Are you working on a book, essay, or an article, but can’t figure out how to write the best introduction paragraph? Don’t worry, because you’re not alone! Most writers struggle when starting to write a fresh piece of content.
Learning how to write a good introductory paragraph isn’t only about finding inspiration. A good introductory paragraph keeps a reader interested. To write a good first paragraph, you need to find an interesting angle to the topic and find something exciting to share with your reader.
How to do this in real life? Find out in the sections below!
Why Writing a Good Introduction Paragraph is a Must
An introductory paragraph can make or break your writing. Whether you’re writing a novel, an essay, an article, or a non-fiction book, introductory paragraphs can either reel the audience in, or drive them away. Here’s why it’s important for you to know how to write the best introductory paragraph:
- Interest. Your reader must remain interested in the writing, first and foremost. Unless they need your work for an exam, a reader will give up on a piece if they don’t like the introduction.
- Perspective. Introductory paragraphs frame entire books, chapters, and sections for the reader. If you’re publishing essays or articles, these passages show the reader what your content is about, and whether or not they’ve come to the right place to find the information or experience they’re after.
- Relevance. A good introduction shows the reader that your content is important for them. It shows that your writing, whether a book or an article, is a place where they can find something new and valuable.
How to Write the Best Introduction Paragraph
What do some of the most iconic novels have in common? They all begin with a punchy first paragraph. The first paragraph sparks a reader’s interest, regardless of the genre. From an opening sentence to the final question a book poses upon a reader, the first paragraph can make or break a book.
Your “Best Introduction Paragraph” cheat sheet:
| How to Start Writing a Great Introduction Paragraph | ||
| Quote! | State a fun fact! | Tell a story! |
| Ask a Question! | Describe a Scene! | Be authentic! |
It is important for more than one reason. The first paragraph shows your reader that the book is worthy of their time, and is a sample that sets the standard for judging the entire piece.
However, if writing a great first paragraph was so easy, all quality books would be best-sellers. Unfortunately, they’re not. The vast majority of quality books go unnoticed simply because readers lose interest when reading the first couple of lines.
The first lines of a book are what a reader gets for free when browsing Amazon or a print book. Do you recall what buying a book looks like? You glance at the blurb, and then open the first pages. If the sentences inside fail to impress, you move on. So do your readers.
While there’s no clear formula or a template that you can use for a stellar first paragraph, there are many useful guidelines you can rely upon to get inspiration. Remember, the first paragraph of your writing must appeal to the reader, but it also needs to be authentic.
It has to be something that the reader can find in that particular piece of writing and nowhere else. As such, authenticity must reflect your unique idea, style, and voice. With that in mind, use all of the guidelines given in this article from the angle of your topic and literary style.
Don’t be afraid to be original, and of course, don’t hesitate to experiment and write a couple of different versions of an introductory paragraph before choosing the best one.
Without further ado, here are the steps and recommendations for writing an interest-sparking first paragraph:
Use a Quote
Fiction, non-fiction, academic—you name it! You can use quotes in every genre and form of writing, whether it’s a blog post or a historic novel. There are a couple of advantages to quotes over regular writing. First, you can choose one that you already know will spark interest. Choosing a quote to begin your writing allows you to research the most popular quotes in your genre and choose those that appeal best to the target audience.
Here’s a pro tip for using quotes: You can create them on your own! That’s right! If you’re writing fiction or non-fiction, you can use your character’s voice, or even your own, to start on a punchy note.
If you were to write an article on cancel culture on social media, you can choose a quote by a scientist or a politician to spark a sense of authority, or you can choose to be funny and quote Lemony Snicket, a fictional character from the novel A Series of Unfortunate Events by Daniel Handler and start off with: “…if you’re allergic to something…It’s best not to put it in your mouth.” – Lemony Snicket.
This quote indicates the tone of your article in a light-hearted manner, and it could easily make your reader chuckle, while still staying true to the topic.
