Opening Sentence

Cover of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel

“In the beginning was the word.” Any writer will recognize John 1:1, in the New Testament. For writers, however, the word isn’t the most important part of speech and writing—the sentence is! And for all successful writers, the opening sentence is the alpha and the omega that guides their writing.

But why should this be so? Why shouldn’t any sentence serve the purpose of opening the written work? The opening sentence sets the tone and possibly the style for the whole work. Take the opening of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude:

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

Not only does this opening sentence crosses the threshold into the paragraph that follows, but it sets the tone, the voice, the style, and the role of time —a flash forward, in this case— that hints at several generations in a violent world.

In effective documents, articles, essays, and general works of fiction and nonfiction, the opening sentence must direct the reader to the subject under discussion; it must be done directly and in a matter-of-fact style—no beating around the bush.

And nothing can be more matter-of-fact than a journalistic article. Reporters strive to be objective, cool, detached, and yet effective; they are not preoccupied with creating literature or art. Sacrificing art in favor of expediency and effectiveness, reporters work hard to strike an opening sentence —a lead sentence— that will grab the reader’s interest, presumably already teased by the headline.

Since writing fiction is an art, the opening sentence in novels and short stories must show artistry.

Although novelists and short story writers have plenty of artistic liberty in the way they can cast their beginning sentence. A beginning sentence must entice, attract attention, and arouse curiosity immediately. First impressions count! Flawed, tedious, uninspired opening sentences may cause readers to put the book down, never to pick it up again.

To hold the reader’s attention isn’t an easy and simple task as many uninformed writers may think; especially those who begin their written work in any way they can. Yet, while there’s no golden formula to laying out an effective —maybe even felicitous— opening sentence, successful writers follow some general principles.

Two principles to follow for writing a powerful ‘opening sentence’

First, use grammatical, syntactical, and rhetorical techniques (prepositional phrases, similes, absolute phrases, verbals, and others).

Second, the techniques just mentioned must be tailored to complement the ideas the writer is attempting to convey and in what manner.

Therefore, the opening sentence besides being to the point, it must show an attitude. And while it shouldn’t be profane, extremely shocking, blatantly offensive—it should be provocative and controversial, or maybe even humorous.

Illustration of a good opening sentence

Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami begins his lengthy novel The Wind Up Bird Chronicle with this opening sentence:

When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture of Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie, which has to be the perfect music for cooking past.

Besides being irreverent (to the pompousness of Opera music being deprecated by the noise of the telephone and the humble kitchen chore), Murakami knows he is writing not just for Japanese readers, but also for a Western readership. What is striking about this opening is that it is lively and interesting because it leaves the reader wondering about this narrator’s attitude.

This is an effective opening sentence which has been accomplished by the employment of the two principles mentioned above: grammar complementing the ideas (attitude of the narrator). Note that Murakami employs the word ‘when’ (an adverb) using it as a subordinating conjunction to form a complex sentence, giving the scene a subtle yet perceivable movement. Note also that he accomplish this by the use of the present participles: ‘boiling,’ ‘whistling,’ ‘thieving,’ and ‘cooking.’

No longer are the old writing clichés —Dickens: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of time…”— useful to post-modern readers so accustomed to a rapid pace of life —if not a pace of frenzied agitation.

In future articles we will illustrate the techniques used by successful writers who really pay serious attention to two writing principles mentioned before and in particular those who use a good beginning sentence not only for their opening paragraph, but throughout their written work.