WritingPromptForge

First line generator

A story starter generator for when the first sentence is the wall. Strike an opening line, then write the second.

First line

The last time I saw my brother, he was stealing a lighthouse.

Opening lines to steal

  1. The last time I saw my brother, he was stealing a lighthouse.
  2. Nobody in our town had ever been to the moon, until Mrs. Patel's cat.
  3. The letter arrived on a Tuesday, which was the first problem, because the post office had closed in 1998.
  4. I was nine the summer the river ran backwards.
  5. My grandmother kept a jar of thunder on the kitchen windowsill.
  6. By the time the wedding started, three of the guests knew the groom was an impostor.
  7. The house had been for sale for forty years, and today someone finally bought it.
  8. There are two rules in the Gray Street Laundromat, and I broke both before noon.
  9. It is easier to lie to a stranger on a train than to anyone else, so I told her everything.
  10. The day the colours went out, I was in the middle of painting a door.
  11. She had planned her disappearance down to the minute, and then the bus was late.
  12. Every family has a story they do not tell. Ours was buried under the rhubarb.
  13. When the robot applied for the job, nobody laughed; that was the strange part.
  14. I found the map folded inside a library book that had not been borrowed since 1962.
  15. We had one hour before the tide came in, and nobody could remember where we had parked the boat.

Why a good first line works

Look at the lines above: each one contains something normal (a letter, a grandmother, a Tuesday) and something wrong (the post office closed in 1998, the jar holds thunder). The gap between the two is a question, and the reader keeps going to close it.

When you write your own, try the same move: one ordinary detail, one impossible or alarming one, in the same sentence.

Questions writers ask

What is a story starter?

A story starter is an opening line or situation that you continue in your own words. It skips the hardest part, the first sentence, so you can get moving.

What makes a great first line?

Great openings usually raise a question the reader needs answered, establish a voice, and hint at the world, often in one sentence. Think of "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen" from Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Can I change the first line?

Of course. Many writers use a starter to begin, then cut it in revision once the real opening appears.