Via the Passive Voice blog , Tips for Writing a Novel:
In order to finish your novel in a timely manner, you should set a goal of writing a thousand words per day. But these can’t just be any random words you think of, typed up in a list. I learned that the hard way….
Readers will often make a snap judgment about whether to read your book based on the first sentence. That’s a lot of pressure on the first sentence, which is why my novels always begin with the sentence “Oh, no, something went wrong at the book printers,’ and the first sentence of this book was erased—ah, well, here comes the rest of the novel, I guess.” That way, readers can’t know whether the first sentence would have been good or not, so they’re just forced to read the whole book!
The whole thing is hilarious, but the above paragraph is especially relevant since I just posted ten novel openings. I guess none of the authors of those novels had read the above advice.
What makes that paragraph, imo, is the “I guess” at the end of the fake first sentence.
Definitely click through and read the whole thing.
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And, of course, the first sentence can be the last thing you write.