In all the ‘How to Write’ books that I’ve amassed there is inevitably a section near the front called, variously: Starting, or The First Line/Chapter; The Opening, Where Do I Begin?… you get the idea. Pertaining to the very first words a writer writes and decides is good enough to leave—and lead—at the start of something they believe is worth reading.
It’s crucial. Of course it is. All first impressions are crucial. At an interview, on a first date; Dear John/Julie letters; emails, you name it. Making sure the right words appear in the right order is make or break in any situation. It’s the difference between arousing interest or being ignored.
It’s also a great way—for me, anyway—of getting some words down before the demon of Writer’s Block threatens an appearance. It’s panicky when a writer starts to actually believe they’ve run out of ideas, so turning to something afresh can be a way to dispel the fear.
I’m not about to tell you How To write an opening sentence. I’m just going to tell you where my thoughts took me recently, and how these opened up a great deal of other thoughts. The thought process also reminded me that I wasn’t blocked, and utilizing this ‘fresh start’ exercise more often could even create a neural pathway leading the demon away for good.
Let’s imagine there’s a knock on a door.
It could be your door. Or someone else’s door. It could happen right now. It might have happened a long time ago; centuries, yesterday, or last week. It might be a door you know; it might be a door you don’t know but have seen (IRL, or in a picture) or you’ve only ever heard about. Whatever and wherever the door is, or was, right now it’s just been knocked.
(If your hand is up because you want to know if this can be a doorbell rather than a knock, then that is a whole other kettle of worms. There are so many different ring tones that this kind of ‘thought’ is beyond my personal comprehension. I need to keep things simple. So, if you want to do bells, and you have a specific ring in mind, by all means, take that as a starting point. But, if I were to use a bell, then I’d spend the rest of the day googling a million of them, then wonder what I was doing standing on the virtual Great Wall of China.)
Let’s get the door.
It’s Roger—or whoever you want it to be—but don’t get bogged down with names just yet. Unless you have a specific character in mind. Keep it vague until the next words have settled on the line, and it doesn’t have to be the actual start of a book or a short story; it could just as easily be the start of a new chapter. Or the beginning of a new paragraph. It’s a starting point somewhere. Anyway, back to Roger.
There are now different ways that the information of Roger at the door can be conveyed:
- Roger stands at the door (third person, present tense)
- Roger stood at the door (third person, past tense)
- Roger is at the door (third person, present)
- Roger was at the door (third person, past)
- I’m standing at the door (the narrator is Roger, first person, present tense)
- I stood at the door (first person, past)
- You’re at the door (your reader is Roger; so, second person, present)
- You stood at the door (second person, past)
Don’t think right now about mentioning the actual knock on the door. That would slow things down and give rise to needing to explain whose door it is, who’s answering it, what time of the day it is… even what the door looks like. These details can be filled in along the way, or the opening returned to and enhanced once there’s a skeleton of a story you’re happy with. For now, let’s concentrate more on immediacy. Momentum is key.
Say you wanted to impart slightly more…
- Roger, panting, stands at the door (the ‘panting’ offers immediate intrigue)
- Roger stood breathlessly at the door (equally intriguing; why is he out of breath?)
- Roger is back at the door (implying he’s returned, so where has he been?)
- Roger was finally at the door (indicates a goal, so what was his journey?)
You could throw in a bit of description if you wanted to:
- Roger stands at the door with dirt on his face (now he’s of indeterminate age)
- Roger straightened his tie as he stood at the door (why? What’s he been up to?)
- Roger is at the door with the mail (oh, so he’s the postman; and a familiar one)
- Roger was at the door, the lead hanging from his collar (good lord, what happened to his owner?)
Yes, I agree that the last example is slightly improbable. Unless Roger the dog had his own dog-level door knocker, but we’re writers, right? Anything is possible: maybe the person on the other end of the lead fell into the bushes (therefore out of sight) following their knock on the door. If so, what could have happened?
It’s exciting to imagine that from a simple knock on a door, something new and unwritten is about to unfold which even the creator (that’s us) doesn’t know the outcome of. Imagine how excited a reader might equally feel as they follow the words to see what the story’s all about.
I’ll do a ‘subsequent sentence’ post, to show how many wildly different (maybe not all of them practical, sensible or possible) ways a follow-on sentence can go. But for now, I’ll leave you to answer the door.
Debs J Cooper 