There are an endless array of articles espousing the genius of great opening lines. All will inevitably mention A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens, 1859):
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
and Pride & Prejudice (Jane Austen, 1813):
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
Both set up the theme (inequality, male and female relations in society) and set the tone through wit and irony. There are great opening lines in more obviously “genre” novels too, like Brighton Rock (Graham Greene, 1938):
Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours,
that they meant to murder him.
Again, we get theme (ruthless crime) and tone (bleak, stark), but also setting this time (Brighton).
Don’t worry, I’m not going to write that article yet again, because there’s a different type of opening that I love, and it’s the one that gets you right into the story. And no, that doesn’t mean like Brighton Rock, where you’re enticed. I mean the type of opening paragraph where when you finish it, you know everything you need to know to enjoy the story. You’re primed. Here is the opening paragraph of The Big Sleep (Raymond Chandler, 1939):
It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.
Let’s note for a second how much we know about the character, setting, plot, and tone:
Character — playful/sarcastic (“I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who new it”), detail-orientated (“black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them”), private detective
Setting — overcast day, rich neighbourhood
Plot — private detective calling on a potential client
Tone — sarcastic (“sun not shining”), nonchalant (“I didn’t care who knew it”)
This type of opening is the polar opposite of Brighton Rock, where you’re given a shocking out-of-context statement designed to entice you and lead you on. You’re supposed to want to keep reading in order to find out who this “Hale” is and why “they” want to murder him. Undoubtedly this type of enticing opening works for a lot of people, and it is extremely fashionable right now in the peak of the psychological thriller.
Personally, I find (what I am calling) the “enticing” opening quite insufferable, as though the writer is being deliberately obtuse with me, choosing to start me off off-balance. For me it has the tone of the smarmy magician who won’t admit it’s a trick. I much prefer the more info-dump based opening, and whilst The Big Sleep is a good example, the true pinnacle of the form is True Grit (Charles Portis, 1968):
People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.
Let’s perform the same exercise as before:
Character — defiant (“People do not give it credence”), strong-minded, opinionated (“coward”), determined, extraordinary (“avenge her father’s blood”), fourteen-year-old girl
Setting — Fort Smith, Arkansas. We also get a sense of her father’s relative wealth/status, as well as her status and people’s opinion of her.
Plot — fourteen-year-old girl leaving home to avenge the murder of her father, as well as the theft of his money and property
Tone — stoic, matter-of-fact (“Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.”)
I would advise every writer study this opening (and I make no claim to have replicated it in my own work, I clearly have to study it more; I may even print out copies of it and stick them around my desk). Portis manages to pull us right into the heart of the story, so that we are equated with the facts, have a sense of the character(s), and can detect the tone, all in two sentences.
The opening of True Grit is the one that more than any other really entices me to read on, because I know exactly where things stand. And although the fact may induce groans in many writers, readers more than anything want to know what they’re getting. Not because of any lack of imagination or narrowness of taste, but because no one wants to have their time wasted. From the openings of The Big Sleep and True Grit you know instantly if you will enjoy reading on. Zero time wasted.
Now, on that note, I’m going to take another look at the opening of my next novel…
