No matter how amazing your book is, you’ll need to get the reader to decide they want to read it first. The first line of your book is one of the major deciding factors. So, how do I write the first sentence of a book?

There might be multiple reasons to ask that question. Perhaps you’re just starting to write your book, and you have writer’s block. Or, your book is nearly finished, and you’re going through it one last time for final touches. In each case, the first sentence should spark interest, inspire curiosity, and set the tone for your genre.

Why Is Knowing How to Write the First Sentence of a Book Hard?

Can you recall the last book that caught your eye? What made you decide whether you like it or not? What made you decide that you want to take the time to read it? Was it the cover, its blurb, or perhaps it was the minute you began reading the first chapter? Chances are that you were hooked from the first sentence.

As mentioned earlier, there are different reasons for having trouble with writing the first sentence of a book, with two reasons being the most frequent.

You Don’t Know How to Start

The writing process for the very beginning of the book is stressful to most writers. You’ve outlined your plot or story, designed characters, and done your research. What next? There’s an empty page in front of you, and you’re about to go on a journey that, in many ways, resembles climbing Mount Everest.

The first sentence, in this case, will guide your thinking and creativity. It will navigate the direction of the story and will affect your inspiration in many ways. It has to be strong, inspiring, and interesting to be able to spark that chain explosion that results in being unable to leave the keyboard.

You’re Finalizing Your Book

Your book is almost finished. You are going through it for the last time before sending it out to the editor, and you’re adding tweaks and small changes that prove to be essential for each book’s success. You are finally certain in your writing; you’ve removed any plot holes, and the writing looks amazing.

Suddenly, you realize that the first lines of the book aren’t as nearly as interesting as the rest of it. This could be a problem. Realizing that the introductory passages don’t do your book justice calls for more editing, but this is where you might get even more alarmed. How do you write that first sentence to entice the reader but not reveal all of your cards?

In either of the scenarios, the first sentence of a book must be interesting and mysterious. It needs to spark your inspiration to keep writing and the reader’s interest to keep reading; however, it also must set the tone for your story and reflect your unique writing style. How do you do this? The following strategies should help you find direction.

How to Write the First Sentence of a Book

Your Book’s First Sentence Inspiration Board
Get Personal! Share something intimate with your reader.	Be Authentic! Stay true to your style, tone, and vision.
Be Funny! Everyone likes to laugh!	Be Honest! Honesty builds trust between you and the reader.

You may not be aware of just how important it is to write the best possible first sentence of your book. When you’re busy focusing on scenery, dialogues, or narration, you might miss out on the fact that the first sentence of a book is intended to hook your reader into finishing the first page, then the first chapter, and ultimately the last page.

So much expectation of a single little sentence, right? Choosing the words for it must be done with care, so start with the following:

Form an Intimate Bond

Which would likely hook a reader more: A description of a sunny day or a child walking barefoot in the grass? When you’re writing the first sentence, intimacy should be the first thing that comes to mind. You’re not hosting a TV show or giving an interview.

You’re keeping company with a reader who will be on their own—take special time out of their day for your work, and get comfortable to immerse themselves in the world that you created. You need to form a connection which is best done by opening up on a personal note.

In this sense, whatever you write should be personal and count as intimate, or at least not be something a person would publish on their social media. Think about the experiences that are important to you but you only share with people you love and trust.

After that, think about what experiences your book generates for its characters and use one of them to bond with the reader.

Make your descriptions vivid, including sensations, smells, images, and feelings. Put your reader in the main character’s shoes, or at least in your specially designed scene. Depending on the book, or rather its tone and style, don’t be afraid to get bold or even messy. The reader should experience the first few passages as if they are actually the book’s character.

Another way to bond with a reader is to begin a story by sharing mundane, intimate moments of your character. Are they entering a room, looking at the mess on their floor, and feeling a sense of anguish over what their life became? Regardless of your genre, scenes like these are common for most people, and the reader will certainly stay with a character that they feel like they can identify with.

Show Authenticity

Each character has its unique voice; overall, your characters’ voices are—or at least should be—unique to you as an author. The first sentence of a book must reflect that as well. Use the character’s signature vocabulary and phrases.

The first sentence should reveal the personality of your character. Depending on your topic, there might be some limitations of what you should and shouldn’t do, like whether or not to use adverbs or inappropriate words. But, if you feel like it works well to set the tone for the character and the book, feel free to break rules and write what feels the best for your work.

Use your unique voice as vividly as you would describe a scene. If you decide that the first sentence should be conversational, you can get away with less-polished language—and even rambling—if that’s unique to your character’s voice.

Optionally, you can even narrate a scene by citing the tone and voice of one of your characters. Doing so can help elevate the contrast between your character and its surroundings; it also says a lot about the relationship that they have with other people in their environment.

Keeping in mind that you’re to display your character’s entire personality within one or two sentences, you can stop and think which phrases describe them best, which are their most prominent personality traits, and how all of that translates into words, descriptions, and dialogues.

Don’t forget that you can change whatever you want in your book, so don’t stop on your first attempt. Considering how important the first sentence is, it’s perfectly alright to spend hours writing one sample after another, changing words and phrases, as you follow your inspiration.

