Beginnings - Hooking Your Reader

Some awesome first lines:
"The gunman is useless." - I am the Messenger
"When I think of my wife, I always think of her head." -Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
"What about a tea kettle?" - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
            It's not as much a catchy line, but it makes you go what? And you want to get to know the narrator, this kid, because his musings on the teakettle are so different.
"In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit." - The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien
"It's the first of November, so today someone will die." - The Scorpio Races
See 100 Fabulous First lines here.

Some good ideas / Tips:
1. Keep it simple. Don't overwhelm your reader, but don't be vague. "Something stirred in the night." - simple but too vague. Don't do a long run-on sentence.
2. Introduce character. You will have a problem if you don't have a character - again, our first line "Something stirred in the night." You should not open with setting - you should open with the character. Either description of the character, or the character's voice.
3. Be different or shocking. You have to be interesting. Show your reader that this book isn't like all the other books. *In the example of the teakettle line, the boy has a very unique voice and an unusual interest/thoughts about the tea kettle.
4. Set the tone - see our recent post on Tone.
5. Speak to your reader as if they are a confidant. Most of the time you want a reliable narrator, and you want your readers to feel a connection with the narrator or character. You, as the writer, narrator, speaker, or character are speaking to the reader in some way.
See 100 Fabulous Opening Lines here.

Things to Avoid:
Don't try to hard to write well - often times people write overly-well-written opening paragraphs. They try to make it impressive and poetic, etc.
Don't start the first sentence with setting.
Don't be vague.

*The Rule of Exceptions*
"There is an exception to every rule, except the Rule of Exceptions."