First Line Fishing Trip: Input Requested

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The lead time to hooking readers shrinks monthly. In the sixties, readers would read the first few chapters before bailing on a book. During the sixties, however, the industry published  twenty or thirty thousand books each year.

In 2014 the industry produced more than a million traditionally and independently published books. Many of them look the same. Buyers can’t afford to read past the first few pages. If a book doesn’t hit their sweet spot immediately, they move on. Hooking the reader by the end of the first chapter becomes a losing strategy. You need to hook your readers in the first paragraph, better yet the first line.

Buyers can no longer afford to read past the first few pages. If a book doesn’t hit their sweet spot immediately, they move on.

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Which line hooks you? I wrote this five lines as the leading contenders to open a novel about a physician accused of murdering his wife. I’d appreciate it if you mentioned the one that grabs you most in the comments section.

I used to revise the first paragraph as many as six times to get the hook right, but I realized revising kept me focused on variations of the line I’d already written. I’m trying a new strategy, brainstorming multiple opening lines. (When I did design work I would draw as many as 50 thumbnails and encouraged my design students to draw at least 20.)

I’m starting a novel that’s a cross between Body Heat and Presumed Innocent. A celebrity surgeon, whose wife died in a car wreck, discovers someone wants to make it look like he murdered her.  I wrote several lines, but settled on these as the best five:

I knew she was gone when the car exploded.
I would have pulled her from the car if Cole’s hand wasn’t wrapped around my ankle.
In the distance I heard sirens. Silly me, for a moment I felt hope.
Blood spread through her blonde hair as she slumped across the wheel. Even so, I thought she stood a chance.
You never expect to see your dead wife staring through her shattered windshield.

I’ll continue to tweak and tinker. but I’m curious to see which would hook you to read further?

I’d really appreciate your advice in the comments: 1-5 or “none?”

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