Hook 'Em

How to write a killer opening line

“There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never know where they’ll take you.”

- Beatrix Potter

5 seconds.

That’s how long you have to capture your reader’s attention.

Readers are like fish: if you don’t hook ‘em, they’ll just keep swimming.

The good news is, you can use a variety of openers to captivate your audience.

Let’s consider four strategies for starting strong:

1. Dialogue

Have you ever been sitting in a coffee shop or standing in line at the grocery store when you overheard a snippet of conversation that immediately piqued your interest?

One minute you’re minding your own business, sipping your latte or lamenting the price of eggs, and the next you’re eavesdropping *overhearing* a juicy conversation between two strangers.

That’s the effect dialogue openers have on your reader.

I recommend dialogue openers for short-form nonfiction because they give you the feeling of eavesdropping—and let’s be honest, we love to be privy to other people’s secrets.

Consider these examples from two of my published articles:

1. “Allana, are you well enough to be here?”

The Dean of Students looked me straight in the eye. My heart sank, stricken by the seriousness of his tone.

(“When Healing Resembles the Slow Unfolding of a Rose,” GCD)

2. “I have a master’s degree,” I sighed, spraying the toilet seat with blue cleaner. “A master’s degree!”

   (“Finding Jesus in Aisle 3: What Working in Retail Taught Me About Serving Christ,” GCD)

Dialogue openers are also highly effective for novels and memoirs because they can establish several story elements—relationship, conflict, objective, etc.—in a single line (or two).

Here are two examples from classic children’s literature:

1. “Where’s Daddy going with that ax?” (E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web)

2. “TOM!”

   No answer.

   “Tom!”

   No answer.

   “What’s gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!” (Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer)

2. Voice

Voice openers are similar to dialogue openers, except the person being addressed is you.

Voice openers work well for first-person POV fiction:

“I am old now and have not much to fear from the anger of gods.” (C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces)

They also work well for memoirs or personal essays when you want to focus on a particular aspect of your identity:

“I am a man who tilts. When I am sitting, my head slants to the right; when walking, the upper part of my body reaches forward to catch a sneak preview of the street.” (Phillip Lopate, “Portrait of My Body”¹)

Voice openers give us an immediate glimpse of who you are and why we should care about your story. They flesh out the nuanced “who” and “what” behind that enigmatic “I.”

3. Setting

The key here is intrigue.

Don’t give us a bland description of the story’s landscape; give us unconventional or oddly specific details about the setting of your story—something that will make us want to be there.

“You must go back with me to the autumn of 1827.” (Anne Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall)

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“In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three.” (Diana Wynne Jones, Howl’s Moving Castle)

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“One foggy January morning in 1977, a few hours before dawn, a DC-8 freighter crashed on takeoff at Anchorage International Airport, killing the five people aboard and fifty-six head of cattle bound for Tokyo. Reservers found the white-faced Herefords flung in heaps through the thick, snowy woods, their bone-punctured bodies, dimly lit by kerosene fires, steaming in the chill air.” (Barry Lopez, “Flight”²)

4. Character Description

If your novel, memoir, or short story centers heavily around one key character, it’s important to give us a clear, vivid portrait of that character.

As an editor, I often see writers hyper-fixating on mundane details of their characters’ physical appearances in a way that leaves me feeling like I’m staring at a row of Barbie dolls. (A mistake I, too, have often made!)

But if you study masterful character descriptions, you’ll notice that they’re less about listing off a character’s hair length, eye colour, and the shape of their nose so a detective can pick them out in a police lineup and more about giving us unique and revealing details about your character’s personality:

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“When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance from his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun.” (Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd)

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“When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.” (Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden)

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“I have no photograph of my mother cooking, but when I recall my childhood this is how I picture her: standing in the kitchen of our suberban ranch home, a blue-and-white terry-cloth apron tied around her waist, her lovely head bent over a recipe, a hiss of frying butter, a smell of onions and broth, and open like a hymnal on the counter beside her, a copy of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” (E. J. Levy, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”³)

Give us a glimpse of their soul.

Hey, wordsmiths! Want to sharpen your pencil even more? The Gentle Editor offers reading recommendations and homework exercises exclusively for paid subscribers.