Found Corpse
It was a Tuesday when they found my corpse.
Discussion
This story open hooks the reader in by introducing an unusual narrator. The person “talking” here is the narrator and they are unusual. What makes the narrator unusual is the fact that they are dead. This introduces questions that bed for an answer. Questions like:
How did the narrator die? Was it murder, an accident, or natural causes?
When did the narrator die? This is after all the beginning of the story.
Why did the narrator die? Did they have it coming, or was the narrator undeserving of this death?
If it was murder, who killed them?
The character of the narrator is even interesting to us, who was this person who is now dead?
These questions arise because of a few factors. The first being that this is the opening statement of the story.. Another because readers tend to find interest in the unusual. The casual nature in which the statement was given also peaks interest.
Uses
This open could be used in a variety of ways. It could be used to introduce:
a ghostly narrator
a narrator who comes back to life from the dead
a narrator who has been cloned, or has other versions of themselves as in a multiverse scenario
a dishonest narrator who wants the reader to think they are dead when in reality the reader is being deceived and the narrator is still alive
a time-traveling narrator
All of these narrators are unusual and interesting.