Galang Lufityanto

Writing Tips

How to write a decent opening paragraph?

Indonesian version click here

Many writers believe that writing an opening paragraph means setting up time and place when/where the story happens. It is not always necessarily correct. The contemporary stories nowadays tend to arise conflict or something that makes the story mysterious, instead of telling story background wrapped in beautiful words.

For that reason, sometimes skillful writers use flashback technique, which is useful to fish the reader attention by directing the readers into the main conflict in prior. Some others use contradiction to show the readers that something unique happened in this story, and that is why the readers should read it.   

Lets see the example written by Mark Haddon :

It was seven minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs. Shear's house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead.

(from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time --this novel ia Whitbred Award Winner).

However, if you are going to stick on the idea of putting background information as the opening of your story, you might need to consider making it up to grab the reader's attention There are at least two ways to do it. First, is by presenting something that is not supposed to be there (e.g. a gun in the teacher's drawer), or the second, is by eliminating something which is expected to be there (e.g. missing father). By doing that, the readers will ask themselves what happened in this story? Then they would begin to read it.

I think we all agree that the opening paragraph and the title is the front door into your story. So, when you expect your story read, it is crucial for you to make the readers believe that your story worth reading.

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