Setting the tone
It’s all about tone in the sentences that make up that first paragraph, and using the tone to convey a sense of the narrator, the setting, the situation and the atmosphere. English writer Allan Ahlberg says, ‘It’s like the way a piece of knitting is defined by the first row of stitches on your needle. It is the first three or four sentences that establish the feel and rhythm of a book.’ Allan Ahlberg (in Gary Disher Writing Fiction – an introduction to the craft, Allen & Unwin 2001, p.122).
Gary Disher concurs. He claims the art of starting a story or novel is often the art of finding the tone, and so tone may waver in the drafting stages. By the time a work of fiction is ready for submission, the tone should be firmly established and apparent to the reader in the opening sentences and paragraphs. The tone can give a strong sense of the narrator, the place, the situation and the atmosphere. Tone also helps signal genre.
The first line
Irish writer Colum McCann says, ‘A first line should open up your rib cage. It should reach in and twist your heart backward. It should suggest that the world will never be the same again.’ Sounds melodramatic, but even a subtle heart nudge can be profound. Priscilla Long suggests writers ‘open with the most important thing you have to say.’ Francine Prose suggests an introductory sentence that ‘establishes the tone but also encapsulates something essential about the remainder of the work’.
So: raises questions, is surprising, encapsulates something essential about the work, conveys the most important thing you have to say. Here are a some examples:
Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behaviour (HarperCollins 2012)
— A certain feeling comes from throwing your good life away, and it is one part rapture.
Timothy Findley, ‘About Effie’ in Dinner Along The Amazon (Penguin 1984)
– I don’t know how to begin about Effie but I’ve got to because I think you ought to know about her.
Dan Simmons, Endymion (Headline Book Publishing 1996)
— You are reading this for the wrong reason.
Lian Hearne Grass for his Pillow (Hachette 2003)
— Shirakawa Kaede lay deeply asleep in the state close to unconsciousness that the Kikuta can deliver with their gaze.
William T. Vollmann, ‘Three Meditations on Death ’ Rising Up and Rising Down (McSweeney 2003)
— Death is ordinary.
Are opening sentences overrated?
Some writers suggest the emphasis on the opening sentence is overrated. After all, you might have a bland opening sentence, but in the context of the following sentences it works. This brings us back to the importance of the opening paragraph. I still do think your opening sentence can have impact, but agree that it is the opening paragraph (or paragraphs) that is crucial. Remember, that opening sentence will set up what comes next.
I encourage you to collect opening sentences and paragraphs that you feel are strong – keep a file of them and think about why they work so well, why you like them so much.
See also Opening Chapters