Happy Anniversary!

It has been a long adventure, but here I am, celebrating the eight-year anniversary of this blog. Yes, before COVID, before so much chaos, this was starting off as a thing I was trying out as a way to talk with the writing community. And now, over 600 posts and countless thousands of hits later, I think I am getting the hang of it. More importantly, working through this post has really helped me flex my writing chops. So, to celebrate this anniversary, I wanted to discuss one of the subjects I have learned the most about: The opening line.

No matter what you write, it will all remain unread unless someone else is inspired enough to read it. And, unless the person is assigned to read all of your words, they need to be drawn into your work by something within those grand sentences. This is where the opening line comes into play - it is the hook that draws in the attention of the reader. It doesn't have to be a dramatic moment, explosive action, or even a brilliantly clever play on words. It just needs to contain an element that brings the reader a little closer to the subject, a spark that draws them to read the next sentence. And the next. And the next. And so on. Consider this opening sentence to a story:

My only memory of my father is the image of him spread out on the living room floor, eyes staring into open space. 

It creates an image, but does it tell a lot? Does it make the reader want to go forward? To some, yes - there is a little taste of the unknown in that line, leaving the reader wondering why the father character is in such a pose. But if we drop another hint, the sentence really takes off:

My only memory of my father is the image of him spread out on the living room floor, eyes staring into open space, gun still in his hand. 

Okay, things just got real. With those five extra words, the stakes have been raised and the reader's interest in continuing is pushing toward a need to continue. Those extra words open up a lot of unknowns in the story, and it is the unknowns that make people want to go further. When you make your writing a combination of grounded, sensible information and wildly interesting unknown features, readers go to the next sentence. And the next...

A great writing exercise is to write great opening lines. Maybe they will be so good that they inspire you to write the rest of the story, but for now, try this. Write an opening sentence for a story. Then give it a few extra words that make it exponentially more interesting. This is what will ultimately grab your readers. This is the art of the opening line. 

And it only took me 600+ posts to learn this.