Writing an Opening

Even writers with something to say may find it hard to begin. Often they are so intent on a brilliant opening that they freeze. They forget even the essentials — set up the topic, stick to what’s relevant, and establish a thesis. If you feel like a deer paralyzed by headlights, try these ways of opening:

Your opening should intrigue readers — engaging their minds and hearts, exciting their curiosity, drawing them into the world set forth in your writing.

DISCOVERY CHECKLIST

  • What vital background might readers need?
  • What general situation might help you narrow down to your point?
  • What facts or statistics might make your issue compelling?
  • What powerful anecdote or incident might introduce your point?
  • What striking example or comparison would engage a reader?
  • What question will your thesis — and your essay — answer?
  • What lively quotation would set the scene for your essay?
  • What assertion or claim might be the necessary prelude for your essay?
  • What points should you preview to prepare a reader for what will come?
  • What would compel someone to keep on reading?

Begin with a Story. Often a simple anecdote can capture your readers’ interest and thus serve as a good beginning. Here is how Nicholas Kulish opens his essay “Guy Walks into a Bar” (New York Times 5 Feb. 2006):

Recently my friend Brandon and I walked along Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn looking for a place to watch a football game and to quench our thirst for a cold brew. I pushed open the door and we were headed for a pair of empty stools when we both stopped cold. The bar was packed with under-age patrons.

Most of us, after an anecdote, want to read on. What will the writer say next? How does the anecdote launch the essay? Here, Kulish sets the stage for his objections to parents bringing babies and toddlers to bars.

Comment on a Topic or Position. Sometimes a writer expands on a topic, bringing in vital details, as David Morris does to open his article “Rootlessness” (Utne Reader May/June 1990):

Americans are a rootless people. Each year one in six of us changes residences; one in four changes jobs. We see nothing troubling in these statistics. For most of us, they merely reflect the restless energy that made America great. A nation of immigrants, unsurprisingly, celebrates those willing to pick up stakes and move on: the frontiersman, the cowboy, the entrepreneur, the corporate raider.

After stating his point baldly, Morris supplies statistics to support his contention and briefly explains the phenomenon. This same strategy can be used to present a controversial opinion, then back it up with examples.

Ask a Question. An essay can begin with a question and answer, as James H. Austin begins “Four Kinds of Chance,” in Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty (New York: Columbia UP, 1978):

What is chance? Dictionaries define it as something fortuitous that happens unpredictably without discernible human intention. Chance is unintentional and capricious, but we needn’t conclude that chance is immune from human intervention. Indeed, chance plays several distinct roles when humans react creatively with one another and with their environment.

Beginning to answer the question in the first paragraph leads readers to expect the rest of the essay to continue the answer.

See more on thesis statements.

End with the Thesis Statement. Opening paragraphs often end by stating the essay’s main point. After capturing readers’ attention with an anecdote, gripping details, or examples, you lead readers in exactly the direction your essay goes. In response to the question “Should Washington stem the tide of both legal and illegal immigration?” (“Symposium.” Insight on the News 11 Mar. 2002), Daniel T. Griswold uses this strategy to begin his answer:

Immigration always has been controversial in the United States. More than two centuries ago, Benjamin Franklin worried that too many German immigrants would swamp America’s predominantly British culture. In the mid-1800s, Irish immigrants were scorned as lazy drunks, not to mention Roman Catholics. At the turn of the century a wave of “new immigrants” — Poles, Italians, Russian Jews — were believed to be too different ever to assimilate into American life. Today the same fears are raised about immigrants from Latin America and Asia, but current critics of immigration are as wrong as their counterparts were in previous eras.