Literary Hub: What Makes A Great Opening Line?
Allegra Hyde writes about opening lines in Literary Hub:
By “clarity,” I mean the ability of a first sentence to give readers an
initial hand-hold for place and/or time and/or character and/or plot.
Clarity is essential for a first sentence because, at the start of a
story or novel—barring whatever information a reader might have
encountered on the jacket copy or in reviews—the reader’s mental theater
is a void. An unlit stage. A nothingness. Every word in that first
sentence is an opportunity to shine a light on what is to come—to give a
reader enough information to stabilize them in some degree of who and where and what the story is about.
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