Writing Tips

Grabbers

I cannot stress enough how important grabbers are to your stories y'all.

A grabber is the very first sentence of your story, and it's called a "grabber" for a reason; it needs to grab your audience's attention and make them want to keep reading.

In the attached video, it gives examples of famous first lines in books and why they're compelling.

Allow me to share with you a few of my personal favorites...

"When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home." ~The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

This is another well-known first line.

This is a prime example of a fantastic grabber.

You get a peek into the narrator's mind, even though you don't know anything about them. You know that they were just in a movie theatre, which means you can probably assume they love movies. They also mention thinking about Paul Newman, so it's also safe to assume they admire him as an actor. You also learn the narrator can't drive yet since they're worried about a ride home.

Introducing your main protagonist in this way is a great way to pull in your readers.

"The good thing about Friday is--it's not Thursday." ~If the Witness Lied by Caroline B. Cooney

This example is stark in contrast to Hinton's The Outsiders in terms of ambiguity.

In the example from The Outsiders, we immediately know our narrator's interests and have a pretty good guess at their age.

In this example from If the Witness Lied, the only thing you know about the character is that they had dreaded the previous day, Thursday.

But that also leaves the reader to ask, "What's so bad about Thursdays?" Then they'll keep reading to find out why Thursdays are so bad, which I think was a genius move on Cooney's part.

"A long time ago, in a market town by a looping river, there lived an orphan girl called Plain Kate." ~Plain Kate by Erin Bow

Another direct grabber.

In this example we have a pretty good image of the setting of the story, and the name of the protagonist and a good guess at her past.

But there are still questions to be asked here.

"Why is she called Plain Kate? Is it some nickname she earned during her childhood? If so, why Plain Kate?"

"The servants called them malenchki, little ghosts, because they were the smallest and the youngest, and because they haunted the Duke's house like giggling phantoms, darting in and out of rooms, hiding in cupboards to eavesdrop, sneaking into the kitchen to steal the last of the summer peaches." ~Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

This one is a mix of direct and ambiguous.

It's obvious that the so-called "malenchki" are very mischievous and raucous, but we don't know why they have servants or living in a duke's house.

Are they royalty? Are they just street urchins who sneak in to steal food and "haunt the halls like giggling phantoms"?

In my opinion, this is the best way to write a grabber; be both direct and vague at the same time.

"The very best day of my life, I threw up four times and had a fever of 103 degrees." ~See You at Harry's by Jo Knowles

I honestly don't know how to categorize this based on a scale of either apparent or vague...

I guess it could fall under apparent since our narrator directly told us what the very best day of their life was...

Sure. Let's go with that.

This is also an example of a direct attention grabber since the narrator just told us that the very best day of their lives was when they were really sick one day.

But this grabber leaves us wondering, "Why was this the best day of their life? Being sick sucks, man."

So then you want to know why on earth is this person--who is puking and has a high-grade fever--is actually happy about it?

If this helped you, please tell me in the comments below!