Write fire

"The currency of business is attention"

Gary Vaynerchuk

Good writing is like fire.

The spark in writing is your first sentence.

It needs to catch attention. Let it sit alone, in the spotlight of the white space around it. Put it on trial. Let it demand your consideration as to whether it's worthy of leading the charge.

If it's unworthy it'll be the only sentence your reader will read. Spend more time on it than you think appropriate.

Make the other sentences jealous.

What makes an attractive first sentence is better brought to light by considering what's unattractive:

• The dull
• The cliché
• The forgettable
• The unsurprising
  
  

Instead, a first sentence should catch attention without pleading for it. It should be novel without being a gimmick. It should say something unknown without lying.

It could be funny, intriguing, curious, or surprising.

If the first sentence is the spark catching, the second and third sentences are the cautious shepherding of the flame. Your fire is fragile.

If you bore, or repeat, or haven't built a structure to support it, your fire won't catch, your reader won't read.

From the first sentence you gently coax the flame until the fire is well and truly lit. Now you can breathe a little. Your reader has been caught.

Journalists call this early part of writing the lead. How long it should be depends largely on your reader, on you, what you want to say, your topic, and your medium. Basically there's no defined answer.

Just know the purpose.

To tempt your reader to take a detour from life's main road, down a path they weren't expecting to travel, and keep them on that path until this new adventure seems like the point of travelling in the first place.

Once your reader is caught, you can afford to change pace.

You might take circuitous routes, build detail, become factual, or dig into the meat of your topic. But don't think for one minute they're yours forever.

You need to keep the fire hot and bright because a reader can go cold if your words are confusing, and they can go dark if your work is dull.

You have to work hard to be vivid and fresh because Netflix is one unclear, boring sentence away.

And just like a good movie, write a mix of thrilling and serene scenes. And like a good story, don’t divulge everything at once. Don't rush to the ending before the beginning has begun. Drip-feed it.

You're the navigator holding a flaming torch at night. Enough heat to stay warm, and enough light to see the path ahead as you tug on their sleeve, beckoning them to follow you.

Just as an untended fire dies, so will your reader's attention if you stop fuelling it.

First and last sentences should be considered most carefully. More is asked of these soldiers than the army of words they guard.

Every new beginning has to fuel the reader further, and every precarious end has to fuel them to the next new beginning. Think of first and last sentences as new wood you throw on the fire to keep it burning.

The end is a particularly dangerous place. Whether it's the end of a sentence, a paragraph, or a chapter, after each one there's a pause. A logical stop. Have you ever found yourself thinking, I'll just get to the end of this page? Or flicking forward to see how far away the chapter's conclusion is, just so you can end the reading neatly?

Each last sentence should tug at the reader's sleeve to go on. You may not have spotted the mechanics of it, but you will have surely experienced the effect. When writing is really good, we can stave off food and sleep.

Your very last sentence shouldn't be the gentle decline of the fire. Your final words should be less fire and more firework.

That doesn’t mean you need to be dramatic. You just need to leave an impression.

Something funny perhaps, a thought your reader hasn't been able to make concrete, a fresh perspective, a call to action, something memorable.

You need to leave a mark.