Have you ever wondered whether readers will remember the first sentence of your article? How should you write the first sentence to attract readers?

The opening of a good article requires careful layout. A beautiful opening is half the battle. Mystery novelist Lawrence Bullock once talked about the importance of the opening in "Block's Novel School". It should attract the reader's attention, bring him into the story, and leave room for the plot to expand. It must be both useful and interesting. Interesting and makes readers want to stop.

The scene at the beginning of "Forrest Gump" is a piece of feather floating in the wind accompanied by the theme song, and finally falling at Forrest Gump's feet. He picked up the feathers and put them in a box, which contained a billiard racket, a peaked cap and a notepad, which hinted at his later experiences. Forrest Gump gave a chocolate to the passenger waiting next to him and said: "My mother always said that life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what the next one will taste like." This sentence is the theme of the movie, It is also a timeless saying.

Writing is like making a movie, you also need a good opening. When readers open the title door, the first paragraph that comes to them should be a piece of chocolate that makes people curious and expectant.

The opening is about how to solve the problem, either by showing off the knife straight to the point, or by creating suspense and throwing hooks. "Block's Novel School" emphasizes the three functions of the opening, including: setting the story in motion, setting the tone of the article, and raising key questions. My extended interpretation is: ① Let the article continue to move forward and not go around in circles; ② Establish the style of the article and show the writing characteristics; ③ Let the reader quickly know what important issues the article is trying to solve.

My observation is that many unattractive article openings simply fail to break the point. Why can't it be broken? The reason is that the article is filled with too much information, is overly elaborated, and does not clearly point out the problem to be solved. As a result, readers cannot see the key points and cannot become interested immediately.

Find opening Easter eggs from literary works

From the reverse practice of dismantling good articles, I found two ways to cultivate opening power. The first is to imitate literary masterpieces and transform them into your own sentences; secondly, during the interview or observation process, find the scenes that you feel the most about, or the wonderful quotes said by the interviewee and the subject of observation, and turn them into the opening content.

The opening lines of great literary works are worthy of careful reading and study. I often find inspiration from the openings of classic literary works, which allow me to use my writing openings in rational financial analysis, emotional rural travel, or fashion articles.

Let’s take financial reporting as an example:

The opening of the great writer Dickens’s “A Tale of Two Cities” is majestic and contains strong contrasts. It is often quoted in various articles: “That is the most beautiful thing. The age is also the worst age; it is the age of wisdom, but also the age of stupidity; it is the age of faith, but also the age of doubt; it is the season of light, it is also the season of darkness; it is the spring full of hope, it is also the season of despair Winter..."

In the main article of the "Top 1,000 Enterprises Special Issue" that I edited, I used comparative techniques at the beginning to enhance the structure of the article and write about the issues that readers are concerned about: "This is competition among peers. , an era where different industries are plundering each other, it is a consumer-oriented era, and it is also an era where people can’t find their direction. The demand has disappeared, the market has disappeared, and the direction is blurred... Where is the profit? Where is the winner? ”

Compared to Dickens's pattern, Tolstoy used a simpler comparison in the opening of "Anna Karenina", cleverly writing famous lines for the world to read, and also revealing the main theme of the book. : "Happy families are all alike, and every unhappy family has its own misfortunes."

This opening style of directly writing the conclusion and conveying the main idea of ??the article reflects the author's confidence and ambition. I applied this technique to reports on Formosa Plastics: "Time is the enemy of business. The survival rate of century-old companies in the United States is only 10%, but time is the best friend of Formosa Plastics, which has been established for 47 years."

If you are writing a sentimental rural travel report, the opening of the literary work will be more meaningful. Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" fascinates readers at the beginning of the story: "Years later, facing the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia will recall the time his father took him to see the ice. Distant afternoon."

This flashback method is very special, making people want to know about that afternoon of ice hunting.

