First Chapters

One of the hardest things for any writer to do, is to write their stories first chapter. This chapter has to have an enticing first sentence and a riveting first paragraph. If not, the reader will put your book back on the shelf and decide to get another book about something that has been over done.

So how do we do it? How do we write that sentence that makes the reader fall in love your book completely?

The truth?

I don't know.

But I am trying. Each day I work at it and work at it. I read stories and try to find my favorite opening sentences. From what I have read Jane Austen is the best at it. Her first sentences are so memorable that they are still quoted to this day.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters."

—Jane Austen, Pride and prejudice, ch. 1

You see it is clever and makes you want to read more of what this witty author has to say.

Once you have got that down though how do keep them interested? How do prepare them from what is to come without giving so much away? Leave your opinions in the comment box bellow and together we might be able to come up with the best written first chapter since Austen.