It’s the opening of a new year. So, let’s talk about openings. You want your home to have curb appeal and your front door to be inviting—to say Welcome! as it opens. (At least most of us do.) It’s the same with a piece of writing. The last thing you want to do is to put a roadblock, or an overstuffed couch, in the way.
Openings are tricky—help your reader
Poet Billy Collins says, “Usually I try to create a hospitable tone at the beginning of a poem. Stepping from the title to the first lines is like stepping into a canoe. A lot of things can go wrong.” This is very true. If the opening is too longwinded, then the reader may not have time to figure out your point, or the why of the piece. Too obscure and immediately the reader has to decide if it’s going to be worth his/her/their precious time to figure things out. Too overused/trite/tiresome and a reader may think there are better things to do with one’s time.
Of course, middles and endings can be tricky, too. But today, let’s limit ourselves to looking at four good openings—for almost any kind of writing: poetry, fiction, non-fiction, memoir, etc. (We will take a look at another four in an upcoming post.)
Ways to invite your reader in
- Asking/answering a question: This type of opening addresses your reader directly. Of course, the question can be rhetorical. Still, readers will turn the question over in their minds. Is it one they want to know the answer to, or one with which they disagree in terms of how the writer responds? Make it an interesting question, such as the one below from a poem titled Echocardiogram by Suzanne Cleary.
“How does, how does, how does it work
so, little valve stretching messily open, as wide as possible,
all directions at once, sucking air, sucking blood, sucking air-in-blood,
how …”
- A bit of mystery: We all like a little mystery. Mysteries raise questions that can draw a reader in. The mystery doesn’t have to be horrific, or hilarious—it just needs to pique the reader into wondering how will this resolve? Death as the narrator is set up from the get-go in The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. So, this immediately makes us wonder about what’s going on. And, of course, with genre mysteries there’s often a dead body in the first sentence, or so.
“First the colors.
Then the humans.
That’s usually how I see things.
Or at least, how I try.”
- Music: Music is contagious. The lilt of beautiful lines can soothe. The grrrrrrr of thumping music can stir our blood. One way, or the other, the rhythm of poetry (whether in poetry or in prose) raises questions in readers. Where will this lovely opening lead? Or this call to arms? Or this dirge? Here’s the musical opening to The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Note how it flows. There are six (!) anapests in the first half of that line. For you non-poets that two soft beats followed by a hard beat. (U U /) It makes a line dance.
“When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him.”
(When he woke | in the woods | in the dark | and the cold | of the night | he’d reach out …)
- An intimate invitation: This kind of opening works as it feels like settling into the home of your bestie. You know it’s ok to snuggle under the throw on the couch, and it’s fine if you put your feet up on the coffee table. A reader can slip in without a lot of worrying about what’s going to unfold. It’s an easy entrance. In her poem Welcome Morning Anne Sexton has the door wide open—anyone can enter.
“There is joy
in all:
in the hair I brush each morning,
in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
that I rub my body with each morning …”
What all openings need
The main thread that runs through all these openings (and the four in the up-coming post) is that you need to make it easy for your reader to enter. Grab your reader’s curiosity—raise a question as to why, how, when, or what next. This is the buy-in, the point at which the reader is willing to say, Okay—let’s see what ya got. (And then, of course, you have to worry about your middle part—don’t we all?)
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