How to Write the Perfect Opening Sentence

By Michael Dare

"You're always wasting your time when you stare at a blank screen trying to think of that great opening sentence. Just start writing." 

 Water will absorb only so much salt. Keep pouring salt into water and eventually the water will stop absorbing it and you will end up with a wet pile of salt at the bottom of the water. Heat up the water and those hopped up hot-to-trot water molecules end up begging to get their hands on some plump juicy salt molecules. The extraneous salt gets absorbed. Cool the water down again and the salt is no longer at the bottom. Where did it go if there was no room for it? It's supersaturated, still in the water but in a liquid state, hungry to crystallize, but unable. It doesn't know how. It needs a pattern. Throw in a single grain of salt and the supersaturated solution can crystallize to its heart's content. Until then it remains unfulfilled, an unhappy solid lost in liquid, a crystal waiting to happen. Give it the germ and ZAP, those extra salt molecules all find their way to the center, multiply, a giant crystal from a single grain.

That grain is an idea and the supersaturated solution is your brain. Throw the right idea into the right creative brain and it crystallizes, growing outwards at astonishing speeds.

If the idea is a drop of paint then ZAP, it grows into a whole painting.

If the idea is a note then ZAP, it grows into a whole symphony.

If the idea is a sentence then ZAP, it crystallizes into an entire paragraph, sometimes a chapter, not often, an entire book, there in the brain, the entire structure, every sentence, every word, all at once, but like the salt, crystal in liquid, ready to melt in a nanosecond with a rise of temperature, and you can choose to pay attention to it, go to all the fuss of getting it down, or you can let it turn back to liquid and slosh about for a while till the next grain of an idea comes along and ZAP, something else crystallizes, another paragraph, sometimes a chapter, not very often, an entire book, just catch it, get it down, see how it grows.

It doesn't have to be your opening sentence. If this article were a crystal, the grain it grew from would have been the previous paragraph which, astonishingly enough, is only one sentence. In fact, though it's in the middle of the piece, it was the first sentence I wrote. The whole article grew outward from that sentence into both directions. The real opening sentence was in fact one of the last I wrote, but only if you believe me. If you believe me, you somehow think that this sentence, the very one that you are reading, was written in advance of the opening sentence, "There is only so much salt that water can absorb," which is nonsense. I obviously just wrote that sentence. It was the one in quotation marks in the previous sentence.

You're always wasting your time when you stare at a blank screen trying to think of that great opening sentence. Just start writing. You'll come across an opening sentence. Who says it has to be the first one that you write? Nobody, that's who. Why do you think cut-and-paste was invented? I pity the moron who doesn't write because he can't think of that perfect opening sentence. So start writing at the third sentence you idiot. Just start writing. You may write thousands of words before coming across that perfect opening sentence. If you are James Joyce, you will cut that sentence in half, making one half the opening and one half the closing, turning an entire book into a giant circle.  If you are me, you start with something about salt.

*****

--MD
(c)2000, Michael Dare

Author Michael Dare is a journalist whose work has appeared in The L.A Weekly, Daily Variety, New Times, Billboard, Movieline, Interview, The National Lampoon, Film Threat, calendarlive.com, L.A. Style, Parenting Magazine, and the Santa Monica Bay News. He was an assignment editor for the
book "A Day in the Life of Hollywood" (Collins Publishers) and a writer/interviewer for "Movie Talk from the Frontlines" (McFarland Publishers). He is currently a mentor for struggling screenwriters at the WGA site.
His TV work includes "Steven Spielberg presents Animaniacs" and the Warner Brother's cartoon "Histeria!" He co-produced the hit CBS movie-of-the-week "The Bachelor's Baby," which was based upon his own life. (Scott Bakula played him because they couldn't find anyone as good looking).
His video "Contemporary Extemporary" won Video Review Magazine's First Annual Award for Best Home Video Ever Made, and his latest, "Angel Food," has been shown at the Denver, Boston, and USA Film Festival in Dallas, Texas. He is a member of the WGA, the MPAA, and the Los Angeles Film Critic's Association. Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle when visiting his website at http://I.am/michaeldare