You Had Me at Hello

I'm probably the least patient reader I've come across. So many more accommodating readers are bored-bordering-miserable just a few pages into a book, but they are hell bent on pushing through to completion.

Not me. If you don't have me in the first few paragraphs (yes, that's all it takes!) my book is shut down like an angry snapping turtle. A compelling opening paragraph immediately

hooks the reader by establishing a strong voice, intrigue, setting, or conflict within the first few sentences. Effective strategies include starting in the middle of action, posing a challenging situation, surprising the reader, or focusing on a specific, sensory detail. The goal is to create curiosity and a "need to know" that makes it impossible to stop reading.

Key Elements of Compelling Openings

A Captivating Hook: Startle, intrigue, or charm the reader immediately.

Strong Voice and Character: Introduce a unique narrator or voice right away.

Immediate Conflict/Tension: Introduce a problem or a question that demands resolution.

Setting the Scene: Immerse the reader in the world.

Originality: Avoid cliches; aim for a fresh, surprising angle.

Establish curiosity - Make the reader curious to know what happens next and throughout the story

E. B. White., Charlotte’s Web

“Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.

“Out to the hog house,” replied Mrs Arable.

“Some pigs were born last night.”

“I don’t see why he needs an axe,” continued

Fern, who was only eight.

“Well,” said her mother, “one of the pigs is a

runt. It’s very small and weak, and it will

never amount to anything. So your father has decided to do away with it.”

Anne Enright, The Gathering

I would like to write down what happened in my grandmother’s house the summer I was eight or nine, but I am not sure if it really did happen. I need to bear witness to an uncertain event. I feel it roaring inside me—this thing that may not have taken place. I don’t even know what name to put on it. I think you might call it a crime of the flesh, but the flesh has long fallen away and I am not sure what hurt may linger in the bones.

Karen Armstrong

Through the Narrow Gate: A Memoir of Spiritual Discovery (1981)

It was 14 September 1962, the most important day of my life. On the station platform my parents and my sister, Lindsey, were clustered together in a sad little knot, taking their last look at me. I was seventeen years old and was leaving them forever to become a nun.

Ilia Calderón

My Time To Speak: Reclaiming Ancestry and Confronting Race (2020)

All my attention was focused on his face. It’s what I remember most clearly more than two years after our encounter. That face that had raged red as soon as he saw me, and continued angry, indignant. His nostrils flared with his agitated breathing, which he unsuccessfully attempted to control. He responded quickly, hot, like a lit fuse, not letting anyone else talk. And then, suddenly, I heard it from his own lips, “We’re going to burn you out.”

Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm

A soft fall rain slips down through the trees and the smell of ocean is so strong that it can almost be licked off the air. Trucks rumbled along Rogers Street and men in t-shirts stained with fishblood shout to each other from the decks of boats. Beneath them the ocean swells up against the black pilings and sucks back down to the barnacles.

Michael J. Fox, Lucky Man: A Memoir (2003)

I woke up to find the message in my left hand. It had me trembling. It wasn’t a fax, telegram, memo, or the usual sort of missive bringing disturbing news. In fact, my hand held nothing at all. The trembling was the message.

Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Let it keep, the moment when Officer Fish Lips met Abdul in the police station. Rewind, see Abdul running backward, away from the station and the airport, toward home. See the flames engulfing a disabled woman in a pink-flowered tunic shrink to nothing but a match-book on the floor.

Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

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.

Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster. It was just after dark. A blustery March wind whipped the steam coming out of the manholes, and people hurried along the sidewalks with their collars turned up. I was stuck in traffic two blocks from the party where I was heading.

Mom stood fifteen feet away. She had tied rags around her shoulders to keep out the spring chill and was picking through the trash while her dog, a black-and-white terrier mix, played at her feet. Mom’s gestures were all familiar. The way she tilted her head and thrust out her lower lip when studying items of potential value that she'd hoisted out of the Dumpster, the way her eyes widened with childish glee when she found something she liked. Her long hair was streaked with gray, tangled and matted, and her eyes had sunk deep into their sockets, but still she reminded me of the mom she'd been when I was a kid, of diving off cliffs and painting in the desert and reading Shakespeare aloud. Her cheekbones were still high and strong, but the skin was parched and ruddy from all those winters and summers exposed to the elements. To the people walking by, she probably looked like any of the thousands of homeless people in New York City.