line-is perhaps the hardest part of all. I carp a lot about how tough beginnings are. Perhaps your opening and closing lines may even end up on most-quoted lists right alongside such luminaries as Austen, Melville, and Tolstoy! 4 (and 1/2) Tips for How to Write an Opening Line That Shows Readers You’re the Boss But no worries! There’s actually a handy little checklist you can use when figuring out how to write opening and closing lines that will stick with readers long after their initial Amazon scan. That’s a lot of pressure to put on two little lines. It brings your story full circle, leaves your readers with an indelible impression of your book, and, once again, proves whether or not you’re the master of your story. Even though few people will read your closing line prior to finishing the book, it is still arguably the second most important line in the entire story, right after the first line. Similarly, closing lines are every bit as important in their own right. A sloppy, casual, or plain-Jane opening line instantly makes me suspect I’m looking at the work of an author who is an outright amateur or, at the best, someone who lacks that special “it” factor that takes prose from “all right” to “awesome.” ![]() When I’m scanning an Amazon preview to decide if a book is going to be worth my time, the first test is always the opening line. ![]()
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