The Perfect Opening Line

Legendary guitarist Keith Richards has told the story of how he came up with the famous guitar riff that opens the classic Rolling Stones song "(Can't Get No) Satisfaction."

Richard claims the opening--those five notes--came to him in his sleep. He woke up, grabbed his guitar, hit the record button on a tape recorder, and played the notes. Then he went right back to sleep. The next morning he rewound the tape to hear that riff followed by a full tape of Keith Richards snoring.

Sometimes that happens for a writer, too. Not the snoring; sometimes the perfect opening line for a short story, a novel, or even an internal memo comes to you as if in a dream. You just think of what you need (or want) to write, and the opening sentence is right there for you.

But for now, let's talk about reality.

In the real world, most of us struggle with the opening sentence. In fact, a lot of people I've known get so frustrated with trying to come up with a perfect opening line that they're too paralyzed to write whatever it is that they need to write. The blank page is sitting there mocking them because they refuse to soil it with just any opening sentence. They just know they have to right the perfect opening.

Well, that's a load of crap. You should never let the quest for the perfect opening prevent you from writing anything at all.

If you find yourself falling into that trap, if you feel that you can't put any words down at all because they're not going to be perfect, try this: Start with the middle. Just start with the absolute center of the document and write whatever needs to be described in that part of the document. If you get on a roll, write all the way to the end.

Then go back to the beginning. Then think about what you've written and put down some words that prepare the reader. And tell yourself that it doesn't have to be perfect. Take some satisfaction from an opening line that simply invites the reader into your document effectively.

And just be ready for the day that the perfect opening line comes to you in a dream.