Writing an opening paragraph that earns the next

A reader decides whether to stay with a long piece very quickly, long before they know what it is about. They are not judging the argument yet. They are judging the voice, the pace and whether the writer seems to know where they are going. The opening paragraph carries all of that, which is why so many writers spend so long on it and why so many openings still sound strained.

It helps to lower the stakes. An opening does not have to be dazzling. It has one job, and the job is modest: to make the second paragraph worth reading. Everything below follows from that.

What an opening has to do

In our reading, a good opening paragraph usually does three things at once, though rarely in so many words:

• It places the reader somewhere. A moment, a scene, a problem, an object: something concrete enough to stand on.
• It raises a question the reader now wants answered, even if they could not yet say what it is.
• It sets the voice: the distance between writer and reader, the level of formality, how much the writer will explain and how much they will trust you to follow.

An opening that does only the first is a description. One that does only the second is a teaser. One that does only the third is a throat-clearing. Most weak openings are one of these on its own.

Begin closer to the middle

The most reliable advice we know about openings is also the oldest: start later than you think. First drafts tend to begin where the writer began thinking, with background, context and the long way round. The reader does not need that path. They need to arrive where the piece becomes interesting, and to pick up the background as they go.

A simple exercise: print the draft, or read it on a screen without editing, and put a mark at the first sentence where you yourself feel a small jolt of interest. In many drafts it is in the second or third paragraph. Try beginning there. What came before can often be folded in later, in a sentence or two, or cut altogether. If you are trimming a whole draft and not only its start, our piece on cutting a draft by a third walks through the rest.

Make a promise you can keep

Every opening makes a promise about the kind of piece it is. A scene of quiet domestic detail promises a reflective essay. A sharp claim promises an argument. A question addressed to the reader promises that you will try to answer it. Readers forgive a great deal, but not a broken promise: an opening that sounds like a thriller followed by four thousand words of gentle reflection will lose them, however good the reflection is.

So when you revise an opening, read it alongside the ending. Ask whether the first paragraph prepares the reader for where the last one leaves them. It does not need to announce the conclusion, only to be the beginning of the same piece.

Three openings to retire

A few openings appear so often in drafts that they are worth naming, gently. They are not forbidden, but each one is usually standing in for a better sentence that has not been found yet.

1. The dictionary definition. “The dictionary defines grief as…” It borrows authority instead of earning it, and readers have seen it many times.
2. The sweeping history. “Since the dawn of time, people have…” It promises a scale the piece almost never delivers, and it delays the real start.
3. The announcement. “In this essay I will explore…” Useful in a report, but in an essay it tells the reader what they are about to feel instead of letting them feel it.

If your draft opens with one of these, look a few sentences further down. The real opening is often sitting there, waiting to be promoted.

The sentence that sets the voice

Voice is easier to hear than to describe, but it lives in very ordinary choices: the length of your sentences, whether you use “I”, whether you explain a reference or let it pass, whether you allow yourself a joke. The first paragraph is where a reader learns these terms, and they will hold you to them.

A useful check is to read the opening aloud, then read a paragraph from the middle of the piece aloud, and listen for the join. If the opening is noticeably grander, more polished or more anxious than the rest, it was probably written to impress. Bring it down to the voice of the middle. The middle is where you were writing naturally, because by then you had stopped worrying about being read.

On this site, a story opens in a single calm column with no banners or prompts before the first line, as the features page describes. That is a gift to an opening, and also a responsibility: nothing else on the page will hold the reader’s attention for you.

Write it last, or at least again

Many writers find it easiest to write the opening after the rest, once they know what the piece turned out to be. If you cannot bear to leave a blank at the top, write a placeholder opening quickly, mark it as provisional, and come back. The first opening you write is a way into the draft for you; the last one you write is a way in for the reader. They are rarely the same paragraph.

When you return to it, try writing three different openings, each starting from a different place: a scene, a claim, a question. Read each with the second paragraph beneath it, and choose the one that makes the second paragraph feel inevitable. That is the test that matters. Not whether the opening is beautiful, but whether, having read it, a reader simply carries on.