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What are sentence openers?

Imagine reading this chain of tedious sentences of the pattern “subject-verb-object (SVO)”:

The waiter finally came. He said his name was Walter. His nose was beaky like a tucan’s.  He proceeded to tell us the specials of the day. We ordered. The food came but it was cold. Walter apologized. The manager apologized, too. We left no tip.

Successful professional writers are careful not to use the SVO grammatical pattern repeatedly; one way to avoid it is by making sure that sentences do not begin with articles, nouns, or pronouns.

Defining sentence openers

Effective sentence openers are sentences that begin with parts of speech that aren’t articles (definite or indefinite), nouns, proper names, or pronouns.

That means then that sentence must begin with verbals (infinitives, present participles, and past participles), subordinating conjunctions, coordinating conjunctions, and correlative conjunctions. In addition, similes, prepositional phrases, and nominative absolute phrases can also be used as effective sentence openers.

By observing the habits of successful writers we can tell that they strike a balance between SVO sentences and effective sentence openers. This good balance is what is known as “sentence variation.’

Prepositional Phrase: Behind the third door, he found the $1 million dollar prize.

Listed below in alphabetical order are the most common prepositions of the English language:

aboard, about, above, according to, across, after, against, along, among, around, as, as to, at, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, between, beyond, but, by, despite, down, during, except, for, from, in, inside, instead of, into, in place of, in spite of, like, near, next, of, off, on, onto, outside, out of, over, past, regardless of, since, than, through, throughout, to, toward, under, underneath, unlike, until, up, upon, with, within, without

Place a comma after a prepositional phrase sentence opener when a noun or pronoun follows.

Adjective phrase:

Agitated and annoyed, we refused to leave a tip.
Green with envy, she walked away in a huff.

Adjectives or adjective phrases describe a proper noun, common noun, or pronoun by answering the questions: How Many? Which One? or What Kind? Place a comma after an adjective or adjective phrase sentence opener.

Adverb: Somewhere in La Mancha, Don Quixote was born; slowly, he went mad.

Adverbs describe or qualify nouns by answering the questions: How? When? Where? or What Degree? Many adverbs end in ‘__ly.’ Place a comma after an adverb sentence opener if the adverb is emphasized.

Adverbial Clause: Although sugar is the enemy, people crave for it day and night.

An adverbial clause (also called a dependent clause because it doesn’t express a complete thought) is introduced by subordinating conjunctions:

after, although, as, as if, as long as, as much as, as soon as, as though, because, before, even if, even though, how, if, in order that, once, since, so that, than, that, though, unless, until, when, whenever, where, wherever, whether, or while.

Place a comma after an adverbial clause that opens a sentence.

Past participles ending in __d, __ed, or __en

Annoyed and frustrated by the blue screen, I called the Geek Squad.
Taken by surprise, she stuttered.

Usually place a comma after the sentence opener.

To + Verb (Infinitive)

To be or not to be, said Hamlet.
To run a marathon you must train daily.

‘__ing’ Verbs and Gerunds

Losing the fight, the big bully started crying.
Modeling can be a lucrative career.

Usually place a comma after the sentence opener. In the above example, ‘modeling’ is a gerund (a verb ending in  ‘__ing’ serving as a noun.

Noun Clause: However the students answered, the scores were marked wrong.

The following group of words may act as the subject of a sentence:

How, However, What, Whatever, When, Whenever, Where, Wherever, Which, Whichever, Who, Whoever, and Whomever.

Place a comma after the noun clause when used as a sentence opener if it does not serve as the subject of the sentence.

Nominative Absolute: Lips quivering, Emilio promised not to do it again.

A nominative absolute is a noun phrase that provides information but have no grammatical connection with the rest of the sentence. Absolutes fall into four useful groups.

A comma is placed at the end of the nominative absolute when it opens a sentence.

Conclusion

Americans speech habits that most use from cradle to grave follow the pattern SVO, a habit that is hard to break, and it spills over to our writing. A good grasp of sentence variation by using effective sentence openers not only will improve our writing, but also our thinking.

So our general question: “What are sentence openers?” should be refined to capture the essence of the writing problem: “What are effective sentence openers?”