How do you make a great opening sentence?

Question

Like, I'm just writing a simple fantasy story but my first sentences I keep coming up with are awfully lame/over used, like "once upon a time" or just "one day".

I've read so many books where the first sentences are really good. I think first sentences are important since when you were little, you were told to read the first sentence or paragraph of a book to see if you like it.

So, help?

Answer 1

What's going on in your very first scene? Try jumping into it in the middle of a conflict rather than introducing anything or anyone first.

"No human did this." Jerrod nudged the corpse with his toe and ardently hoped he would not vomit on his master.

is a far more intriguing opening line than

Jerrod trod the stairs to his chamber, as his master bid. He was tall for his age and took them two at a time. When he arrived, barely out of breath...

Instead of giving any events leading up to finding the dead person, or explaining their physical condition, I jumped right in, fairly late in the scene.

Can anything similar apply to your story? I bet it's there if you look for it.

Answer 2

Dickens didn't contradict himself at all. He was writing a book called a Tale of Two Cities and the first sentence is about the duality of the two cities - not contradiction.

Your first sentence has to grab people and pull them into your book and not let go until you are ready to. It can take you longer to write that first sentence than half the novel.

There are websites with great first lines. Look some of them up. We posted a bunch here once.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AtCZm8ys0i0O68ig3XsHcVXty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20070926134357AA78Hlm

Read through some excellent ones and get a really good feel for what is exciting and interesting. These are some amazing sentences. In my third book, I must have written about 50 sentences before I found just the right one that conveyed the right mood. It is all about the mood you want to convey. The sentence of Lolita is exciting and arousing. The sentence of Rebecca is mysterious.

You might also try reading a great book called The First Five Pages.
----
They're, Their, There - Three Different Words.

Careful or you may wind up in my next novel.

Pax - C

Answer 3

Hello, Fuzzy Moo Moo.

Well, it depends on what the opening scene is, too. Like, if the story were about how this farm boy becomes king of ----Land, and the opening scene were of the farm boy tending to the chickens in the morning, the sentence would be something like "If there was anything in the world that Edmund hated more than books and learning (or whatever) it was taking care of the farm animals." And then you'd go on to say that this was because he hated the farm, and what he was doing with his life, etc.

Some books start out with a description of the land, but that sometimes gets to be overpowering and annoying. Others start simply with a "Edmund threw down the bag of chicken feed in dismay" kind of approach, more of an abrupt getting into the story sort of thing, instead of gradually getting into it. And when stories gradually get into the main plot, they'll usually start out with some background type of thing, like "In a time when unicorns existed and phoenixes flew in the skies.... the great wizard --- was busy inventing a potion..." and this potion would effect the happenings of the actual main character, which would appear later.

Yeah. I don't know if this helps you, I'm kind of just rambling on, here. But it really does depend on how you're going to get into the story and how exactly you're going to start it.

Answer 4

Well, in my school we can a whole lesson on that. Ask a question, supose for fantasy: Did you ever wonder what a girl as beautiful as the moon would look like. Or a dialouge for example: No, please no, dont trough me to the dugeon, said princess McKayla. I will kill you till life crys said King Rufos. Or a descriptive like: it was a cloudy day with the dragons waiting for the sky to un-fogg. Hope I helped! And home you get a good story. Hopfully when you get older and become a writer i can read it!!!

Answer 5

Make the first sentence begin with an action (ex "Jenny ran from her pursuers") A sentence like that often makes the reader want to keep reading. Or, you can start with a description of a person (ex "Jenny was usually a quiet little girl, but one day..."). I hope those suggestions helped.

Answer 6

Follow the masters:

Herman Melville, "Moby Dick:" "Call me Ishmael."

Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow:" "A screaming comes across the sky."

Leo Tolstoy, "Anna Karenina:" "All happy families are happy in the same way; all unhappy families are unhappy in different ways."

And of course there is "Star Wars," "Once upon a time, in a galaxy far away..."

Answer 7

What's the basic plot of the story and the main character? I might be able to help you out.

Answer 8

Contradict yourself for the whole first page. It worked for Dickens.

Answer 9

I always start with my stories with a dialouge.

Answer 10

Once this enchanted night,