If you don’t like your first “first” sentence, the 10th, or even the 100th, one should definitely make you feel better.

Stun Your Reader

How about starting your first sentence with something surprising, illogical, or irrational? A great first sentence makes the reader wonder, and what better way to achieve that than by giving them something that they don’t fully understand? Remember, most people have just a tad bit irrational about them, and this irrationality often translates into:

• Fears: Does your character have quirky fears? Or would a group of townsfolk, or even scientists, have their unique superstitions? Do they knock on wood to fight off jinx or they have their weird rituals for good luck?

Once you realize that a bit of irrational lives inside every person, you can begin to wonder what peculiarities lie in your character’s personality or the mentality of their entire community. Think about what works best for the first passage, and include that piece of information in your first sentence.

• Exaggerations: Does your character have strange habits? Are they drinking too much coffee, have a sweet tooth, or simply have to take a walk at the same place at the same time each day? Remember, great characters always have flaws and quirks, and there’s a reason for that.

You see, all people have their peculiarities but believe that everyone around them doesn’t, so they’re a bit ashamed of talking about them. They reserve their quirks for a selected few, and if your character appeals to their sense of uniqueness, they will hold tightly to your book.

Decide which of these character “flaws” might work well for your first line, and play off of ever-present quirkiness to appeal to your reader. It’s more likely that the reader will bond with a character if you present them as a human than if they just experience the character superficially.

• Assumptions: Everyone has a unique outlook on life and so do your characters. Fiction or nonfiction, all writing comes from a certain point of view or a set of beliefs. Beliefs also translate into assumptions and attitudes, a.k.a. what your characters think about the world, life, and other people.

For example, your main character or narrator might believe that they can tell people’s characters by their shoes, or people’s personalities resemble animals or pies. Analyze your main character a little bit deeper, and think about what strange beliefs and assumptions they might have. Work them into the first line, and chances are that you’ll have a quite interesting result.

Use Humor

If making your reader chuckle makes any sense to your book, do it. Humor may not fit with certain genres or stories, but it should with the majority. At the end of the day, people read books because they want to have a good time. Laughter is always welcome as long as you work it into the writing to feel natural and not forced.

You can be ironic, satiric, or sarcastic if you please. However, keep in mind that your humor should be appropriate. The characters are indeed allowed to be as bad or bigoted as they please, but it may not be wise to start your book with statements that might offend a reader.

The reader should first get a chance to learn your book’s position and take on social issues so as to not confuse the character’s voice with yours as an author.

Be Honest

How about some blunt honesty to stagger your reader—maybe slightly provoke them—but still show that your book is an honest take on life? Nowadays, people care a lot about whether a story is realistic and believable, even if it’s fantasy or science fiction.

The same as your reader’s fears can be easily triggered by words that don’t necessarily sound scary, their loyalty and interest can awake in the presence of words they consider touching but accurate. You can share difficult truths, lesser-known truths, and even positive truths.

When talking about truth it is, of course, a philosophical category, so everyone interprets it in their own way. If you’re looking for inspiration for your God’s honest book beginning, you can study a little bit of philosophy and check which authors and schools align well with your story.

With that in mind, you can get inspiration from beliefs, principles, definitions, and even quotes when creating that unique first sentence.

First Sentence Writing Tips

Brainstorm

Brainstorming is a process in which you work through the main idea and follow your instincts and inspiration to uncover other associated symbols, motifs, words, and phrases that describe the key term.

In terms of deciding how to write the first sentence of your book, brainstorming can be useful not only to outline a plot, but also to get a sense of the “vibe” the sentence should have. It could give you great ideas about its style, verbiage, length, and tone.

Inspire After

Although your story is undoubtedly unique, there’s always a chance that something even remotely similar has already been published. Look up books that have similar topics to yours, and make a list of your top five.

Your top list should include titles that not only resemble your book, but have also earned great ratings and commercial success, paired by favorable editor reviews. Altogether, these titles make for great role models. Now, you can look into the first sentences of those books, and analyze them to see if you can find inspiration for yours.

With only a couple of sentences to analyze, use all of your skills to map out tones, styles, structures, verbiage, and everything else that comes to mind. The advantage of inspiring after successful books is that you’ll gain insight into strategies that have proven to work.

Of course, your work should be unique. Don’t neglect your own taste and style when deciding which direction to take. Unlike the sample sentences, your sentence will have your unique flavor. Trust your gut when it comes to making your choice, and adopt the elements and strategies that will work well with your book.

Here are some samples of great book openings if you need a boost of creativity:

Paint a Picture

When you think about your book title, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? People have developed stories out of the strangest imagery, from how a warm meal rests on the table to how a spider is wrapping a fly in their web.

With brainstorming, you used your cognitive skills to come up with associations and verbiage. With visualizing, you are to note the exact images and scenes that come to mind when thinking about your book.

Of course, you can, but don’t have to, use the exact image for your introduction. As always, write the image down, from the elements it includes, its description, colors, smells, and tastes, to how it makes you feel.

