How to Start a Story: 14 Tips to Hook Your Readers

You have a great idea for a new novel. But those critical first lines seem impossible to write and the stakes are high. The sentences that start a story have to pull readers in, set the scene, convey voice and style, introduce conflict and questions—all the key elements of a good story—all while flowing naturally. No pressure, right?

Crafting a killer opening hook takes work, but the payoff is worth it. Readers decide if they’ll invest their precious time in a book within the first few pages, if not paragraphs. As the writer, it’s your job to convince them your story is worth the ride. 

So how do you start a novel in a way that grabs attention and keeps readers turning pages? Use these tips to craft irresistible opening lines.

How To Start Off a Story

1. Open With a Striking Image

Some readers want a visual to latch onto, and you can immerse them in the scene right away with sensory details. Use unique descriptions to create an image that helps them visualize your setting and characters.  

Take this opening line from Neuromancer by William Gibson: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”

By comparing the sky to a dead television channel, Gibson creates a vivid, ominous visual that also establishes a dark tone and the science-fiction setting. This unusual analogy sticks in the reader's imagination, transporting us to the gloomy port city as it hints at existential themes that will carry through the work.

Or consider the opening line of James Joyce’s Ulysses: “Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.” 

Joyce's use of detailed, sensory language paints a clear picture of Buck Mulligan. The specific items the character carries suggest something about his daily life and routine. The choice of words like "stately" and "plump" further adds depth to our initial impression of Mulligan, setting the stage for the complex, layered narrative that follows in the novel.

2. Start Off a Story With Action

Struggling to find the best sentences to start your story? Try plunging readers straight into the heart of the action by introducing a suspenseful, pivotal, or dramatic event that sets high stakes.

For example, Andy Weir writes in The Martian: "I’m pretty much fucked. That’s my considered opinion. Fucked.”

This line drops readers right into a dangerous scenario by having the protagonist bluntly assess his dire situation stranded on Mars. The language is vivid, the tone is dramatic, and it immediately introduces high stakes.

Or you can raise questions for the reader with intriguing events. For example, like the opening line of Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami: “Cash isn’t the only thing I take from my father’s study when I leave home. I take a small, old gold lighter—I like the design and feel of it—and a folding knife with a really sharp blade. .”

We instantly wonder why the narrator is leaving home. Where is he going? Why does he need to steal? The stakes aren’t so bluntly laid out as in the first example, but the action the character is taking pulls readers in because they want to know why he’s taking it.

3. Start Before the Action with a Pivotal Moment

If you don’t start in the midst of action, you can begin just before it at a critical turning point. This can be a decisive “before and after” event that will spin your story in a new direction.

In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the tense opening line says: “On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on.” 

This plunges into the precipice moment—the day they will kill him. Readers will want to know what happens next: whether the character will indeed meet an untimely end.

4. Use Punchy Opening Lines

Whether you choose action, intriguing events, or a pivotal moment, these methods all work well with short, punchy sentences.

For example, in The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, the story begins: “"Here is a small fact: You are going to die." This blunt statement packs an emotional punch by confronting mortality right away, and the brevity and frank tone establish a stark mood. With just a few direct words, the line makes readers instantly feel the sorrow and poignancy central to the story.

Short impactful sentences allow writers to cut to the emotional core of a story quickly.

5. Starting a Story With Dialogue

When you start a story with dialogue, you can let characters reveal who they are, right away, through conversation. This will offer insights into the personalities of your characters in a present, immediate way that prose cannot. 

The Color Purple by Alice Walker starts with dialogue like this: "You better not never tell nobody but God. It'd kill your mammy."

This urgent, confidential line reveals so much about the speaker and their connections through voice alone. The distinct tone and intimacy of the dialogue establishes relationships, conflict, and stakes without explanatory narration. Letting characters speak for themselves in this way offers immediate insights, making dialogue an effective opening technique.

6. Introduce a Character

This might feel obvious when thinking about how to start a story since most novels begin by introducing the main character. However, the character you introduce doesn’t have to be your protagonist, but someone, like a villain or mysterious mentor, your protagonist will engage with. This may be the person who compels your main character to begin their journey and evolve over time.

Since these are the opening lines, don’t over-describe the character and overwhelm your readers. Give just enough intriguing details to spark curiosity.

Gustave Flaubert does this in Madame Bovary, starting with: “We were in class when the head-master came in, followed by a ‘new fellow,’ not wearing the school uniform, and a school servant carrying a large desk.”

This immediately presents a new character the narrator doesn’t already know. It leaves the reader wondering who they are, why they are here, and what they will mean for the protagonist. It piques the reader’s interest without explaining everything upfront.

7. Pose a Question 

Grip readers’ curiosity and spark interest from the start of your story by posing a question to the reader. This can be done with an actual question, or even just a sentence that leaves reader’s asking “why?”. Leave the question unresolved to propel the plot—and your reader—forward.

Margaret Atwood takes this approach in The Handmaid's Tale: “We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.”  

This simple statement implies compelling questions, such as who is the ‘we’? What happened to the gym? And why are they sleeping there?

8. Establish the Setting

Much like opening your story with a striking image to set a visual stage, you can also ground readers in a particular time and place. It doesn’t need to be an image, but you do want to make it immersive by quickly identifying the time period and location for your readers.

