Most presentations/speeches begin in the middle, and many end in the middle. They don’t begin at the beginning.
That is a mistake.
Stephen King “spends years working on his opening sentences.” In the The Atlantic excellent series By Heart: a series in which authors share and discuss their all-time favorite passages in literature, in the entry Why Stephen King Spends ‘Months and Even Years’ Writing Opening Sentences: The author of horror classics like The Shining and its 2013 sequel Doctor Sleep says the best writers hook their readers with voice, not just action, they highlight this valuable insight from Stephen King: write a compelling, beckoning — an utterly magnetic — opening sentence. Magnetic, as in the sense of “drawing the person/reader in.”
Here’s what Stephen King says:
it’s a door-opener, it’s a table-setter…
But there’s one thing I’m sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.
How can a writer extend an appealing invitation — one that’s difficult, even, to refuse?
We’ve all heard the advice writing teachers give: Open a book in the middle of a dramatic or compelling situation, because right away you engage the reader’s interest. This is what we call a “hook,” and it’s true, to a point. This sentence from James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice certainly plunges you into a specific time and place, just as something is happening:“They threw me off the hay truck about noon.”
Suddenly, you’re right inside the story — the speaker takes a lift on a hay truck and gets found out.
The best first line I ever wrote is the opening of ‘Needful Things.’ Printed by itself on a page in 20-point type:“You’ve been here before.”
All there by itself on one page, inviting the reader to keep reading. It suggests a familiar story.
(some emphasis added).
If this counsel is good counsel — important, absolutely necessary counsel for writing — it is equally important for speaking. You may not fully win your audience in the opening line (or three), but you can lose you audience right away without well-thought-out and well-worded opening lines.
Beckon, draw, invite your audience in, or die a quick communication death.
Every speech book and textbook talks about the introduction. They use various words or phrases: “attention getter” is one of the most common. I like, and use the word “hook” – a speaker has to “hook the audience.”
Thomas Hollihan, professor of Communication at the USC Annenberg School of Communication (one of my former professors), uses this word: “arouse.” And he says that “arouse and fulfill” is the template for all effective messages. Here’s what he said (watch him say this on video at the end of this post):
The arousal and fulfillment of your audience’s desires… You want to pique their interest, and then you want to satisfy that interest that you’ve piqued – and if you fail in either regard, you haven’t had an effective message. If you don’t arouse them, they never get engaged, they never connect, and never listen. If you don’t fulfill them, they walk away, saying well, you know, that wasn’t a very satisfying talk.
When I teach presentations skills, and speech, I teach this: this “hook” has to be the first words out of your mouth. This is the example I use in my class. Pretend I am speaking on the Sixth Floor Museum, and the Kennedy assassination (I live in Dallas). I do not start with these words:
“My name is Randy Mayeux, and I am going to talk about my visit to the Kennedy assassination site.”
No, I begin with these words:
“The year was 1987. I finally got to see the spot. I had waited since 1963 to take a slow look. I cleared the day. And then I stood in line, rode to the 6th floor, and finally looked out from the ‘sniper’s perch…’ to what is now an ‘X’ on the pavement. That X was the spot – the spot where the fatal bullet hit. There is only place on earth to see this. And………”
And then I continue.
And I also teach this. Though your hook is the first thing you say, it is the last thing you write. Because, you don’t know how to “hook” your audience until the message is fully formed, and then, and only then, do you ask: “what is the best way to draw my audience in to this message?”
Stephen King “spends ‘Months and Even Years’ Writing Opening Sentences.” It really is worth the effort. And this is a genuinely important communication tip – your communication tip of the day.
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Here’s Dr. Hollihan’s video. It is only 25 seconds long. It goes by fast! It is worth watching.
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