Rules For Writer-lings #1: First Sentences Are Important

Blurst of times? Don't be a stupid monkey.

Hey, since I’ve mastered the art of writing (shut up — if Miley Cyrus can be said to have “mastered the art of comedy,” anyone can claim to have mastered anything) I thought I’d pass along some tips for you would-be writers out there, in case you want to submit your work to somebody someday and make lots of dough by composing readable material.  Despite my sarcastic nature, these tips are going to be both serious and helpful.  Many of them will seem obvious, but sometimes obvious things are the least obvious of all.  I think that would probably be an example of a bad first sentence, but I’m not sure.

When you start a story, you need something to hook the reader’s attention so he/she doesn’t put it down and move on to the next story/TV show/movie/blog post/pie-eating contest in life.  That’s not ALL you need, however.  A mistake I see a lot is the dreaded “hook that doesn’t make sense.”  It’s ok if you’re trying to draw the reader in with mystery.  It’s not ok if your punctuation is wrong or your characters say words that make no sense.  Sometimes you try so hard to draw the reader in that you forget to structure a sentence properly. For example:

He was the best rugby player in the world, and in fact, he was a hit with the ladies and the men alike, except me.

You know what the reader says to that?  “Who cares?”  The “in fact” doesn’t fit, and the “hooky” thought involved needs to be expressed in at least two sentences.  Now, watch this:

He was the best rugby player in the world.  Women loved him, and men wanted to be him.  I, however, just wanted to kill him.

See what I mean?  Who wouldn’t read the story that followed that sentence?  I wish I would write a story with that as the first sentence just so I could read it later, because it would be awesome.

Heck, I’d rather see a story with no hook at all in the first paragraph than one that doesn’t punctuate or grammar-ize properly.  You are introducing your narrative world to your potential audience, and you need to assure them that they are in good hands.   If you don’t do that, they are lost forever.  Even if they do read what you’ve written, they won’t fully buy into the story.  If that’s true, why even write one in the first place?