Imagine being introduced to someone who acts like a complete jerk to you. Add on to this that the kid is a complete know-it-all who doesn’t know when to shut up; plus, thinks you are a total moron and treats you like you are an idiot. Try to imagine yourself going home and saying, “Hey Mom, I met this really cool guy today. I think we are going to be good friends. Can he come skiing with us tomorrow so I can listen to him all the way up to Quebec and back? He’s really interesting. He told me so.”

The reality is that this kid might get your attention, but I doubt he would be able to keep your attention; You might not be so eager to hear all he has to say.

When writing, don’t be that kid!

The opening paragraph introduces not only your topic but it also introduces you. If the reader likes and respects you they will keep reading even if your main thesis is lost in a jumble of irrelevant details. By the same token, if you capture their attention and engage their senses—see, feel, touch, hear, smell and taste—in a meaningful and relevant way they will want to read what you have to say; they will give you, the writer, the benefit of the doubt. A good opening paragraph gets you in the door. A good writer gets to stay in the house!

Techniques for a good open.

1) Think of a TV drama or sitcom. There is always a short scene to start the show. Its sole purpose is to make you curious and interested enough to wait through two minutes of commercials before the real show starts. The opening scene should not give away the ending but rather prepare you for the show itself; it points the reader in the direction your story is going—but make sure you get where you intend to go. A family flying to Disney World for winter break might be disappointed if they ended up in Newfoundland.

With that in mind, here are a couple of time honored opens:

a. Drop your reader right into a scene. Paint a picture of that scene and then end the paragraph with your “thesis.” The thesis can be either a statement or a question that needs to be answered. Here is an example by a noted author speaking without the “I” in his voice.

“Every day at 10:30 AM it’s the same: Kids dressed in pressed pants and Abercrombie shirts whip lacrosse balls at a shell shocked youngster in front of an oversized net. Their language would make a sailor blush. The smallest kid out there raises his middle finger behind the back of the large and lurking “upper schooler”—the obvious bully. Far off to the side two teachers are lost in conversation, oblivious to teasing, taunting and mayhem going on in front of them. All of this happening at one of the most prestigious prep schools in the country. It has to make you ask: who are these schools hiring, and are they qualified to teach our most precious resource, the children of America.”

b. Allow the reader to enter the world of your imagination. Take them on a journey through your thinking; invite them to join you on this journey. You need to include the “I” in your voice because you are asking your reader to join you—you in all your glory and decadence. Here is how Thoreau invites his readers to speculate on buying a farm. It is certainly not easy reading. Thoreau had no interest in writng to a lazy audience; Thoreau challenges us intellectually, socially, politically and philosophically. As a willing reader we know and respect that there is more than ever meets the eye on his writings:

“AT A CERTAIN season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house. I have thus surveyed the country on every side within a dozen miles of where I live. In imagination I have bought all the farms in succession, for all were to be bought, and I knew their price. I walked over each farmer's premises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed on husbandry with him, took his farm at his price, at any price, mortgaging it to him in my mind; even put a higher price on it—took everything but a deed of it—took his word for his deed, for I dearly love to talk—cultivated it, and him too to some extent, I trust, and withdrew when I had enjoyed it long enough, leaving him to carry it on. This experience entitled me to be regarded as a sort of real-estate broker by my friends. Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a house but a sedes, a seat?—better if a country seat. I discovered many a site for a house not likely to be soon improved, which some might have thought too far from the village, but to my eyes the village was too far from it. Well, there I might live, I said; and there I did live, for an hour, a summer and a winter life; saw how I could let the years run off, buffet the winter through, and see the spring come in. The future inhabitants of this region, wherever they may place their houses, may be sure that they have been anticipated. An afternoon sufficed to lay out the land into orchard, wood-lot, and pasture, and to decide what fine oaks or pines should be left to stand before the door, and whence each blasted tree could be seen to the best advantage; and then I let it lie, fallow, perchance, for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”

-Walden: Where I Lived, and What I lived For”