As you can see, different quotes have a different impact on the tone and the reader’s experience. They are also memorable and help your reader form an emotional connection to the chapter before even reading it. Even better, if you’re writing about a complex topic that requires you to explain scientific facts to a general audience, quotes can be a great tool to do this. They paint a picture that might take multiple definitions, formulas, or charts.
But, why are quotes so effective with readers? If you choose an interesting quote, you are speaking to your audience through the words of a literary authority figure. Even though you weren’t the one to design these words, the audience will see them as your own. They reflect your opinion, insights, and attitudes.
In this sense, the better the quote, the more authority you have with the reader. Quotes can be particularly effective if used strategically, in a manner that is usefully controversial and provokes just enough for the reader to wish to know more about your view on the topic.
Quotes are also a great way to spark interest in a topic that is otherwise dry and difficult to process. If you’re writing about the economy, statistics, or stock market, it’s hard to make writing both interesting and accurate.
If you dwell in too much prose, the reader might find it fluffy. On the other hand, if you start with a definition or a report from the previous year, you might lose the interest of any reader who is not a niche enthusiast. What should you do then? Give them the context of the story that’s about to unfold through an inspiring quote.
However, you need to be up-to-date with how to properly cite and reference quotes. A pair of quotation marks and an author’s name won’t protect you from legal liability. Different citation styles and writing forms require different citation formats, so make sure to verify that you’re using the right one.
Use a Fun Fact
Sentences that start with “Did you know…” are pure reader magnets! However, you need to make sure that the facts you choose are, indeed, fun. You also need to make sure that they are true facts for that matter, as they need to be accurate, or else you’ll be compromising your credibility. Trivia is commonly entertaining, and if you make the right associations to the topic, your readers will definitely want to know more. While using facts to begin your writing is commonly present in marketing writing, it is also a common marketing trick.
Facts have several advantages when it comes to sparking the reader’s interest. First, they are useful and topic-related, which is why readers perceive that your book, novel, or article will be even more valuable further down the line. Second, they spark interest without using fluff. Believe it or not, many readers find common filler sentences to be boring, even if they serve the topic. Starting with a statistic or a fact makes the reader feel like they already learned something useful, despite being just a couple of lines into a book. This makes your first paragraph snappy, memorable, and helps form an emotional relationship with the content.
But, why are statistics and fun facts actually effective? Some form of an emotional trigger is necessary for the era of intense competition. With online books now costing less than $20, you need to fight for the reader’s attention start-to-finish.
You need to fight for their perception that reading your content is somehow important to them and that not reading them will somehow be a loss to them. You have to showcase credibility, utility, and humor all the way through, and introducing entertaining knowledge is the right unusual trick to achieve that.
People tend to remember unusual things, and introducing them into your writing, particularly beginning your writing with a fun fact, is an excellent way for your content to get stuck in the reader’s brain. Believe it or not, the reason for this is far less intellectual than it may seem.
Human brains are actually wired to spot unusual things as threatening. It is an instinctive process that defies rationality, but in this case, it works in your favor. A person is likely to remember a piece of information that comes across as alarming, regardless of whether or not the content of said piece of information is threatening or not.
There is another reason why fun facts are so effective. Nowadays, people love sharing fun content with their friends on social media. Your reader is more likely to stay with your content if they perceive it to be something that they can post on Facebook, or snapshot and share as a fun Instagram story. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s true!
But, for your introductory facts to be effective, they need to be chosen with care. They need to arise complex emotions, triggering people’s survival instinct and combining it with humor and natural curiosity. As with the previous tip, choose multiple fun facts to work as your introductory paragraph, and test them one against the other and against the rest of the content. Let the best fact win!
Be a Dramatic Storyteller
As modern and tech-savvy as readers can be, most of them enjoy seeing a bit of classic literature in everything they read. This particularly goes for easy-reads and online articles, since this style of writing makes them feel like they’re not merely consuming digital content, but instead reading something of academic and literary value.
