1) Have a hook. They draw the reader in so that they keep on reading (be that because they are surprising, curious, or just plain odd).
2) Introduce the main character, and lead us to understand the place, the setting, the period we are being taken to. The reader needs to find context pretty swiftly in order to get a grasp on the story.
First line exercise:
This is an exercise designed to get you writing quickly and freely. Take a first line below, whichever inspires you, and write for ten minutes to see where it takes you. Don't plan, don't edit, just write.
1)
Suppose that you and I were sitting in a quiet room overlooking a garden, chatting and sipping at our cups of green tea while we talked about something that had happened a long while ago, and I said to you, “That afternoon when I met so-and-so…was the very best afternoon of my life, and also the very worst afternoon.”
2)
I’m glad there’s only one more week of school before summer vacation.
3)
She is buried beneath a silver birch tree, down towards the
old train tracks, her grave marked with a cairn.
4)
It happened every year, was almost a ritual.
5)
When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.
6)
Have I made terrible mistakes? In bed beside me, my husband sleeps, his breathing deep and heavy.
After you have written, it may interest you to see where the first lines actually came from. Did your story go in a completely different direction? Most likely.
1 = Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden
2 = Otherwise known as Sheila the Great, by Judy Blume
3 = The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins
4 = The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
5 = The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
6 = American Wife, by Curtiss Sittenfeld
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