A fellow writer is teaching a section on first lines for a creative writing class, and asked her colleagues for their thoughts on the role of first lines in fiction. I am not as well-published as the other folks in the group (yet), but I nonetheless have an opinion (doesn't everybody?).

It seems to me that the purpose of a first line is to get the reader (be he/she/it a consumer, an acquisitions editor, an agent, a student, a bookstore manager, or whatever) to want to read the next few sentences. That's it. Hook the reader enough to keep reading a few more sentences.

Whether the author accomplishes this by introducing and/or developing sympathy for a character, a setting, or a plot point is immaterial. The point is to get the reader to keep reading.

The purpose of the next few sentences, naturally, is to compel the reader to read the next few paragraphs. And those few paragraphs, in turn, should establish the kind of relationship with the reader such that the reader naturally wants to take in the rest of the book.

Now, the first few paragraphs typically must contain specific elements in order to accomplish the desired goal. But the first line, it seems to me, has an incredibly simple job and can accomplish it in a wide variety of ways. (That, of course, is why writing the first line is so hard.)

Typically, though, the successful first line compels readers to keep reading because they pose a question in the readers mind:

"He died."

Who did? How? Why?

"Call me Ishmael."

Why?

"It was a pleasure to burn."

It was? For whom? What's being burned? Why?

"Once upon a time, there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith."

Oh? How'd that happen?

Some of my favorite first lines can be found in William Gibson's Burning Chrome. Pick any story from that collection and read the first line. Lots of action, lots of drama packed into quick, compelling sentences that all beg the question: Why? They all establish a need in the reader to know more.

Most people think that the purpose of a resume is to get you the job. It isn't. The purpose of the resume is to get you the interview.

Likewise, the first sentence doesn't need to sell the story. It's entire purpose is to get you to read just a little bit more. Let the next few sentences establish a setting or a character or a problem (or all three). The compelling first line simply establishes one need in the reader: you want to know more.

Now, if I can only convert these pearls of wisdom into professional sales, I'll be all set....