An excerpt.

As you know, the first few paragraphs of a piece of fiction are crucial. You've got to draw your audience in, obviously, or no one will want to keep reading. I don't always do a great job with that, but here's an example of one of my best opening paragraphs. This is from my first novel-length piece, which I'm currently editing and revising. Let me know what you think! Would you keep reading? 

"She has blue eyes. Not sky blue and not sapphire blue but blue like the water in the deepest crevices of the oceans. That murky, near-black liquid that seeps between coral reefs and offers concealment for vile creatures. Blue like the deep abyss that you don’t even know exists until suddenly you’re yanked down into it, where the world is ice cold and unforgiving, and that deep blue water, it’s choking you, and every time you try to take a deep breath you suck more water down through your nose, and every time you open your mouth wide to scream it floods your throat. It fills your nostrils, your mouth, your lungs until the tiny blood vessels in the whites of your eyes explode, and you sink down into the depths of that black-blue abyss forever.

She has blue eyes, like the woman who’s hidden in my basement cellar, bound with razor wire."