Plus, storytelling is one of the most effective marketing strategies nowadays. If you begin your writing with a story, and particularly if this story is dramatic and emotional, you’ll be instantly able to form an emotional connection with a reader.
Any story you have to tell can be well-explained using traditional narratives. This can be invaluable when you’re to present new ideas and concepts to people, and you’re looking for a way to engage them with something that doesn’t necessarily inspire awe.
Whichever topic, theme, or trope you look up, there is always an inspiring, intriguing, or mysterious story or an example related to it.
A challenge may occur when writing fiction, but here you can also use storytelling through the voice of your own characters. For example, if a plot entails starting with a plain brunch outdoors, and you want to set the scene for some mystery or drama, you can have a character tell a story to entertain the rest of the crowd.
This can help your reader engage with the tone and setting of the story, without anything particular having to happen plot-wise before its time.
Remember how some of the introductory scenes from Stranger Things began by children playing Dungeons and Dragons? This example can be successfully used in writing as well. In the case of this series, you see the characters narrating an exciting adventure, and the tone is set for an adrenaline rush even though the scene only involves children playing in a basement.
You can wield a tool like this not only to start a seemingly mundane paragraph, but also to bridge gaps in flow and emotion that would otherwise occur between chapters and book sections, and of course, to add elements of mystery and entertainment into non-fiction topics. That is if you choose the right stories.
There is, again, a quite scientific explanation behind why stories are so effective. Stories were used throughout history to pass on meaningful life lessons and remain a universal form of entertainment. If you’re looking for a tool to instantly grab someone’s attention, what better way to do it than a story?
Other than writing the first paragraph of a book, a chapter, or an article, stories are also a great tool to expand the topic or a plot and introduce new characters and developments. If used wisely, they can navigate the flow of a written piece, and steer the reader’s attention, thought, and emotion in your chosen direction.
Ask a Question and Set a Thesis!
What if whatever your reader finds in the following passages challenges everything they knew about the topic? Perhaps they would like to know more. Or, what if you could show them that something that they were deeply convinced to be true was false? What better way to express it than with a question?
Much like the previous, this tool can also make for a compelling first paragraph. Posing a challenging thesis, and then providing a surprising explanation engages your reader on multiple levels. They are now intellectually stimulated to think about the answer. With this, they are already engaging with your work.
If the question relates to a problem or has an emotional or personal significance to the reader, then a bit of attachment is already starting to form. Opening a paragraph with a question gives you an opportunity to grip the interest into whatever you have to say next, leaving plenty of room for other arguments you’re trying to make.
Writing the first paragraph in a form of a question and an answer, or even multiple questions, presents a reader with an imaginary scenario, or better say scenery, in which you become the narrator dictating how the events will unfold.
Furthermore, asking a question requires your reader to use their judgment and think about the topic, which further helps them perceive your content as relevant and invaluable.
Starting a paragraph with a question further validates your esteem for the reader, as you’re inquiring about their opinion and leaving space for doubt and discussion, rather than coming from a place of an authority figure who is lecturing them.
Everyone likes to feel respected, esteemed, and valid. Consciously or unconsciously, the reader will respond and reciprocate this esteem, feeling further inclined to read your work.
This technique puts a reader into a memorable intellectual and emotional place, both providing valuable insight and giving lighthearted entertainment. Likewise, a question can be used to set a more serious, or even threatening tone, depending on the topic. You can make the reader feel like they’re somehow at risk if they don’t get the information from your writing, even if the risk is only hypothetical.
However, you should use questions with caution. Over the years, they’ve been used too much for manipulative purposes. Unless you choose a highly relevant thesis, which needs further elaboration and is useful to the reader, they might perceive it as an attempt at deception. Questions have been used in clickbait articles and false advertising generously, to the point where people associate them with fraud.
To avoid this pitfall, make sure that the question is styled in good taste, and that the thesis itself is structured in a way as to leave the reader with a clear message.
