Opening Lines

Any entertainer be it a comedian or musician will tell you that you that a strong opening joke or song is important to their performance. It gets their show off to a good start and both reaffirms and builds on the anticipation of the audience of what they hope will be a fun time. If well received, that opening line or number also serves as a powerful life-off to the performer for them to be at their best. In sports, perhaps a good example of the value of a strong opening line would be a race horse getting a powerful jump out of the starting gate. Without it, the chances of their winning the race or even coming close drop considerably.

Writers will affirm the value of an opening line in terms of bringing the reader into their story. The examples are many: "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins." "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." "What can you say about a twenty-five year old girl who died?" Powerful opening lines in books are grabbers. In essence, they grab the reader by their lapel, sit them down and demand immediate attention. If the opening line is, in fact, that strong, then the reader goes along willingly.

Of course, the great majority of us are not performers or professional writers. We do our best to connect with others in ways that may not be memorable or attention-getting, but are at least good enough to trigger some level of notice or acknowledgement. Despite that reality, there is something to be said for all of us to give thought to how we first present ourselves to others each day. Those "others" can be strangers or folks we see on a regular basis. A strong opening line gets whatever communicating is about to follow off to a positive start. That opener can come in the form of a smile or wave as well as some sort of verbal communique. The truth is effective communication involves some degree of performance, energy, heart and, above all, thought.