The First Sentence

Your first sentence has a heavy load to carry.  Its task is to grab the reader and move his eyes down the page.  The rest of the story may keep him or lose him depending how well you have written it, but you can't keep him until your first sentence captures him.

How are you going to do that?

• Start with mystery.  Give your reader an intriguing question that will make him want to stay with the story at least long enough to find out the answer to the puzzle introduced in the first sentence.  "Mary Jones had no idea why she was tied to a table in the center of the alien space ship."
• Promise the reader something.  Tell him what the story is going to be about.  "Mary Jones didn't realize when she sat down beside the pleasant stranger on the bus that within two hours she would be dead at his hands."
• Start with action.  Some type of strong action that will introduce both the character and the plot.  "Jason moved the knife slowly up and down her tense body, wondering where to plunge it for the slowest possible kill."

There are plenty of other great ways to develop a starting sentence.  All you have to do is write a single sentence that introduces the following plot:

Writing Prompt.

"A body has just been discovered frozen in Antarctica.  Scientists and historians both are rushing to the site because...."

Don't finish the above sentence.  It was left unfinished just to leave the plot a little vague.  Your assignment is to write a good beginning sentence that will both give a hint at the plot and move the reader further down the page.

The 10 best sentences will be published both here and on Triond and I will pay $2.00 for the rights to the best sentence.

Good luck