This technique inspired me. When I described Hsinchu County's "Reliving a Hundred-year Sweet Dream" in "25 Surprises from Traveling to Taiwan" that I edited, I began by trying to figure out the mood of the anti-Japanese hero Jiang Shaozu in 1895, which also brought out Hsinchu's customs: "Many years later, when the 20-year-old Jiang Shaozu was surrounded by Japanese troops, he looked up at the blue sky in despair. A cool breeze blew by, as if it was the long-lost nine-drop wind in his hometown, which reminded him of his childhood with his mother. The joy of walking in the tea garden makes him suddenly want to drink tea, a cup of tea full of honey. "

In addition to the large layout, simple contrasts and story flashbacks, the suspenseful opening will also create a sense of surprise. Anthropologist Lévi-Strauss used a negative sentence to open "Melancholic Tropics" and created a sense of suspense with a few descriptions of personal emotions: "I hate traveling, I hate explorers. However, now, I am going to tell about my own adventure experience.”

I also learned to use this method to subvert perceptions. This is the opening line about Matsu in "25 Surprises from Traveling to Taiwan": "There is nothing in Matsu except the sea. Zheng Zhixin, the owner of Chuanlaoda B&B in Juguang Township, said that in fact, as long as there is the sea, Matsu has everything."

Or throw out questions and create a sense of suspense. This is the opening about Yunlin: "This is a beautiful mistake. Yunlin does not have the beauty of cloud forest, and the real Yunlin is not in Yunlin. What's going on?"

In addition, I also learned to use only One sentence powerfully solves the problem. The beginning of Tsuji Ninchei's "Between Calm and Passion" is very concise and powerful: "The sun is always shining in this city." I have quoted this writing method many times, for example, when writing about Chiayi City: "The sunshine in this city is always gentle and bright." "Go Yourself" The first chapter of "The Road to Become a Storytelling Person" opens: "It was a sunny afternoon."

"Forever Yin Xueyan", the first chapter in the short story collection "Taipei People" by Bai Xianyong The opening is also very classic: "Yin Xueyan is never old." This sentence inspired me to boldly use short sentences to open the song. For example, I wrote a report on the famous fashion guru Tom Ford in GQ, describing his business strategy for creating his own brand after leaving Gucci. I only started with a short sentence: "Long time no see, Tom Ford!"

The words that make you unforgettable can also make your readers unforgettable

The second way to cultivate opening power is to recall the pictures, scenes, and words that others said that impressed you most as the beginning of the article. Pictures or words that are unforgettable for you will surely be unforgettable for readers as well. The point is to involve the reader and make him care about what happens next. Lawrence Block once talked about the purpose of the opening in "Eight Million Ways to Write a Novel".

I interviewed Cai Kangyong. Because his time was limited, he could only interview and take photos during the video break. In order to gain time, we took advantage of the photo break to interview. I waited in the studio first, and then wrote at the beginning of the article: "At 4:30 in the afternoon, the studio of "Kangxi Is Coming" was completed. After the interview, the host Cai Kangyong did not say hello, turned around and walked out of the studio, and went back directly Reading in the lounge. At 5:30, when the photographer was taking pictures, he always put his right finger on his head thoughtfully, and his eyes and tone when facing the reporter had a sense of alienation. The moment he raised his head to pay attention to the camera, his bright eyes were filled with gentle charm."

The opening with a special observation scene has two purposes. The first is to convey the unknown side of the protagonist, and the second is to write about your unique perspective of observation. In the opening scene of Tsai Kang-yong, I wanted to show his alienated, comfortable and smart side.

Usually, you need to accumulate more experiences with the five senses, cultivate expressive opening skills, try to figure out the sense of the scene, and let readers feel the same.

Five S Elements of Attractive Opening

When I edited "25 Surprises of Traveling in Taiwan", I wanted to write about the travel characteristics of 25 counties and cities in Taiwan, and the opening of each county and city. All are different. Later, he wrote "The Tunnel of Time", which describes the customs and food of 12 small places in Taiwan. Each opening is different. When I wrote "The Chance Effect", there were 17 stories, 9 chapters from the preface to the conclusion, and I also wrote different openings.

Based on my long-term experience in studying opening power, I have summarized the five S elements of opening power, including surprise, suspense, straightness, struggle and situation.

A great opening must first have an element of surprise or suspense. "Surprise" is to deepen the impression.

"Suspense" creates curiosity and makes people want to continue reading. "Straight forward" means getting straight to the point and stating a unique argument, clearly explaining the conclusion of the article. "Tangled" points out the key issues that bother and concern people, directly hitting the point. "Situation" consists in using a short story to establish a connection with readers and to elaborate the subsequent discussion.

