Hi Reader,

When you start writing, you start studying. I’ve found myself paying a lot more attention to the opening lines of my favourite authors lately. I’ve started noticing the mechanics and thinking about why an opening makes me sit up and take notice. What it is that pushes me to keep reading that story.

So, here's a question. What is a first line, or two, actually supposed to do?

The obvious answer is that it should draw you in. But the best openers do something more than that. They establish a kind of contract with the reader. They announce the sort of book they are, before you’ve had any real chance to form a different opinion.

Lee Child opens his first Reacher novel, Killing Floor, with six words: 'I was arrested in Eno's diner.'

That's it. No scene-setting, no character description, no preamble. You're in the middle of something before you know what the something is. Child doesn't explain why Reacher was arrested, or whether he did it, or what Eno's diner is. He just starts the clock. From that sentence, the only direction is forward and you’re propelled headlong into the story.

Michael Connelly does the opposite in The Poet. Ten words: 'Death is my beat. I make my living from it.'

Where Child throws you into action, Connelly stops time. That opening is a statement of identity. It tells the reader that death is not just the narrator's job, it defines his whole relationship with the world. You know exactly what kind of man this is before you know his name. Voice established in ten words. That's not an easy thing to do, but Connelly pulls it off magnificently.

Then there's John Sandford, opening his latest Prey novel, Revenge Prey, with this:

'She had long blond hair and was almost pretty, in the manner of tennis jocks and female gymnasts; too much muscle in the face and arms and butt for the smooth baby-fat look of fashion models or movie stars.

Because she wasn't one.'

The first sentence is building a picture, making comparisons, positioning this woman relative to a type she almost fits but doesn't quite. And then the second sentence turns around and collapses the whole frame. Four words. You realise the narrator knew exactly what she was the whole time, and was leading you somewhere deliberately. That's personality. That's a writer with enough confidence to start you along one path, before upending you and sending you somewhere completely different.

While those three openings are very different to each other, they’re also remarkably similar. All three of them work on two levels. On the surface, they pull you forward, but on a deeper level, they've already told you what kind of story this is. You usually don't notice the second level until you're nearing the end of the story, or even finished. It’s when you stop to think about the nuances that it dawns on you how foretelling the opening was.

A weak first line doesn’t have that deeper level. It clears its throat. Establishes the setting. Assures you that things are about to get interesting. And then it stops. There's nothing wrong with it, exactly. But it doesn't do the extra work of the good or great openers.

I've been thinking about my own story and becoming a slightly obsessive observer of opening lines, which, depending on how you look at it, is either a useful exercise or a very good way to avoid actually writing. Probably both.

P.S. - What's a crime-fiction first line that stopped you? The one that made you understand, immediately, that you were in capable hands. Hit reply and tell me, I'd love to know.

KEN LYONS Author ​kenlyonsauthor.com​ ​​

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