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The judge of a short story competition is a busy person who will have to read through hundreds of short stories. They may end up whittling their short list down by picking on writers with the tiniest spelling mistake or shaky grammar. In this case your story should be in with as good a chance as the next one, providing you have checked it through thoroughly for errors. If, however, the judge’s decision is made difficult by a poor crop of entries, they may find themselves reading one disappointing story after another. In this case they will be looking for that entry that grabs them from the beginning and won’t let go. A story with that extra special opening that promises something worth reading. Either way it is likely that the judge of the competition you are entering will be looking for this attention grabber anyway. Any good story should have the ability to wow a reader from the first line, and it’s very likely that if yours doesn’t, then someone else’s will.

The importance of a powerful first line can’t be stressed enough. Your story might well be excellent, but if your opening line doesn’t hook your reader, there’s every chance they won’t read on to find out if the rest is any good or not.

A first line should tell the reader something about a story. It should be intriguing, well delivered, and should capture the interest of the reader. It has to make them want to know where this is going to lead. Nobody, and especially not the judge of a short story competition, wants to read an opening line that is bland and meaningless. So, while you might think your first line sets the scene, be careful not to use sentences like ‘it was a cold, rainy day’ or ‘I had just finished breakfast and was on my way to go shopping’. These lines tell us nothing about any meat that there might be in this story. It doesn’t lead us in to an exciting tale and the sentences themselves are not particularly well written. What you are aiming for in a first line is instant impact. You need to hit the reader with something that makes them sit up and take notice.

In a novel the hook can come anywhere in the first chapter really, although it’s still better to bring it in as soon as possible, but in a short story you don’t have the luxury of so much time to build up a setting, so the hook needs to be brought in immediately.

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Written by: sampriestley
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