How to Write a Good Opening Line

By Stephen King

所谓“万事开头难”，做事如此，写作亦是如此。英国著名评论家戴洛奇在《小说的艺术》中谈道：“小说的第一句是设置在我们居住的世界与小说家想象出来的世界之间的一道门槛。因此，小说的开局应当如俗语所说，‘把我们拉进门去。’”美国畅销书作家斯蒂芬·金在此向我们讲述了他的诀窍——他是如何在自己的小说中将读者“拉进门去”的。

There are all sorts of theories and ideas about what constitutes2. constitute: 组成，构成。a good opening line. It’s a tricky thing, and tough to talk about because I don’t think conceptually while I work on a first draft—I just write.3. tricky: 棘手的，难处理的；conceptually: 概念地。To get scientific about it is a little like trying to catch moonbeams in a jar.4. 要科学地分析如何写好开头，就有点儿像用罐子试图捕捉月光一样不可能。moonbeam: 月光；jar: 大口瓶子，坛子。

But there’s one thing I’m sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here.You want to know about this.

How can a writer extend an appealing invitation5. extend: 提供，赠予；appealing: 有吸引力的，有感染力的。—one that’s difficult to refuse?

We’ve all heard the advice writing teachers give: Open a book in the middle of a dramatic or compelling6. compelling: 引人注目的，激发兴趣的。situation,because right away you engage the reader’s interest. This is what we call a“hook7. hook: 吸引人的手段（如奖品、免费赠送等）。文中指的是“引人注意的开首句”。,” and it’s true, to a point.

For me, a good opening sentence really begins with voice. You hear people talk about “voice” a lot, when I think they really just mean “style.” Voice is more than that. People come to books looking for something. But they don’t come for the story, or even for the characters. They certainly don’t come for the genre. I think readers come for the voice.

A novel’s voice is something like a singer’s—think of singers like Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan, who have no musical training but are instantly recognizable.8. Mick Jagger: 米克·贾格尔（1943— ），英国摇滚乐手，滚石乐队创始成员之一，1969年开始担任乐队主唱，他被称为“摇滚史上最受欢迎和最有影响力的主唱之一”； Bob Dylan: 鲍勃·迪伦（1941— ），一位极具历史影响力的美国摇滚、民谣艺术家，被广泛认为是美国20世纪60年代反叛文化的代言人。People know those voices, they love those voices, and something in them connects deeply with those voices. Well, it’s the same way with books. Anyone who’s read a lot of John Sanford, for example, knows that wry,sarcastic amusing voice that’s his and his alone.9. John Sanford: 约翰·桑福德（1904—2003），美国作家、电影编剧；wry: 挖苦的，辛辣的；sarcastic:讽刺的，挖苦的。Or Elmore Leonard10. Elmore Leonard: 埃尔莫尔·伦纳德（1925—2013），美国著名的犯罪小说家，一生著有四十多本小说，其中许多作品都被改编成著名的电影或电视剧，如《决战犹马镇》和《危险关系》等。—my god, his writing is like a fingerprint. You would recognize him anywhere.An appealing voice achieves an intimate connection—a bond much stronger than the kind forged, intellectually, through crafted writing.11. 具有吸引力的声音能够促成（作者与读者之间）亲密的联系——这比通过精巧的写作手法而形成的关系要强烈得多。forge: 锻造，铸造；crafted: 精巧制作的，技术精巧的。With really good books, a powerful sense of voice is established in the first line.

We’ve talked so much about the reader,but you can’t forget that the opening line is important to the writer, too. Because it’s not just the reader’s way in, it’s the writer’s way in also. When I’m starting a book,I compose12. compose: 创作（文学、音乐、绘画等作品）。in bed before I go to sleep.I will lie there in the dark and think. I’ll try to write a paragraph. An opening paragraph. And over a period of weeks and months and even years, I’ll word and reword it until I’m happy with what I’ve got. If I can get that first paragraph right,I’ll know I can do the book.

Because of this, I think, my first sentences stick with13. stick with: 缠住，萦绕。me. They were a doorway I went through. The opening line of 11/22/6314. 本段和下一段中提到的斯蒂芬· 金的小说作品依次是：《11/22/63》、《撒冷镇》和《必需品专卖店》。is “I’ve never been what you’d call a crying man.” The opening line of Salem’s Lot is “Everybody thought the man and the boy were father and son.” See? I remember them!

I can tell you right now that the best first line I ever wrote—and I learned it from Cain—is the opening of Needful Things. It’s the story about this guy who comes to town, and uses grudges and sleeping animosities among the townspeople to whip everyone up into a frenzy of neighbor against neighbor.15. 这个故事讲述了一个新来到镇上的人，他利用小镇居民相互间的怨气和潜伏的恨意煽风点火，使人们陷入了邻里之间互相攻击的疯狂状态之中。grudge: 恶意，怨恨；animosity: 仇恨，敌意；whip up: 煽动……采取暴力，鼓动。And so the story starts off with an opening line: You’ve been here before.

All there by itself on one page, inviting the reader to keep reading. It suggests a familiar story; at the same time, the unusual presentation16. presentation: 展示方式，呈现方式。brings us outside the realm of the ordinary. And this, in a way, is a promise of the book that’s going to come. The story of neighbor against neighbor is the oldest story in the world, and yet this telling is (I hope) strange and somehow different. Sometimes it’s important to find that kind of line:one that encapsulates what’s going to happen later without being a big thematic statement.17. encapsulate: 概括，压缩；thematic: 主题的。

Still, I don’t have a lot of books where that opening line is poetry or beautiful. Sometimes it’s perfectly workman-like18. workman-like: 技术娴熟的，精工细作的。. You try to find something that’s going to offer that crucial way in, any way in, whatever it is as long as it works. This approach is closer to what worked for in my new book, Doctor Sleep. All I remember is wanting to leapfrog from the timeframe of The Shining into the present by talking about presidents, without using their names.19. leapfrog: 交替式跃进；The Shining:《闪灵》，斯蒂芬·金的一部恐怖小说，该小说的成功牢固地奠定了他在此类小说流派中的优秀作家地位。The peanut farmer president, the actor president, the president who played the saxophone20, and so on. The sentence is:

On the second day of December, in a year when a Georgia peanut farmer was doing business in the White House, one of Colorado’s great resort hotels burned to the ground.

It’s supposed to do three things. It sets you in time. It sets you in place. And it recalls the ending of the book—though I don’t know it will do much good for people who only saw the movie, because the hotel doesn’t burn in the movie. This isn’t grand or elegant—it’s a door-opener. I was able to take the motif—chronicle a series of important events quickly by linking them to presidential administrations—to set the stage and begin the story.21. motif: 主题，中心思想；chronicle: 记录，记载。There’s nothing “big” here. It’s just one of those grace notes22. grace note: 装饰音，是音乐术语。此处比喻“修饰性语言”。you try to put in there, so that the narrative has a feeling of balance, and it helped me find my way in.

But you can’t create a writing career based on first lines. A book won’t stand or fall23. stand or fall: 成败，好坏。on the very first line of it—the story has got to be there,and that’s the real work. And yet a really good first line can do so much to establish that crucial sense of voice—it’s the first thing that makes you eager, that starts to enlist you for the long haul.24. enlist: 取得……的注意或支持；for the long haul: 长期地，长远地。So there’s incredible power in it, when you say,come in here. You want to know about this. And someone begins to listen.