The details can be mundane—signaling that your character may follow the hero’s journey from the ordinary world to a new one—or extraordinary to grab attention.

For example, George Orwell’s 1984 begins: “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” The reference to clocks striking thirteen hints at a surreal, dystopian world where time itself is awry. Plus, the brief line conjures an ominous, bizarre image that readies you for action.

Or consider Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar: “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” By mentioning a real historical event like the execution of the Rosenbergs, Plath grounds readers in the time period and place of New York while also establishing her protagonist's unsettled emotional state.

Contextual details about the era, date, or time of year anchor the reader in your fictional world. Time markers can also help convey your fiction genre, such as historical or dystopian.

9. Establish Your Narrative Voice 

How you start off a story should align with your unique voice and style as an author. However, it can also do a lot of work to hook your readers.

It all comes down to strategic word choices, syntax, and perspective.

For example, Jane Austen distills her iconic, almost sarcastic, voice in the opening line of Pride and Prejudice: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” 

Her clever irony is unmistakable from the first line, and carries through in the protagonist’s outlook on society.

Or consider the playful, child-like voice in the opening of Matilda by Roald Dahl: “It’s a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.”

Phrases like “a funny thing” or “little blister” command attention and surprise the reader with a unique voice. Dahl signals that his novel will be an amusing, irreverent tale even as it's told around a young girl’s point of view.

10. Foreshadow Future Events

Many new writers rely on prologues to foreshadow mysteries or action that will unfold later in the story. But this has to be done carefully, and thoughtfully, so that it adds to the story rather than taking away from later reveals.

That being said, try skipping the prologue and instead using a touch of foreshadowing in the first sentences of your story to hook your readers. 

You can hint at brewing trouble or conflict to build tension and anticipation. This will work better for genres like mysteries or thrillers as ominous touches make readers eager to discover what happens next. 

For example, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier begins: "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." This subtly hints at the significance of Manderley and evokes a sense of nostalgia and mystery, setting the tone for the events that unfold later in the story.

11. Start With a Relevant Quote 

Starting a story with a quote usually works best when it comes before the actual first paragraph of your story. For example, it might come in introductory pages before your first chapter or sit just under your chapter one heading in italics before you launch into prose.

This may work best for literary novels where you want readers to engage with ideas both in and outside of your work. However, it also shows up in genres like fantasy or science fiction, where the quote is made-up and a part of worldbuilding.

For the first route, a relevant and real quote can set a thematic tone and add subtext. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury includes an epigraph quoting Juan Ramon Jimenez: “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.” This signals themes of defiance and free thought that shape the entire novel.

When it comes as a part of worldbuilding, quotes can provide extra context and depth to a story’s rich lore and history. Take the first chapter (and many others) in Frank Herbert’s Dune, for example. It opens with a quote attributed to the fictional "Princess Irulan" from her writing "Manual of Muad'Dib” to give you more insight into the world. 

12. Provide Just Enough Context 

Like with prologues, some new writers have a tendency to overload background information at the front of a story. You might think you need to give all the details of your world to your reader as quickly as possible. But this can actually bog your story down.

Even if you have a detailed, intricate world, your opening lines should provide just enough context to tease readers' interest while keeping the plot moving.

Suzanne Collins takes this approach in The Hunger Games: “When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress.”

This gives just enough context about the narrator and Prim to raise curiosity. And key details like canvas covers and a cold bed adds to the world Collins creates over the next several chapters.

If Collins tried to show every aspect of her dystopian setting or the games within the first few paragraphs, the details would diffuse the tension. Too much background up front slows your pacing down and you need the opening lines to propel readers forward.

13. Surprise Readers

If there’s a massive twist in your story, consider bringing it into your opening lines. You can turn expectations on their head and shake up assumptions in a thrilling way. 

Chuck Palahniuk surprises readers in Fight Club: “Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler's pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die.”

The shocking turn mid-sentence stuns readers and instantly grabs attention.

14. Evoke an Emotion

Use your opening sentences to make readers feel something, whether that’s shock, sorrow, or joy. Visceral emotional responses forge connections and engage readers on a deeper level.

The opening of The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger begins: "Clare: It’s hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he’s okay. It’s hard to be the one who stays.” 

These lines evoke a deep sense of longing, anxiety, and the emotional toll of separation. They capture the essence of waiting and the pain of uncertainty, setting the tone for a story that explores the complexities of love, time, and the enduring human spirit.

How to Craft the Perfect Opening Line  

Starting a story isn’t easy, but the payoff for nailing a killer hook makes the effort worthwhile. Use the examples above to guide you and the techniques we outlined to grab attention, raise questions, establish style and voice, and immerse readers in your fictional world from the very first line.

Remember, an opening line introduces what the story is about but holds back details to entice curiosity. The key is finding the right balance between revealing and concealing. Give readers just enough to get hooked, then reel them in with ever-building suspense and intrigue.

If you have a draft of your story done, your perfect first line might already exist within those pages. Look for sentences that reveal something about your characters or plot, feel exciting, and could flow naturally within the first paragraph.

Then, for best results, read your first line aloud and get feedback from others. An outside perspective can help you assess if your hook hits the sweet spot. From there, let the creative juices flow. What image, question, character, or world will catapult readers into your story? Only you can decide how to write your novel.