Every great story begins with a single sentence that grabs you by the collar and whispers — stay.

“Who’s there?” — Shakespeare, Hamlet — and suddenly you’re standing in the dark, afraid of what the shadows might answer.

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” — Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca — and you feel the weight of everything already lost before the story even begins.

“I wasn’t born and brought up to be a Kyoto geisha.” — Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha — a woman declaring herself before the world had the chance to define her.

“It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.” — Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera — and you already know this story will break your heart beautifully.

“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” — Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar — a young woman adrift in a summer that feels like a slow drowning.

“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” — Charles Dickens, David Copperfield — the bravest question any of us can ask.

These writers knew something essential. Your opening line is your truth before the explanation arrives. The sentence that has been living inside you, waiting.

What is YOUR opening line?

Mine?

“I survived my family.”

Four words. A whole universe — the love, the chaos, the lessons nobody asked for, and the person who emerged anyway.

Your opening line doesn’t need to be pretty. It needs to be true.

Drop it in the comments. Just one line. Let your story begin.

Thanks – Michael (he, him)

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This also matters – Tell Your Story.

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