How to Write an Opening Sentence • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Write an Opening Sentence

#21

Post by nthitz » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 5:09 PM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #17

rauljara wrote: post #14

Just wanted to add that this advice will necessarily change with the times. Something sounds trite and cliche if you've heard it (or something like it) too much. Most of the things that sound trite and cliche now sounded great the first time you heard them. That's how they got repeated enough to become trite and cliche in the first place. If everyone followed the advice in this article, the advice would be terrible.…

A coworker of mine (25ish) had seen a lot of movies, but not Casablanca. So I loaned it to him. He said "my first reaction was 'this is so cliched' and then I realized that it rather was where many cliches came from"

I feel the same way about the sitcom Cheers. Both are great works, but now seem cliched!

Re: How to Write an Opening Sentence

#22

Post by plg » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 5:26 PM UTC

I always liked Jay McInerney's opening sentence from Bright Lights, Big City: "You’re not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning."

Re: How to Write an Opening Sentence

#23

Post by d23 » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 5:29 PM UTC

nthitz wrote: post #21

aidenn0 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A coworker of mine (25ish) had seen a lot of movies, but not Casablanca. So I loaned it to him. He said "my first reaction was 'this is so cliched' and then I realized that it rather was where many cliches came from"

I feel the same way about the sitcom Cheers. Both are great works, but now seem cliched!

Reminds me of the "Seinfeld is Unfunny" trope.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny

Re: How to Write an Opening Sentence

#24

Post by archgrove » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 5:33 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #2

Iain Banks manages to provide both one of the most memorable opening sentences: "It was the day my grandmother exploded." and my favourite opening paragraph (or two): "Two days ago I decided to kill myself. I would walk and hitch and sail away from this dark city to the bright spaces of the wet west coast, and there throw myself into the tall, glittering seas beyond Iona (with its cargo of mouldering kings) to let th…

For my money, you can't beat Dickens. My favourite two:

"Marley was dead: to begin with"

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way"

Re: How to Write an Opening Sentence

#25

Post by asimjalis » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 5:41 PM UTC

Should you ask a question as an opening sentence?

Re: How to Write an Opening Sentence

#26

Post by heuristical » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 5:42 PM UTC

Like that time someone told us how to design a well-designed site in 30 minutes, I decided whilst clicking through "How to Write an Opening Sentence" that I would read the first sentence and then decide whether I should listen to the guy on "how to write an opening sentence".

It read:

>"When I was a 25-year-old Senior Editor of The Mother Earth News, I did a lot of rewrite editing. "

I decided against it, so I didn't read any more of the post.

I will, however, tell you how you could write that sentence well:

"When I was 25, I spent three weeks figuring out how to get my articles to stay at a low reading angle, instead of getting flung back in my face by an impatient editor: the experience was invaluable, and it's time I shared how to write a good opening paragraph."

Re: How to Write an Opening Sentence

#27

Post by smacktoward » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 6:05 PM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #17

rauljara wrote: post #14

Just wanted to add that this advice will necessarily change with the times. Something sounds trite and cliche if you've heard it (or something like it) too much. Most of the things that sound trite and cliche now sounded great the first time you heard them. That's how they got repeated enough to become trite and cliche in the first place. If everyone followed the advice in this article, the advice would be terrible.…

A coworker of mine (25ish) had seen a lot of movies, but not Casablanca. So I loaned it to him. He said "my first reaction was 'this is so cliched' and then I realized that it rather was where many cliches came from"

The same is true of another great movie, Citizen Kane. It invented many elements of the modern movie (cinematographer Gregg Toland's contributions especially -- http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/depth-of-field-gregg...), but since those elements have all become standard parts of mainstream filmmaking they don't shock audiences they way they did when it came out in 1941.

Re: How to Write an Opening Sentence

#28

Post by stevewilhelm » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 6:11 PM UTC

It was a dark and stormy night.

Re: How to Write an Opening Sentence

#29

Post by Surio » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 6:12 PM UTC

Here's one of my favourite opening lines (all right, make it paragraph!)

The Peacemaker Colt has now been in production, without change in design, for a century. Buy one today and it would ne indistinguishable from the one Wyatt Earp wore when he was the Master of Dodge City. It is the oldest hand gun in the world, without question the most famous and, if efficiency in its designed task of maiming and killing be taken as criterion of its worth, then it’s also probably the best hand-gun ever made.... When a Peacemaker Bullet hits your leg you fall to the ground unconscious, and if it hits your thigh bone and you are lucky to survive the torn arteries and the shock, then you will never walk again without crutches.. And so I stood motionless, not breathing, for the Peacemaker colt that started this unpleasant train of thought was pointed directly at my right thigh...[1][2]

---- Alistair MacLean, when 8 bells toll

[1] http://jimalexanderwriting.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/first-li...

[2] http://docmo.hubpages.com/hub/Writing-Tips-1-Seven-Hooks-to-...

Re: How to Write an Opening Sentence

#30

Post by smacktoward » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 6:17 PM UTC

elisehein wrote: post #19

I think beginning an academic or a research paper with a question or something like "Some people say..." or "Recently" or "Nowadays" is often a very good strategy even though it might be clichéd, because telling the reader exactly what is going to follow in the text is very much expected. When I read with the sole intention of finding a specific piece of knowledge, I want to be able to tell from the introduction (or…

"Some people say..." openings can be problematic, because they can get the reader wondering, who? Who says that? Which pulls them away from the point you're trying to make. Better to start with a specific example of someone saying it: "John Smith thought men couldn't get breast cancer. On April 5, he found out he was wrong."

I really like the idea of jumping straight into a scenario (or anecdote), I remember having been suggested by my teachers in middle school to do so.

Yeah, this is an effective technique that's nearly as old as storytelling itself. It's called in medias res:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_medias_res

The name is Latin for "into the middle of things," which describes the idea: throw the reader into the middle of the story first, revealing earlier events later on where necessary. This lets you open on a dramatic note right away, which grabs the reader's attention, while setting up little enigmas -- who is this person? Why is she doing what she's doing? What does she want? -- for the reader to solve, which keeps them involved.