How to Write Compelling Openings: Foreshadowing and Fiction

A hus­band and wife sit on a blan­ket together in a grassy, tree-​​lined field. Just as the hus­band grasps the cool neck of the bot­tle of wine they plan to share, a shout for help rings out from the dis­tance. He dashes in the direc­tion of the call, head­ing towards an unex­pected kind of disaster:

 The encounter that would unhinge us was min­utes away, its enor­mity dis­guised from us not only by the bar­rier of time but by the colos­sus in the cen­ter of the field, which drew us in with the power of a ter­ri­ble ratio that set fab­u­lous mag­ni­tude against the puny human dis­tress at its base.

This is from the open­ing of the oddly, if quite aptly titled novel Endur­ing Love from Booker-​​winning writer Ian McE­wan. It’s one of the most com­pelling open­ings I’ve ever read, and its effec­tive­ness lies in McEwan’s mas­ter­ful use of foreshadowing.

The nar­ra­tor describes these events look­ing back­wards in time, from the after­math of the chain of tragedies that ensues. The descrip­tion is enriched by his regret, by his sub­se­quent aware­ness of how the encounter would change him, by the exac­ti­tude of the depar­ture from his seem­ingly happy exis­tence with his wife, and by how even the small details, such as the cool­ness of the wine bot­tle, stand out in sharp con­trast in his mem­o­ries. This open­ing grabs you by the lapels and keeps you turn­ing pages want­ing more.

But why should fic­tion writ­ing have a monop­oly over com­pelling open­ings? Why don’t we see more of these in non­profit pro­files or foun­da­tion case stud­ies and briefs?

Too often we’ve trudged through open­ings laden with jar­gon and the weight of BIG ideas. Some­times it feels as though we as a field and as writ­ers in the field limit our­selves to writ­ing that sounds offi­cial enough to pre­vent any the­sis advi­sor from send­ing it back for fur­ther edits. Mean­while, after fail­ing to pen­e­trate the first para­graph, our audi­ence sticks our glossy annual report or case state­ment beneath over­hyped credit card offers and let­ters from Aunt Bertha at the bot­tom of their mail heap.

Using fore­shad­ow­ing helps any writ­ing, espe­cially com­mu­ni­ca­tion mate­ri­als, in two big ways. First, it plays off read­ers’ expec­ta­tions. They want to know why the pic­nic didn’t turn out as planned, and not only that, but became some­thing hor­ri­ble when it ought to have been fun and peace­ful. Sec­ond, it cre­ates a story with details that inform read­ers of what the char­ac­ters want and feel (and cre­ate a cor­re­spond­ing desire for read­ers to want them to get it). These char­ac­ters seem like real peo­ple hav­ing a moment as mem­o­rable for the sen­sa­tions of the blan­ket and the blades of grass as for the doom these sen­sa­tions would precede. Readers feel for them and are eager to learn what hap­pens next.

Think of this when you’re writ­ing a needs state­ment or describ­ing how grantees turned a sit­u­a­tion around.

It’s not the 4,000 starv­ing kids who need food, but the dis­ap­point­ment Jane will feel as she returns home from school and pic­tures a roasted chicken for din­ner, when she’ll actu­ally get noth­ing. Read­ers under­stand Jane and want her to get food or are inter­ested in find­ing out how your orga­ni­za­tion helped her get it. They also respect your orga­ni­za­tion for observ­ing Jane’s life with the informed pre­ci­sion of a narrative.

It’s much eas­ier to read, com­pelling, and personal.