The first paragraph of any piece of fiction is like a rocket on the launchpad. It must ignite in a reader the desire to keep reading to the next paragraph, and the one after that, and then again after that.
A misfire means the reader's attention will likely wander off, and then all the hard work that's gone into getting your story in front of the reader goes to waste.
And hard work it is. Just as any rocket launch takes years of preparation, planning, and expense, your story has taken up a significant amount of your time and effort during the writing, editing, proofreading, and publishing stages. That hard work deserves its reward.
Rewards don't come easy these days, and never have. They shouldn't. Easy rewards don't satisfy. The long-term ones are the ones we savor the most.
Rewards also work both ways. A good story should reward the reader as soon as possible with a feeling: curiosity, amusement, dread. We read fiction to go on intellectual and emotional journeys. Convince the reader that your story is a trip worth taking and they'll stay with you.
Recently I had the good fortune to preview the first chapter of book five in a wildly successful series, and I was deadly bored by the end of the first page. The author has gone astray in taking for granted that loyal readers wouldn't mind a dull opening with no drama or punch. New readers will not be impressed.
A very successful crime author taught me that the first page of a novel is the one that's been revised the most. Authors return to them over and over during the revision process, honing them until they launch with just the right amount of impact. During the course of eight published novels, I've found myself writing those first pages dozens of times.
What I tell my own students these days is that often you can't fix the start of a story until you've made a successful pass through the entire first draft and reached the end. The ending teaches you the beginning.
Make the first paragraph of your story as lovely as a rocketship launching into the sky.
Make it powerful and memorable.
Make it look effortless, and we'll go on that journey with you.
(I put these practices to work in the whimsical scifi story Seven Sexy Cowboy Robots, one of my most popular works. You can read it for free at Strange Horizons or buy a copy of The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 5).
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