After that, reflect on what the visualization is trying to say to you. Visualization often lets us grasp buried thoughts and feelings that are difficult to put into words. They are difficult because they are personal, intimate, and often an expression of tenderness, vulnerability, or even “bad” feelings we want to forget, like anger and sadness.

Once you have your topic visualization written down, look it over and follow your inspiration. Write a sentence or two, and see where you’re going.

List Keywords

It’s always good to be methodical. When you’re writing a story that you deeply care about, it’s possible to go all over the place with ideas, forgetting some that could potentially be amazing. One of the best ways to get hold of your most amazing ideas is to write down keywords.

Phrases that relate to your topic, character, scene, the introductory chapter, the reader, and all else surrounding the first sentence can be listed on paper for a clear overview. With a clear plan in mind, you’ll be better able to pursue a specific direction.

Ask!

Questions are traditionally among the favored ways to begin a book. The question that you pose at the beginning of the book can relate to dozens of things, and it is up to you to find your focus. There are a couple of ways to ask a question when starting your book, be it fiction or nonfiction:

• Ask Your Test Readers. Is there anyone who will look over your manuscript before it goes into editing? Most writers at least have their close friends and family members read their books before publishing, and you should too. When offering your book for a test read, emphasize the importance of the first sentence, and ask your reviewers to share their opinions and suggestions. It’s likely that people who care about you will quickly dive into the book because you wrote it, which is why they should be reminded that a little bit of critique is for your own good.
• Ask the Reader. You can directly ask the reader a question from your role as a narrator. When asked a question, the reader will then start to think about the answer. But, if you make sure that the question sparks interest into the remainder of the chapter, and of course, your book, the reader will be more likely to stick around.
• Ask Another Character. If you think that your book should start with a question, but don’t want to address the reader directly, why not have another character ask a question to either another character, or themselves, as a part of a monologue? There’s a lot that you can communicate to your reader through dialogue between characters, from their backgrounds, to scenery, plots, and pretty much anything you can think of.
• Ask a Philosophical Question. Finally, you can choose to ask a philosophical question that’s not easy to answer. The question should inspire thinking but also be a tad too difficult for the reader to answer on their own. Most books have philosophies as their base premise, so why not state them clearly and openly in a form of a question?

A crime novel can ask a question like “What makes a man kill?” and a nonfiction book about finance can begin with “How do you make something out of nothing?” Questions like these not only inspire readers to keep reading, but they also help establish your authority. Philosophical questions sound eloquent, and let’s face it, everyone likes to feel that way—including your reader.

Want more tips on how to write the first sentence of your book? Here’s an insider tutorial by a best-selling author:

FAQ

How Long Should My First Sentence Be?

Ideally, your first sentence should be short, concise, and clear. Short sentences are more impactful and memorable and will have a more intense effect on your reader. However, this means saying a lot without saying much. How do you do that?

As always, the answer is by trial, error, and brainstorming. Since there’s nothing to lose before your book is published, you can type a long sentence that contains all of the information that you want to communicate. You can also note the impact you want it to have on the reader, the scene that it should create, and the emotion it should evoke.

Then, you can take your long sentence and design multiple shorter, but more intense sentences that are inspired by it. Use all of your creative tools, from symbolism to satire. Turn the sentence upside down, experiment, and look for different options. Then, think about the remainder of the passage, and the chapter as a whole.

Figure out which idea works best with the rest of the book, and voila! You have your first sentence.

What Should My First Sentence Say?

Aside from everything mentioned earlier, the first sentence of your book should also sum up the book. Imagine that you had to sum up the point of your book in a single, 15 or 20 word sentence. What would you say? How would you say it?

Of course, this sentence shouldn’t plainly state the point of the book. Instead, it should present it symbolically as if the point itself morphed into an emotion, a thought, or an image. There are a lot of ways to infuse the essence of a book into its introductory sentence.

How you choose to do this depends on you as an author, the style, tone of the book, and of course, the plot.

Conclusion

Why put all of the effort in the book’s introductory sentence? The answer is simple.

Writing the first sentence of your book is worth all of the time, effort, and creativity that you can spare. Regardless of your genre or writing stage, figuring out that first sentence can be a fun process of exploring your book’s universe and finding its most beautiful highlights to share with the audience.

Of course, you don’t have to go through all of the steps suggested in this article to write an amazing first sentence. Considering just how many literary forms, genres, and topics are out there, you can simply go on a hunch and use those strategies that appeal to you the most.

Finally, you must be wondering: What are the key steps to writing the first sentence of your book? Well, here’s the list of the basic steps:

• Think about the book topic, its main idea, and philosophies.
• Think about your main character, their staple personality traits, and quirks.
• Think about your genre, introductory paragraph, and the entire chapter.
• Think about the reader and the feelings you want to evoke.
• Think about your reader’s motives for reading the book, their personality profile, and what’s most likely to spark their interest.
• Decide on the style, tone, and information for your first sentence.
• Brainstorm and write as many versions as you wish.
• Make the sentence clear, strong, and on point.
• Keep polishing until you’re happy!

Need more help? Here are a couple more suggestions for writing the first sentence of your book: