To declare in the first sentence that something is the first or the only one of its kind immediately arrests attention, because of the universal interest in the unique.
An unusual prediction is another form of striking statement. To be told at the beginning of an article of some remarkable thing that the future holds in store for him or for his descendants, fascinates the average person as much as does the fortune-teller’s prophecy. There is danger of exaggeration, however, in making predictions. When writers magnify the importance of their subject by assuring us that what they are explaining will “revolutionize” our ideas and practices, we are inclined to discount these exaggerated and trite forms of prophecy.
A striking figure of speech—an unusual metaphor, for example—may often be used in the beginning of an article to arouse curiosity. As the comparison in a metaphor is implied rather than expressed, the points of likeness may not immediately be evident to the reader and thus the figurative statement piques his curiosity. A comparison in the form of a simile, or in that of a parable or allegory, may serve as a striking introduction.
A paradox, as a self-contradictory statement, arrests the attention in the initial sentence of an article. Although not always easy to frame, and hence not so often employed as it might be, a paradoxical expression is an excellent device for a writer to keep in mind when some phase of his theme lends itself to such a striking beginning.
Besides these readily classified forms of unusual statements, any novel, extraordinary expression that is not too bizarre may be employed. The chief danger to guard against is that of making sensational, exaggerated, or false statements, merely to catch the reader’s notice.
STRIKING STATEMENT BEGINNINGS
(1)
(Illustrated World)
FIRE WRITES A HEART’S RECORD
BY H.G. HUNTING
A human heart, writing its own record with an actual finger of flame, is the startling spectacle that has recently been witnessed by scientists. It sounds fanciful, doesn’t it? But it is literally a fact that the automatic recording of the heart’s action by means of tracings from the point of a tiny blaze appears to have been made a practicable method of determining the condition of the heart, more reliable than any other test that can be applied.
(2)
(Boston Transcript)
TAKING HOSPITALS TO THE EMERGENCY By F.W. COBURN
Taking the hospital to the emergency instead of the emergency to the hospital is the underlying idea of the Bay State’s newest medical unit—one which was installed in three hours on the top of Corey Hill, and which in much less than half that time may tomorrow or the next day be en route post haste for Peru, Plymouth, or Pawtucketville.
(3)