The First Line

There are various reasons for which a book gets picked up by a prospective reader. It could be that the jacket is enticing or the name has intrigued the person. It could also be that they have read the blurb at the back and find the book interesting. But the surest way to get your hook into the reader is to make sure you have a kickass first line.

Consider for instance some of these well known classics –

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way – Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

I am an invisible man. – Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)

You better not never tell nobody but God. – Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1982)

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. – Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

See what I mean? These lines capture your interest immediately propelling you into the lives of the protagonists and soon you're turning pages avidly, living the story with them, biting your nails through the action and unable to put down the book until you've finished it. (This may not be the case with many books as I myself am aware of it. Someone should coin another phrase about not judging a book by its first line.) Nevertheless, the first line is a tight hook that reels the reader in.

If you are a writer, the first line is where you probably get stuck. You don't know how best to start the book and since there's so much promise about the first line reeling in a reader, how do you make it work? All this can put quite a lot of pressure on the writer who is already worrying about writer's block and facing a lot of nervousness at even attempting a book or a short story.

Well, I do not have the answers. But I can tell you what I usually do.

Grabbing interest – Grab the interest of the reader immediately by making a statement which intrigues them. Obviously, 'it was a dark and stormy night' is not going to do it. You have your characters in your mind and a plot in place. Put them in the centre of the action on the very first page and start your first line from the anywhere in the middle. Today one does not have to chronologically give the reader a beginning, middle or end. Start at the middle and then continue to give the reader some background. Weave back and forth but just make sure you do not get confused or confuse the reader.
Shock element – Shock the reader by starting the book with something completely unexpected. See the first line of Kafka's Metamorphosis to know what I mean. Obviously you're going to read and see whether this man really has turned into an insect or the writer is just trying to trick you.
Dialogue – Depending on the kind of book you're writing, it can even start with a dialogue between two characters. This puts the reader bang into the middle of it and they're involved before they even know it. By the way, I've used this technique in Blinkers Off. It starts with this line 'Is it like Hum Aap Ke Hain Kaun?'
Intrigue – An intriguing first line promises the reader a glimpse into the book before they have even started it. The reader knows that something will happen to the characters shortly and they're going to be around to see that happen, if you're lucky. A quick aside here. My book Kite Strings was reviewed in Deccan Herald by Ms. Prema Nandakumar. We corresponded for a while regarding the review and she had mentioned that she was addressing a seminar on writing where she used my book as an example and I quote "Yesterday the inaugural talk went off very well and a 100-strong student audience liked it when I gave your novel as an example of getting the right symbol to put an idea across and how this is very important, as are the opening and closing sentences in any work of fiction." Naturally I was very thrilled. Also, when I had attending a creative writing workshop last year with students of Inventure Academy who had been given just the first chapter of my book, they all said that the first line caught their attention. Read the first chapter of Kite Strings here.

So far, these are the ways I know to capture the interest of your reader. Any other favourite first lines or techniques from fellow writers are most welcome!