Here are my opinions, as a reader, on opening sentences and first paragraphs in fiction.
Starting in medias res is not necessarily a bad thing, but generally I like to be eased into the story. Dropping me into the middle of a scene I'm supposed to care about and assuming that I will start to care within 0.3 seconds is ... well, sometimes it requires more emotional energy than I have spare.
The dragon gave a roar, and blasted Bob with its fiery breath. In the next moment, it smashed the house with its tail. The shockwave blew Bib and Beb backwards —
Oof. I'm exhausted already. Should I care about Bob? I don't know. How big is the dragon, exactly? I can't picture it because I have no description of it. Likewise, what house is being smashed? Is it Bob's house? Who or what are Bib and Beb? I am potentially interested in dragons blasting and smashing, but you have given me no time to understand what is really happening or why. Is the dragon justified in blasting and smashing, or is the dragon the villain? I don't know how to feel about this. You have given me no time to become engaged.
The phrase "Once upon a time" is actually brilliant: it's a cliché, yes, but — like many clichés — it works. It gives me a moment to get settled in. It invites me to take a breath and focus on what I'm about to be told, and it has a reassuring humility to it.
"Once there were four children whose names
were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy." Great: a simple sentence
that tells me the names of our four main characters and that they are
children. (The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis.)
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." Also great.
Setting and character, both introduced in a very straightforward, unthreatening
way. Tolkien, bless him, then immediately describes the hole, and the hobbit, rather
than leaving me in frustrating suspense over what the setting is like and what on
earth a hobbit is. (The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien.)
"Call me Ishmael." Righto, will do. (Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville.)
"I am an invisible man." Marvellous. Do go on. (The Invisible Man, by H. G. Wells.)
"Marley was dead, to begin with." Spiffing! Who's Marley? (A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.)
I
am generally in favour of keeping the first sentence simple and decisive. If I am reading a
story for the first time, I have never met it before; it would be nice
if it said hello and introduced itself clearly in nice plain language
before it starts expecting me to keep up with its antics of plot
and suspense. I would like to be spoken to politely before I am asked to
care and attend.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged,
that a single man in possession of a great fortune, must be in want of a
wife." This is a more complex sentence, but the ideas in it remain simple, and its tongue-in-cheek humour introduces Jane Austen's style and tone so
perfectly that it is the ideal advertisement for the rest of the book. (Pride And Prejudice, by Jane Austen.)
There are some brilliant, complex opening sentences. I am not complaining about long or complex or wittily wordy opening sentences. But I very much prefer it when even a loquacious opening illuminates the setting or introduces a character, rather than simply dumping me into the action.
It was five o'clock in the afternoon when the earthquake hit.
This has a similar feel to "Marley was dead, to begin with". It is a strong, simple opening statement about an event that, it is implied, is important to the rest of the story. However, what follows it is important: you better be about to give me every detail
about this earthquake, because if you introduce something as intense as
an earthquake and then leave me in suspense about it I am going to be cross.
It was five o'clock in the afternoon when the earthquake hit.
... But the earthquake is not what this book is about.
THEN WHY DID YOU WASTE MY TIME BY MENTIONING IT. Two sentences in and I'm already annoyed by your story.
It was five o'clock in the afternoon when the earthquake hit.
But the earthquake wasn't that big a deal, as it only rattled the teacups in the china cabinet, which caused Mother to remark that we never used those teacups anyway and that she wasn't sure why we still kept them, as they were an old anniversary gift from Aunt Mabel, who always did have the most terrible taste.
Hmm. I might be interested in the teacups and Aunt Mabel and Mother, but you baited me with the earthquake, so I am on the lookout for more shenanigans, and if you continue to use dramatic-sounding sentences to introduce mundane moments then you'd better do it masterfully so that it is a clever running joke — perhaps suddenly subverted at a critical moment for impact — rather than annoying.
It was five o'clock in the afternoon when the earthquake hit.
***
Six weeks earlier.
Caroline had spent the entire day on the telephone to various bosses and superiors, trying to sort out the mix-up with the Bradberg account, painfully aware that when she returned that evening to the apartment that she shared with her boyfriend she would no longer be able to hide the truth from him: she was having an affair with his mother and wanted him to leave. Sharon, Bobert's mother, was recently divorced, and almost old enough to be Caroline's mother, which made the whole situation even more sordid; but Caroline could not help herself: Sharon was magnetic, pulsating, vibrant, and enough of that magnetism and vibrancy had been passed on to Bobert that Caroline had been attracted to him immediately. It was only after dating him for eight months that she realised that she was enjoying the occasional coffee dates with his mother more than she was enjoying her relationship with Bobert. He was endearing, sweet, and Caroline felt bad about breaking his heart, especially after he had paid for the apartment out of his life savings, but ... well. The heart wants what it wants, as one of those poems she had been compelled to learn in the fourth grade had said. Miss Collins had looked vaguely sad as she read that poem aloud, and Caroline had never understood why; eventually she had chalked it up to that ennui that so many fourth-grade English teachers possessed. After all, something must make them sufficiently weary of life that they decided to teach fourth-graders.
On hold, Caroline fiddled with a pen on her desk. It was inkless, barren, one of the ones she kept intending to throw out and never did, instead leaving them crammed alongside all the functional pens into a novelty Snoopy mug on her desk, given to her by her best friend Brenda as a cheap souvenir from Australia. Somehow, it felt easier to throw out a boyfriend who bought her an apartment than it did to throw out a dry ballpoint, or even a tacky souvenir mug. She wondered what was wrong with her. Was this the midlife crisis that people kept talking about? She was only twenty-seven, she shouldn't be having a midlife crisis yet, surely. Maybe she was deficient in something — magnesium, or vitamin K; maybe she was bored with her life and needed a change; but dumping Bobert was —
Oh, my gosh, go back to the earthquake and kill Caroline with it.
The bafflemakers had run dry, again. Gilly and the other Bogbrains cowered in the stormruns until the groatwalkers had shambled on their way, then slinbl'd their gel-powered spacebikes across the waffled blinkroad, quick and quiet as spelunking Pumerian salmoncats. It was too early for the Dome to be illuminated, so they utilised their glowlamps to pass as chillsprinters, and blapped the glumonkeys chipplingly.
I don't know what any of this means. I can't care about it if I don't know what it means. And the writer is making a large gamble about how long I am willing to wait before they explain what all these things are. You don't need to keep me in suspense about what a blinkroad is; I am already in suspense over what bafflemakers are, and why they have run dry, and whether this is a problem, and, if so, for whom. You have already given me several burning questions in your six-word opening sentence: adding more mysteries just overwhelms my desire to know any of the answers. By the time I have figured out what a bafflemaker is, I will have forgotten about everything else that was mentioned, rendering this entire paragraph little better than white noise.
"The bafflemakers had run dry, again" is perfectly serviceable by itself, just like "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." The difference is that Tolkien promptly explains to us what the hole is like and what a hobbit is, rather than piling on another sixteen unknown words before he explains the first one.
I think one of the key differences in whether I find an opening line annoying or intriguing is whether it shows some humility and courtesy. Is the author showing off how many words they can invent, without regard for how confusing and unhelpful that may be for the reader? Is the author expecting me to care without first giving me any reason to do so? Is the author making me wade through five paragraphs, or even five sentences, without explaining anything about what is going on?
I am firmly of the belief that art, including writing, is for the artist, not the audience. However, if the artist wants the audience to enjoy the art, the artist needs to give the audience some consideration, and I would posit that such consideration is especially crucial at the beginning, for if the beginning is off-putting, the story will probably be abandoned, no matter how good the following pages are.
