Writing Effective Beginnings

DISCLAIMER: If the contents of this post about how to write effective beginnings seem familiar to you, you’ve got a good memory. You’ve also probably been reading the MUF blog for at least two years. Let me explain.

A couple of years ago, I posted about key elements that should be present in a story’s opening lines, and I used Wendy Mass’s Every Soul a Star as a model. Today’s post is going to revisit the same book. And I’m so lazy, most everything else is the same, too. But there’s one key difference:

Wigs.

Now, instead of reading, sit back and relax. Grab your favorite beverage. Then take just 3 minutes to watch my video on what you can do with your story’s opening lines in order to hook your readers.

So . . . what’s a book you’ve read that pulled you in from the opening line? What struggles and/or successes have you had at crafting your own effective beginnings? Feel free to post in the comments below.

T. P. Jagger, The 3-Minute Writing Teacher Along with his MUF posts, T. P. Jagger can be found at www.tpjagger.com, where he provides brief how-to writing-tip videos as The 3-Minute Writing Teacher plus free, original readers’ theatre scripts for middle-grade teachers. You can subscribe to his e-newsletter and/or his YouTube channel in order to be notified when new videos are posted in “The 3-Minute Writing Teacher” series of how-to writing tips.

 

T. P. Jagger on PinterestT. P. Jagger on Youtube
T. P. Jagger
Along with his MUF posts, T. P. Jagger can be found at www.tpjagger.com, where he provides brief how-to writing-tip videos as The 3-Minute Writing Teacher plus original, free readers’ theater scripts for middle-grade classrooms. For T. P.’s 10-lesson, video-based creative writing course, check him out on Curious.com.
4 Comments
  1. This is great, TP! Love the wigs, and voices! I adore the opening line of Sarah Weeks’ So B. It. “If truth was a crayon and it was up to me to put a wrapper around it and name its color, I know just what I would call it – dinosaur skin.”

    • Thanks, Michele–glad you enjoyed it. And thanks for sharing the opening line of So B. It. Definitely a winner!
      -T. P.

  2. Great video, love how you illustrated the multiple POV’s. Some of my favorite author opening lines include “There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife (Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman) I always found it interesting that he chose to feature Jack’s POV first.

    I also really like this one, so I included the first two passages “If I had to do it all over again, I would not have chosen this life. Then again, I’m not sure I ever had a choice. These were my thoughts as I raced away from the market, with a stolen roast tucked under my arm (The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen).