How to Start Strong: Openings That Grab and Keep Your Audience

After you conquer the “Blank Page” our next practical focus is how to actually begin a written piece –with impact.

“Call me Ishmael”. Well, still Helena here sharing the journey of applying writing skills to sorting out the last, hopefully long, act of my life. But you know that’s how Herman Melville drew us into his novel, Moby Dick. (Here are some more super famous openers for fun).

Every piece of writing stands or falls on its opening. This counts for speaking, too. You have to write it first, right? Readers decide within a few lines whether to lean in or turn away. That makes the first sentence more than just a start—it’s a hook, a promise, and sometimes even a dare. The blank page is frightening, but once you know how to start, momentum follows.

In teaching writing basics in a self-employment program, my adult students were surprised to learn that the sole purpose of a sentence is to get readers to the next sentence. That kind of took the pressure off the non-writers.. One sentence at a time, just as Anne Lamott wrote in her great little book, Bird by Bird. (short video)

So, relax. It’s ONLY a sentence. Except that first one. Ha!

So how do you begin in a way that pulls readers along? Have a look at some classic opening line approaches and tips to use them wisely.

1. The Bold Statement

Lead with a line that makes the reader sit up straight. It doesn’t have to be shocking—it just has to make them think.

• “Deadlines aren’t the enemy; they’re the reason we finish anything at all.”
  Use it in: opinion pieces, essays, or personal reflections where confidence matters.

2. The Question

A question turns passive readers into active participants. They instinctively answer in their heads, which means you’ve already engaged them. (The secret of marketers. They hook you with a question because your brain feels like it MUST answer it. Notice speakers who pose a question and don’t answer it till the end. Your brain is a slave to the speech until it solves for the answer. Now you know..use your power for good)

• “What would you write if you knew no one could judge you?”
  Use it in: how-to guides, motivational posts, or topics where you want the reader to feel personally addressed.

3. The Quick Story

Humans are wired for story, and this goes back to drawings on a cave, so your writing or your presentation story has proven street cred. Even a two-sentence anecdote can draw readers in.

• “When my grandmother handed me a shoebox of yellowed letters, I thought I was getting family trivia. Instead, I found a story of escape and survival.”
  Use it in: memoir, family history, and content where emotional connection matters.

4. The Surprising Fact or Statistic

Don’t we just love being told something unexpected? A sharp fact makes readers curious about what’s next.

• “Most Americans can’t name their great-grandparents—but they can recite the plot of their favourite TV series.”
  Use it in: articles where you want to build authority or challenge assumptions.

5. The Sensory Detail

You’ve heard of ‘show, don’t tell’, right? How about feel it first? Same idea…Drop readers directly into a moment with vivid description. Engage the senses before you explain.

• “The air in the archive smelled of dust and ink, like every story was waiting to be exhaled.”
  Use it in: creative nonfiction, personal essays, or descriptive family history.

Adhere to these tips once you begin

• Don’t stall. After your hook, get movin’. Let the reader know where the piece is headed. Technology has pushed us along on this. You only get x number of characters or words in social posts or clips, so you should have already internalised this: get to the point, point. Arrrghh matey.

• Match the tone. Did you have a playful opening, then don’t get super dry for the rest of the post or spoken piece. Keep the energy consistent.

• Trim the throat-clearing. Blah blah blah, “ain’t nobody got time for that”. Cut phrases like “In today’s world…” or “Since the dawn of time…” They waste space, and you’ll lose your own energy as well as the attention of your audience.

• Experiment. Try writing three different openings for the same piece. You’ll often surprise yourself with the strongest one. In my classes, and if I am stuck myself, too, I’d suggest writing 25 starters. Sometimes they were all off or meh, and #23 would be a ring-ding-ding winner to the ears and heart.

Your Takeaway

Guess what? There’s no single “perfect” opening line, but there is this one rule: it has to make the reader want the second line. Whether you begin with a bold claim, a question, a story, a fact, or a sensory image, the goal is the same—capture attention, then deliver on the promise.

But wait, there’s more on the writing and the living front. It’s me writing to you after all.

Every story, whether it’s a blog post or a family history, begins with a door. The opening line is the handle you create so your reader will walk through.

• “Every family carries stories that are louder than memory and quieter than silence.”

• “If we don’t write our history now, we leave it to strangers to tell it later.” 

• “What do you really know about the people whose names sit on your family tree?”

• “How do you capture the life of someone who left no diary, no voice, no photograph—only a name?” 

• “The day I found my mother’s heavy, link European red gold bracelet, a hand-carved box, I discovered a story no one had ever told.” 

• “Most people can’t trace their family history beyond three generations. But three generations ago, someone in your family made choices that shaped your life today.”  

• “The letters were brittle, their edges crumbling like pastry, but the ink still shouted across eighty years.”

• “My mother’s kitchen smelled of onions and apples and meats, and every recipe she cooked came with a story no one bothered to write down, until now that I am a grandmother myself.”