As you know, every question has countless answers, and there are a variety of ways to answer it. If you go into too much depth and multiple directions with your answer, you may easily go off topic, and lose the reader’s interest.
Ideally, your thesis should serve as a hook that ties in the first paragraph with the following content. That way, a reader has a clear perception of the answer, and they understand how the answer ties in with the “big picture.”
Set the Stage
One of the most common, yet largely overused and most risky ways to start a paragraph is by describing a scene. If done well, an introductory paragraph that describes scenery or events can instantly form a visual world in your reader’s mind. This “world,” which you can also call “a universe,” is necessary for fiction.
Your reader needs a clear theme and tone to be able to imagine what they’re reading, which is why your fiction world is likely to benefit from it more than a non-fiction piece. But, descriptions can be used in non-fiction as well. Remember, non-fiction revolves around describing a topic, and the reader must be able to visualize the content as they’re reading it.
For example, if you’re writing a piece on diets, and you want to start your book by making an argument against fast food, you can start by describing the devastation that happens inside one’s body when one consumes chemical-infused foods. You can do so in a descriptive manner, giving a thorough representation of tissues being damaged, arteries clogged, or fat cells growing.
The technique known as “setting the scene” is useful to draw the reader into the book’s universe, explain the development that is about to happen, and help them understand what the content is about. Of course, it is easier to use this technique with topics that are otherwise perceived as fresh, new, interesting, and important.
The challenge may occur when you need to find a way to paint a picture of an issue that is otherwise difficult to visualize, in which case, you’ll have to look beyond the topic and find a connection to issues that are relevant to the reader.
A good introductory paragraph doesn’t only spark interest, but also briefly opens the story that is about to unfold, discreetly suggesting both the good and the bad sides of the event or occurrence that is being discussed. You can use it to let the reader know that there are both positives and negatives of what they’re about to read, which, again, sparks an inner conflict.
The reader here looks forward to the positives of what’s written down the line, and they also fear the negative outcomes, perceiving them as risks. Of course, it takes some planning and care to use this tool to drive the reader in the desired direction. Remember, you want to spark their interest, but not scare them away from reading the book in total.
Writing the Best Introductory Paragraph FAQ
What’s the Best Way to Spark the Reader’s Interest?
Novelty is a common denominator of all introductory methods. No matter which way you choose to open a story, it has to introduce a new piece of information. Look for news, stories, and facts that are little known, so that your reader gets a glance at something they haven’t heard of before from the very beginning of the book.
How Should You Structure Introductory Sentences?
Having versatility and flow in your writing is a fundamental principle of all quality writing. Your introductory paragraph should be a thoughtful blend of different length sentences, so that it doesn’t come across as flat and boring.
How to Avoid Writing a Flat Introductory Paragraph?
Regardless of how much work you put into your writing, the reader may not ever enjoy it if they’re repelled by a boring introduction. The best way to avoid this is to write an introduction that appeals to whatever your reader wants and needs to gain from the content.
Whether it’s excitement, sentiment, or a piece of useful information—you just have to make the introduction matter!
Conclusion
Writing a good introductory paragraph first requires knowing what your readers want to get from reading a book, and then using your unique style and insight into the topic to give them that.
To entice the reader into reading further, you can ask them an interesting question, share a mind-bending fact, narrate a compelling story, set a vivid scene, or simply use a quote.
Learning how to write good introductory paragraphs is not easy, but it’s worthwhile. If you master the art of opening stories, plots, and topics in a way that sparks interest, you’ll have no trouble finding an audience for your work.
However, these skills don’t build themselves overnight.
Remember, introductions aren’t set in stone! You don’t have to stick to your original idea if there is a possibility of a better one. Write a couple of different introductory paragraphs, and then evaluate all of them. Find the good and bad sides of each, choose your favorite, and then work on it until you’re certain you’ve done your best.
Experiment and learn through trial and error. It might be daunting, but it is necessary for you to find the best strategy for drawing in readers!