The first sentence, the first paragraph, and the first chapter of the book are the most important, in that order, because they come first. If that area isn’t captivating, you may not get another chance to make a good impression.
A one-sentence paragraph to open a novel might be impressive writing, but shorter sentences in groups of three items would be better. As soon as we exceed three items, monotony begins to set in.
A great paragraph from False Memory by Dean Koontz:
On that Tuesday in January, when her life changed forever, Martine Rhodes woke with a headache, developed a sour stomach after washing down two aspirin with grapefruit juice, guaranteed herself an epic bad-hair day by mistakenly using Dustin’s shampoo instead of her own, broke a fingernail, burnt her toast, discovered ants swarming through the cabinet under the kitchen sink, eradicated the pests by firing a spray can of insecticide as ferociously as Sigourney Weaver wielded a flamethrower in one of those old extraterrestrial-bug movies, cleaned up the resultant carnage with paper towels, hummed Bach’s Requiem as she solemnly consigned the tiny bodies to the trash can, and took a telephone call from her mother Sabrina, who still prayed for the collapse of Martie’s marriage three years after the wedding.
What we might see for an improved version:
Martine Rhodes awakened with a headache, developed a sour stomach after washing down two aspirin with grapefruit juice, and guaranteed herself an epic bad-hair day by mistakenly using Dustin’s shampoo instead of her own. In the kitchen, she broke a fingernail as she dropped her burned toast into the trash, discovered ants swarming under the sink, and eradicated the pests by firing a spray can of insecticide as ferociously as Sigourney Weaver wielded a flamethrower in the Alien movie. In cleaning up the carnage with paper towels, she hummed Bach’s Requiem, solemnly consigned the tiny bodies to the trash can, and took a telephone call from her mother, Sabrina, who was still praying for the collapse of Martie’s marriage, three years after the wedding.
Some logic for making improvements:
- “When her life changed forever” is a reporter’s observation, because Martine can’t know how her life has changed until later, when she can see the change. For readers to get a sense of being Martine, that phrase and the date need to be left out.
- A seemingly endless list of things going wrong is a powerful opening to the novel, but we can strengthen it by applying the “rule of threes,” which says people are most comfortable with the images and are most impacted by the message when the list is grouped into three items at a time.
- How does breaking a fingernail associate with burned toast? The first items worked well from the bed to the bathroom, but now we need a second group of three in the kitchen.
- “Sabrina,” the name of the mother, is explanatory, so it needs to be set off with commas.
- Since Sabrina’s prayer had been for such a long period, the ongoing action verb, “praying,” is better than the simple past tense verb, “prayed.”
- We need a comma before “three years after the wedding” to make the phrase explanatory. Otherwise, it’s restrictive, technically saying that Mom was praying for the marriage to fail three years from now.
