The Secret to a Great Opening Sentence in Your Novel

"Call me Ishmael."

Thus reads one of the most famous - and, by writers of fiction, envied - opening sentences in Western literature. It launches Moby-Dick, and those three words are memorable because they provide information about the protagonist. The reader learns that Ishmael is apparently not his real name, and the would-be sailor identifies with the biblical character who is perhaps best known for wandering in the desert and nearly dying of thirst before his miraculous rescue. Herman Melville's protagonist similarly wanders the seas, and as we learn at the end of the book, his miraculous rescue comes after his ship is sunk by the angry whale. If you're familiar with Bible characters (as most of Melville's readers in 1851 would have been), the author is giving a hint of the ending of the book.

Grab That Reader Before She Gets Away!

It's an axiom that if you're a relatively unknown author, readers - particularly literary agents, who guard the gates to the big publishers - want to get "hooked" on your book on the first page. No, make that the first paragraph! Busy editors and agents have little time, and if they read the opening lines of your manuscript and aren't captivated, your query will be declined as fast as the agent can hit "delete" on her keyboard.

Of course, if you're a well-established, big-name author, the agent or editor will assume literary competence; and if you choose to start your book slowly, he or she will be inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt and keep reading.

This puts tremendous pressure on the non-famous writer to come up with a brilliant opening line that will convince the reader to keep reading what is most assuredly an unknown story. Reading takes time, and time is money. Editors, agents, and ordinary readers must decide quickly whether they're ready to invest their precious time in reading your book.

The Secret: A Very Small Story

Here's the opening sentence of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: "When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold." It tells a little story, and it's very small in scope - just the protagonist waking up to find the person who normally sleeps in the bed is not there.

Here's Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck: "Lee Chong's grocery, while not a model of neatness, was a miracle of supply." Lee Chong's sounds like an interesting place!

The Outsider, by Albert Camus: "Mother died today." Blunt and to the point, but emotionally detached. Why?

I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith: "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink." Curious behavior!

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, by JK Rowling: "Mr and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you." Why shouldn't they be "normal"?

Of course, the longer your opening sentence, the more information you can provide. Here's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou: "When I was three and Bailey four, we had arrived in the musty little town, wearing tags on our wrists which instructed-'To Whom It May Concern'-that we were Marguerite and Bailey Johnson, Jr., from Long Beach, California, en route to Stamps, Arkansas, c/o Mrs. Annie Henderson." Two children, not even of school age, sent across the country without an adult?

Remember that readers have been primed by the book's cover and reviews to know what to expect. For example, kids who bought Harry Potter already knew the book was about a "not normal" boy wizard, so the question of being "normal" was important. Agents know nothing except your short query or pitch. Therefore, they're less inclined to extend credit to you.

In old-fashioned storytelling, you hit the ground running, so to speak, such as the opening line of The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan: "As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den, and laid me down in that place to sleep: and as I slept, I dreamed a dream."

And here's the first sentence of A Night to Remember by Walter Lord: "High in the crow's nest of the New White Star Liner Titanic, Lookout Frederick Fleet peered into a dazzling night." To use the language of filmmaking, the author (or director) opens with a close-up shot of someone doing some small thing, and then the camera pulls back to provide the establishing shot and the larger context.

This is much easier to do than trying to overwhelm the reader with your grand vision! With your opening sentence and paragraph, your goal is to show the reader somebody (human or animal) doing some small or easily understood thing, and then gradually pulling the camera back to show more.

In my next installment, I'll discuss what follows the opening sentence - the first few pages of your book.