Should you focus on the opening?
A discussion.
I didn’t rewrite this line.
I didn’t edit this one either.
But hey, you’ve made it past the start, so job well done… right?
The opening of your book is important. Whether that’s the first line, paragraph, page, or chapter, the advice you’ll hear a lot is to pour lots of energy into your opening to make it perfect.
And it makes sense. A good opening can…
Give a ‘hook’ to the reader
Introduce characters
Introduce the world
Introduce the narrative style and prose
Introduce the book’s theme.
All good things, all important…
But what is a good opening?
This is highly subjective. So, to find out, I did the only sensible thing a modern person with a question could do and I Googled it.
According to the first result (by Penguin themselves), here are some of the best first lines in fiction:
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
“The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.” - The Secret History by Donna Tart
“The story so far: in the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” - The Restaurant at the end of the Universe by Douglas Adams
And everyone’s favourite:
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” - 1984 by George Orwell
They’re all very different and the reason each one works is unique.
Orwell, for example, couples things together that are not typically seen (the first clause) and finishes with the clocks “striking thirteen” – an impossibility (at least for 12 hour clocks). His opener tells you something is different, perhaps even wrong, and evokes a number of questions that hook the reader.
Douglas Adamas, however, uses humour to hook you. We know from this opening that the book will be light-hearted and fun, which is a great way to pull in a reader.
Jane Austen gives us a clear tone and introduces the theme of the story here, while Donna Tart introduces Bunny and makes you ask the question of why it took so long for them to understand the gravity of their situation.
All of these openings are excellent (thank you, Penguin) because they achieve some important things: hook, world, character, style/tone, theme. But what makes them stand out is that the rest of the book advances on the questions and styles introduced here.
What makes a bad opening?
Again, this is subjective, so I turned to Google for answers and came across a few Reddit threads and some competitions, but I don’t feel any have enough merit to repeat. I also really don’t want to call out authors who have spent a lot of time on their book as having bad openers – we should encourage, not discourage each other.
So, the only way to answer this question (I think) is to approach it in the abstract. With this in mind, a bad opening might include…
A theme that doesn’t relate to the story
Starting the story in the wrong place (too early or too late; in the action where the hook is in the setup)
Inconsistent narrative style/prose/tone
Forced emotional moments (reader, you should be crying because character is crying; you should be scared because character is scared)
Overused cliches
Descriptions of things we don’t care about yet/things that are obvious (with the exception of stylised prose or for the purpose of illustrating a key difference between this world and our own – the ash and withered crops in Sanderson’s Mistborn)
Dialogue (this isn’t always bad, but often dialogue as the first line of a book has a tendency to push readers away).
There is one example I am comfortable sharing, and that is from the first draft of a book I wrote many years ago:
“Mal felt a rush of air brush his cheek as the ruby sparkle of a blood-stained blade flew past his head, its proximity to his face taunted death. He turned swiftly, following the battle-hardened sense of his blade and stabbed forward, hardly paying attention to what he was stabbing. He didn't need to see its face to know he had just stabbed another Orc.” - Unnamed first draft by me
This is bad for a few reasons. It starts in the wrong place (there is no connection to the character before they are put in danger), it relies on cliches/tropes (Orc = bad), the focus is on the killing being good/necessary (this contradicts the theme of the book), and the descriptions are forced and repetitive.
For example, I clearly wanted to show the danger Mal was in, so I reinforced this with descriptions. The colour of the blood was described twice; the clause “its proximity to his head taunted death” is forcing us to care about the danger; he’s so desperate he isn’t even looking at what he’s stabbing. All of these are there to try to force the reader into a feeling of danger, but that forcefulness ends up having the opposite effect.
The focus of the passage is also chaotic. Each line focuses on a different subject, which makes it harder to follow. If the book and its two sequels stayed like this for their combined 400,000 words, it would be an incredibly tiring book to read. Constantly being told what to think and how to feel with an emphasis on the points I, the author, think you, the reader, should care about.
In short: there’s no space in this opening for the reader to think and feel. It’s a selfish way to write because I’m trying to force you to feel the way I want you to rather than allowing you, dear reader, to feel for yourself.
And as a reader, when you’re forced into thinking and feeling a certain way, you lose interest; your connection with the book diminishes and you grow tired quiclkly.
And that is how I wrote a book my own mother didn’t finish reading.
You can probably find a few other issues with it (leave them in the comments!), but the ones outlined above become clearer as you progress through the book.
Should I focus on the beginning?
In my opinion… no.
Despite everything said above, I think the beginning should get the same amount of focus as the rest of the book. A good hook is necessary to pull readers in, but a good middle is necessary to keep them, and a good ending is necessary to satisfy them (and make them read your other books).
The best way to ensure a strong opening is to put just as much time into the rest of your book. Focus on matching your opening with the rest of the story in tone, theme, and pacing and don’t overthink it. The more you understand and feel the story you’re telling, the easier you’ll find writing the opening.
But this is just what I think. What do you think? Should you pour more time into your opening than the rest of the story?
If you’d like a second set of eyes on your book – to focus on the opening or the rest of the book – consider reaching out. I’m always excited to work with new voices!
Last updated: March 6th 2025.