Excellent storytellers, especially mystery novelists, management and marketing writing experts, are best at starting with story situations, simply describing people, things, time, places, objects and scenes, and sticking to the theme. , convey the most important features.

For example, Marquez's classic opening in "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is intended to trace the protagonist's transformation from childhood to adulthood, as well as the magical and realistic vicissitudes of this century-old family. It is also worth referencing the opening of Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea": "He was an old man, fishing alone in the Gulf of Mexico in a small boat, and he had not caught a fish for 84 days." First, it talks about the old man's loneliness when he failed to catch a fish, and then describes his struggle with the fish.

These five S elements can also be combined with each other to create a more prominent opening effect. For example, after starting with a situation, then cutting into a tangled question, or creating unexpected surprises, or generating suspense, making people care about what happened.

The writer should extract the five S elements of the opening force and throw the rod accurately and powerfully through the opening paragraph or two to get readers to take the bait.

Four "ones", write four kinds of opening remarks

In order to effectively use the opening power, I organized the five S elements into four quadrants, and decided to use them according to the opening positioning of the article. Which opening mode to communicate with the reader. It is mainly the struggle of a story, the connection of a situation, the straightness of a sentence/paragraph and a question mark/exclamation mark (surprise and suspension).

For these four modes, I use several openings of "Opportunity Effect" as demonstration cases.

■ Mode 1: Use the "entangled" element of the story to generate curiosity

The first mode is to arouse curiosity and generate attraction, using detours to the situation, let's talk about it first The story describes the problems and obstacles encountered by the protagonist, as well as the inner entanglements and troubles, establishing a resonance and connection with the readers, making the readers want to know how it will develop in the future.

Analysis

The impact of the external environment has caused the store manager's performance to decline significantly. Faced with this pressure, the store manager wants to resign to show his responsibility. Only one paragraph is used at the beginning to explain the cause of the problem and the personal emotional entanglement it brings, so that readers can understand the context of the problem, sympathize with the pressure of the store manager, and care about how to solve this problem.

■ Mode 2: Use "situation" to help readers quickly understand the topic

The second mode just wants to use situational scenes to let readers quickly understand the situation, rather than arouse curiosity. The opening text of this mode should be short and clear, presenting only important information.

Analysis

She starts with an interesting sentence that impressed me deeply, and also lets the readers know that she is a convenience store manager, who often encounters difficulties and can overcome them. Let readers quickly understand the topic of the article, which is what difficulties she encountered and how to overcome them. The difference from Mode 1 is that she did not deliberately write about her emotions and entanglements, but used limited space to bring out the theme.

■ Mode 3: Use a "straightforward" sentence to let readers understand immediately

Mode 3 is to explain the topic straightforwardly. Through one sentence or paragraph, let readers clearly understand the point of view of the entire article.

Analysis

This passage directly contrasts the protagonist's experience, from a program engineer to an expert in new startup fundraising briefings. Let readers immediately understand the overall context, as well as the protagonist's positioning and characteristics, and then guide readers to understand how he became a well-known briefing expert.

■ Mode 4: Use questions to create "suspense" and use accidents to create "surprise"

The fourth mode is to create curiosity and suspense. Instead of using words to describe situations and problems, you can directly throw out question marks or exclamation points to make readers curious or arouse concern, raise questions, and want to seek answers.

Analysis

Start with a question to make the reader want to know the answer.

In addition, I will use the two openings from "The Revised Edition of Custom Dining Table Travel" to illustrate the openings of Mode 4.

Analysis

First explain the context of Jiaxian, a remote village, and use Breakfast Street, a place that makes the author curious and confused, as the opening to create a sense of suspense.

Analysis

Use an unexpected event, where only a rice ball was robbed, to quickly bring out the sense of surprise: Is this rice ball very powerful? How could he be robbed?

Have you noticed that many of the opening scenes have a sense of imagery. Transplanting the picture in your mind into the reader's mind, using the picture situation to make them curious, concerned and understand, and then continue reading, is the role that the opening should play.

However, the author must digest the overall content and then think carefully about how to write the opening. "Bullock's School of Novel" reminds you that the opening is not everything, and then readers will quickly lose patience and leave you.