The goal in the beginning is to grab the attention of a bored speed-reader.
“Sunshine shimmered through tulle curtains, casting an ethereal glow on book stacks, and strewn clothes, and my most valuable possession—my record player.”
—Bob Dylan
"If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written." —Hemingway, Moveable Feast
Why is this effective.
Your opening line should usually be the best lien in your piece
Don’t restate the prompt, begin. Cut away the scroll work. Start away with your best sentence
CUT THE SCROLLWORK Common: "An event that sparked a period of personal growth and new understanding for me was the first time I went to a bullfight with my cousins in Mexico."
Compelling: "At the first bullfight I ever went to I expected to be horrified and perhaps sickened by what I had been told would happen to the horses." Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon
OPEN LIKE A FILMMAKER
Common: "The most challenging event I've had to overcome happened one winter day when I was 12 and I encountered ice for the first time with my father on a skiing trip."
Compelling: "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Comments: Opening in the middle of the action without explanation forces us to pay extra attention. Remember: The audience is a bored-speed reader, make the reader intrigued by asking themselves questions. Who is Colonel Buendia? Why is he facing a firing squad?
The bob dylan author puts the most important word in the end of her sentence and creates a small cliff hanger that makes you want to learn more about
The Bob Dylan Essay