How to Write an Opening Sentence | Hacker News Reader

How to Write an Opening Sentence

author-zone.com

48 pointstechdog13 comments

One thing that bothers me a lot about modern writing (in news, mostly), is that people tend to break logical ideas into teeny tiny paragraphs. The author of this article does this, taking what is essentially a list and making it much harder to read, reference, and track the flow of ideas. To my dismay, it seems that the trendier the publication, the more the writers tend to do this (although this appears to be standard style for Reuters, and I can imagine a few good reasons for that).

I sincerely hope that good writers put more emphasis on organization and flow than hooking readers with oversimplifications and straw men. On one hand, the surge of sites like BuzzFeed make me think we're all doomed in this regard. But then people like John Oliver (and his writers) who consistently deliver thought-provoking stories give me hope.

Notice what an insipid first sentence the author chooses, for this of all articles!

New Yorker articles are a good place to learn about how to pull people into your writing quickly. No disrespect meant to the Mother Earth News, of course.

I'm all for articles like this, but I'm not for this article. If saying that gets me downvoted, as seems to be happening to idlewords, then so be it. Some of the advice in here is really questionable. For instance:

"Make an exaggerated statement, then tone it down. “In Prohibition days, alcohol could be purchased illegally on just about every street in America. Actually, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but in fact it’s true that . . .”"

No. Please do not do this. This may be the oldest cliche in the book. Actually, it's not the oldest, but...

"Set up a strawman and knock it down"

No. This insults your reader's intelligence with a trite opening, which is precisely what the author suggests we avoid.

I don't mean to be overly harsh. The author means well. What he's really talking about are thought-starting techniques: hacks you can use to break your initial blockage and get something workable onto the page. That's fair. I just wouldn't follow 50-70% of the practical suggestions, though.

Here are some thoughts:

- Know what you want to say before you start saying it. This sounds obvious, but it's not. A lot of writers trap themselves with cute openings, from which they have to back out abruptly, because the openings bear no real connection to the rest of the piece. This jars or confuses the reader. Your opening should set the stage for what's to come. It shouldn't drag the rest of the piece around with it. Know where you're taking us before you launch the ship.

- Think about the most interesting, provocative, or sensuous thing about your story. Could that thing serve as a strong lead?

- Think of your story as a movie, or as a series of scenes on a timeline. What would be the most interesting "opening scene" of your piece? Does it make logical sense as the opening? If so, great.

- Challenging or provocative openings are great when they work. Degree of difficulty is high. Room for error is vast. Fall short, and you tumble into the "set up a strawman and knock it down" cliche. Succeed, and you present a wonderful fact, image, or statement that had never occurred to your readers.

- Your first graf (paragraph) is where most readers will either bounce or continue. Focus on a strong opening paragraph or point, and less on a strong opening sentence. Work backwards toward the strongest opening sentence.

- A successful novelist once gave me this advice, which I'll paraphrase: 'Assume your readers are highly intelligent. Bad writers assume the opposite.' Want to avoid cliches? Assume your readers hate cliches, and that they'll call you out on them.

Agreed, this wasn't great (and as idlewords points out, how could he use such a lackluster opening of his own?). The straw man and exaggeration approaches both struck me as poor suggestions in particular.

Here's my main suggestion -- the "shitty first drafts" strategy is important with openings in particular. Take a stab at an opening, and probably fail (but start your brain thinking about it). Write the rest of the article, polish your ideas as you go and gain a bit more insight into what you're talking about. Think how it looks from the perspective of a reader. THEN you'll be in a much stronger position to go back and write a good opening.

Of course, you may realize that your inspired opening also implies a different structure for the piece, but so be it.

This is really good advice. Another technique that sometimes works is to chop off the first few paragraphs of whatever you wrote. Writing can be like making whiskey-better if you throw the first and last parts away.

This is great! The hardest part about writing is getting started, and many times it's hard to come up with a non-cliche, interesting introduction. I wish our English teacher taught stuff like this.

Often it's easiest to start in the middle and leave the introduction for last, when you have a very clear idea of what you've written, and why.

"It was a dark and storm night."

You're welcome!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

Call me Ishmael.

Anybody have any more?

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

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