A good opening to a novel should give you a visceral feel for everything that is to come. It is a first impression, and like the human counterpart of first impressions, it’s difficult to erase its impact.
Hooking the reader immediately is a literary imperative. There are many ways to do it. You can start with an irresistible narrative voice which compels the reader to turn pages to get to know them. You can start with a dramatic event from which the plot unfolds. Or you can start with something deceptively simple, a small symbolic image that hints at the novel’s themes.
To get noticed in the highly competitive market, traditionally published writers have honed their skills enough to pull off a strong opening. Some are better than others. Here is a list of three good openings and two that need some work.
On a rainy night in Louisville, Tallie is driving over a bridge when she notices a man who appears ready to jump to his death. She convinces him to get a cup of coffee with her. She doesn’t tell the man, Emmett, that she is a therapist.
The opening is suitably dramatic and yet hints at a softer focus. When Tallie invites Emmett to move in with her, it is transgressive but still feels right. The high stakes of the opening transaction prepare the reader that this may not end well.
2.
This novel opens with the protagonist, Edie, sitting at her desk in an office in Manhattan. She has just received a text from a married man, who has asked her to remove her panties. They end up having cyber sex in the blue light of their computer screens, followed by a date in an amusement park.
From the opening scene, the reader is either pulled in or repelled by what is being suggested. The fact that Edie is Black and her lover white (and older) raises the stakes. In the age of #metoo, is Edie a heroine or a victim? Are we supposed to be OK with this or judge it as wrong? All of these issues are present from the opening scene.
3.
Reese is on date with a married man she calls Cowboy. They have stopped at Duane Reade for condoms. She runs into a Thai restaurant to order take out. (Cowboy loves green curry.) Reese is thinking about all the straight men who want to sleep with her. There are websites devoted to hooking couples like this up.
The twist is that Reese is a trans woman. She has not had bottom surgery yet, so the romp with Cowboy is anything but heterosexual.
This scene lays the foundation for the novel’s themes, about both the conventional and gender-bending elements of the trans identity. (Reese also longs to be a mother.) It’s a wholly original hook in a book full of fresh content.
4.
Bill, a pilot, is sitting near the back of a plane. He has just seen a woman’s dismembered foot land in someone’s lap. The plane lurches through turbulence. Passengers are screaming. They are in a dire situation and he can’t get to the cockpit to help.
And then Bill wakes up in a cold sweat. “You had that nightmare again, didn’t you?” his wife Carrie says in bed next to him. He shakes it off, hits the shower, and gets ready for a cross-country flight.
Maybe I’m showing my age here, but dream sequences are a tired and unimaginative addition to any narrative. David Lynch can pull it off. No one else can. If you’re not David Lynch, don’t have dream sequences.
5.
Abbie is living her best life in Nova Scotia. She is a surgeon with a strong marriage and a perfect son. Then one evening, she turns on the proverbial curve in the road and crashes into another car. She survives, but the other driver is instantly killed.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because fatal accidents as the point of no return have been a staple of pulp fiction and horror flicks like I Know What You Did Last Summer.
To make narrative matters worse, the driver of the other car is Abbie’s husband. And, of course, he wasn’t the man she thought he was. And, of course, she is shattered. And, of course, she meets a local vet who helps her trust again.
And, of course, it was a best-seller because there are plenty of people who don’t mind unoriginal plotting. More power to them.
Books Smitten 