The first few lines sets the tone ...

~ like titles should, dangling powerful and tantalizing teasers for reader to explore to find where passion and pain conspire in search of heat between the pages, or between the sheets ...

Whatever, we read between the lines …

The first few lines – and sometimes, it’s the pull of that first line of a novel that might become as iconic as the novel itself that could matter so much.

Hopefully, the writer carries it off - but the reader realizes the writer is creating those lines or titles based on what thrills them while they write that novel …

Or the first lines of songs, or poems; mostly though, interesting stories don’t spring from an original spontaneous ‘first thought’ any more easily or likely than you get a title you like that way.