Every part of a story or article, of whatever length, has its role to play but the most important is the opening line. Unless readers get past that, the rest won’t be read. So what does any opening line need to do to encourage people to keep reading?
Writers are often advised, rightly so, to study renowned books with famous opening lines. The idea is to demonstrate an excellent opening line which will hook the reader with an intriguing premise, an interesting character and/or setting, and so the reader will read on to find out what happens.
Image Credit: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.
Do you have favourite lines from books, films etc? I do and I can learn a reasonable amount from them to apply to my own writing. (They also show you what really works in prose. Lines you can recall some time after you originally came across them demonstrate the staying power of well chosen words).
