Memorable Opening Lines
A great opening line is the literary equivalent of a dazzling smile or a firm handshake—it’s attractive and inviting, and it creates a favorable first impression. A terrific first line can make the difference between a reader’s putting your book back on the shelf or taking it over to a chair and sitting with it, engrossed, forgetting about everything else but the story unfolding around her.
As a writer, get into the habit of consciously noticing the first line of everything you read. Take note of the line’s effect on you—did it draw you in or leave you cold? Why? How do your favorite authors begin their best works? The following are some examples of literature’s grabbiest openers. What do you think makes them so engaging?
“It was Wang Lung’s marriage day.” ~ Pearl S. Buck, The Good Earth
“Later that summer, when Mrs. Penmark looked back and remembered, when she was caught up in despair so deep that she knew there was no way out, no solution whatever for the circumstances that encompassed her, it seemed to her that June seventh, the day of the Fern Grammar School picnic, was the day of her last happiness, for never since then had she known contentment or felt peace.” ~ William March, The Bad Seed
“The first time Caesar approached Cora about running north, she said no.” ~ Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad
“The headline for Richard Boss Ribs would be Indian Man Killed in Dispute Outside Bar.” ~ Stephen Graham Jones, The Only Good Indians
“When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him.” ~ Cormac McCarthy, The Road
“This may be hard to believe, coming from a black man, but I’ve never stolen anything.” ~ Paul Beatty, The Sellout
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.” ~ Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
“To Mrs. Saville, England: You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.” ~ Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
“Her doctor had told Julian’s mother that she must lose twenty pounds on account of her blood pressure, so on Wednesday nights Julian had to take her downtown on the bus for a reducing class at the Y.” ~ Flannery O’Connor, Everything That Rises Must Converge
“He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.” ~ Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
“When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself changed into a monstrous cockroach in his bed.” ~ Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis
“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” ~ J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
