I studied 500 opening lines. Here’s what separates humans from machines.

On earning attention through human storytelling

I’ve been thinking a lot about opening lines lately, but in a new light, not like I was a few years ago. Before, we competed with a lot of noise from people. Now we’re competing with machines too. This has created even more saturation of ideas than I would’ve thought possible.

There’s interesting work being done with AI. But a lot of it succeeds because a great thinker or creative is using it as a tool. Then comes the slop: scammy videos, content, and interactions that sound like a rehash with little to no value.

We had this before, on a smaller scale. Clickbait articles promised celebrity scandals or scientific discoveries, only to waste our time with nothing. Now there’s more of it, designed more cleverly and easier to fall for.

This brings the opening line front and center again; our first communication doesn’t just need to be a hook, it needs to be human. It needs to be story-focused and truly connect with emotions.

We all have a message, something unique to us and something beautiful to say, and we deserve attention if it’s going to add value. But attention has to be proven and earned in a saturated space of ideas. The opening line, a human line, gives us that potential again to be a signal.

Several years ago, I studied hundreds of creative works and built a database in Notion containing hundreds of the best opening lines. Many vary in technique and style, but I’ve learned key attributes that make them all great. In our conversations, presentations, and moments when we share ideas, we encounter similar moments: first words that either earn attention or lose it.

Why some first lines last decades (while others die in seconds)

Almost every first line that has lasted includes a setting; either a place or time, usually within the first few words. If it doesn’t include a setting, it’s replaced with a shocking action or statement.

Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans opens:

“Once an angry man dragged his father along the ground through his own orchard. ‘Stop!’ cried the groaning old man at last, ‘Stop! I did not drag my father beyond this tree.’”

Stein carefully adds keywords that spark emotion. “Once” signals a specific scene worth our attention. The “angry” person who “dragged his father” creates a conflicting narrative that paints a complex picture we don’t understand, but now we’re asking questions. The orchard and ground add scenery and clear setting. Suddenly, there’s a fast forward: an old man, a whole life lived, forced to point out what happened with his father, using a tree as a physical anchor. This visceral setting, combined with emotions and mystery, locks you in.

Gabriel García Márquez does something similar:

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

These lines have so much happening that we can’t help but ask ourselves a dozen questions. When? How? What kind of person would discover ice? These settings don’t just establish context; they reveal something about memory, violence, and wonder that couldn’t exist without them.

The opening line formula machines can’t replicate

The greatest opening lines, the human ones, create tension where audiences have to read between the lines. And while a hundred people might read the same sentence, it means something totally different based on their experience. These sentences are universal, yet personal.

J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan opens with stark simplicity:

“All children, except one, grow up.”

It challenges what we take for granted about time and loss.

Toni Morrison does the same in Paradise:

“They shoot the white girl first.”

In just a few words, we’re confronting racial hierarchy, violence, and the mechanisms of choosing victims.

George Orwell’s 1984 shows us something wrong immediately:

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

This line eases us into the familiar (a bright cold day in April) before emphasizing thirteen at the end, an unlucky number, and the plural “clocks” signifying the world’s time all syncing into one. We recognize the wrongness before we understand it.

Renata Adler opens Speedboat with a different kind of precision:

“Nobody died that year. Nobody prospered. There were no births or marriages.”

The starkness of absence reveals how we measure meaning; by what happens, or by what doesn’t.

How conflict reveals you’re human

This tension that makes great opening lines should also reveal true conflict.

Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time opens with this:

“It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs. Shears’ house. Its eyes were closed.”

We’re already asking questions, wondering how (or if) the dog died, who did it, what Mrs. Shears is going to think. The precision of “7 minutes after midnight” tells us we’re in the mind of someone who sees the world differently. Conflict doesn’t just fuel the story, but also reveals character.

The one question that creates an unforgettable opening

For me, this revised take on opening lines that goes beyond hooks (perhaps it’s always been the case) reveals that readers and listeners have always valued truth, authenticity, and real human storytelling.

I find now that instead of writing on something that’s particularly interesting to me, I have to have a personal experience or connection to it first. And that’s a good thing. Because these personal experiences create something new that didn’t exist before, I can add value to something and contribute.

Now, when I want to communicate an idea or message, I ask myself: What is my personal struggle with this? How am I trying to apply it? Or how does this subject fascinate me, and how have I interacted with it on my own? It’s these differences that create a unique message, one worth an original opening line and story.

There are many amazing opening lines in creative works. We can craft our own for the moments when we share ideas, present our work, or communicate what matters to us.

But here’s what machines can’t replicate: the specific gravity of lived experience, the particular angle of your curiosity, the exact pressure point where your struggle meets someone else’s question. A machine can generate a thousand openings in a second. The only one that matters is the one that only you could have written.