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I scrolled past a post yesterday that opened with "I'll never forget the day I got the call that changed everything."
Didn't read past it. Not because the story was bad. I have no idea if the story was bad. I never got there.
Here's the problem with that opener, and a handful of its cousins ("Little did I know...", "This one moment changed my life forever").
They're not hooks anymore. They're announcements that a hook is coming. And once a reader learns to recognize the announcement, they skip straight past it waiting for the actual thing.
It's a little like a movie trailer that opens with "in a world where everything is about to change." You've heard it enough times that it stopped meaning anything the fortieth time, and now it's just noise you wait out.
The irony is these openers usually sit in front of a genuinely good story. The writer just spent the first sentence telling you a story is coming instead of starting it.
3 things about the openers that kill their own posts:
If the sentence describes the story instead of starting it, it's not the opener. It's the throat-clearing before the opener.
"Never forget" promises drama it hasn't earned yet.
The reader has no reason to care that you'll never forget something you haven't told them about.
The real opener is usually one sentence later.
Cut the announcement, and the next line is almost always stronger standing alone.
2 rewrites worth studying:
Weak: "I'll never forget the day I got the call that changed everything."
Strong: "The call came at 6am. I almost didn't answer it."
Weak: "Little did I know, this decision would change the trajectory of my business."
Strong: "I said yes without reading the contract. Found out why that mattered three weeks later."
1 question for you:
Check your last post's opening line. Is it the story, or is it a preview of the story? Delete it and see if the next line works better alone.
Stephen
P.S. The post I scrolled past yesterday? I went back later out of guilt. The actual story was great. It just took four sentences too long to start.
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