It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
However little known
the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a
neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding
families that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of
their daughters.
"My dear Mr.
Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that
Netherfield Park is let at last?"
A modern editor would probably use a red pen on Jane
Austen’s first two paragraphs, both of which are author statements. He/she might
say the story should begin at the third paragraph – or maybe even later in the
conversation between Mrs. Bennet and her husband. Thus we would lose one of the
most quoted ‘first lines’ of any novel.
I’ve sometimes wondered about the emphasis that the ‘advice
givers’ put on the first lines of a story. The first line, ‘they’ say, must
hook the reader, but is that true? Do readers really get pulled in by the first line of a story? Do they decide
whether to buy or not to buy based on the opening sentence or paragraph?
It seems to me that this advice is based on an image of
someone standing in a bookstore and picking up a book. In that scenario, the cover,
the back cover blurb, and the first few lines of a book are probably the most important
‘hooks’ for a reader.
However, in this digital age and with Amazon’s facility of
‘click to look inside’ i.e. a sneak peek at the first few pages of a novel, the
reader is sitting at a computer or using a laptop or tablet. They have more
time – and therefore, in all probability, will read more than the average
person standing in a bookstore.
I’ve done this many times before downloading books to my
Kindle, and have usually read far more than the first sentence or even the
first page (unless that happens to be riddled with grammatical errors or typos
etc). Therefore I’d hazard a guess that the majority of readers with e-readers will
make their decision based on part or even the whole of the Amazon excerpt, and
not just the first line or paragraph.
Therefore, instead of agonising over our first lines,
perhaps we should be thinking more about whether our first few pages will hook
our potential readers into downloading our books. Those pages should pull them in
somehow and stimulate their interest and curiosity about the story. It’s been
said that a character doesn’t come to life for the reader until he/she speaks,
so a conversation of some kind on the first page can be a good way of attracting
a reader.
In my experience, as a reader rather than a writer, any long
introspection or back story at the start of a novel is a big turn-off. Neither
should the first page contain a lengthy description of a place. A couple of
well-chosen sentences can be equally effective.
Finally, while it’s not essential for the main protagonists
to meet on the first page or even for some kind of ‘conflict’ to be introduced immediately,
it’s probably better to introduce some kind of surprise (pleasant or otherwise)
or an unexpected event for the main protagonist in the first couple of pages.
I’d be interested in your thoughts about the first few pages of a novel – what attracts you and what puts you off?
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Link to my Amazon author page: author.to/PMamazon
