Opening statements
I think I learned it in English class... At least I can see the cheeky smile of my high school English teacher shaking his finger at us and saying "You have only 15 seconds to grab your readers attention!". I suspect it's even smaller, and to be perfectly honest, I don't even know if it's 15 seconds anyway. The point is, opening statements have to grab our attention. If they do not, our attention goes elsewhere. It's not just writing either... Every tried to chat with someone on an online dating site? That opening statement really seems to matter! I once started the conversation with a bold "Hi <so and so> It's nice to meet you!". Yup, complete with capitals and punctuation. I looked at my opening line imagining the rapt attention of the person on the other side of that match. "What a thoughtful opening statement!" they would muse before responding with rapt enthusiasm. The reply came back. It was about 24 hours later and read: