克里夫·R.亚当斯是宾州州立学校婚姻顾问处处长。他发表在《读者文摘》上的文章《如何挑选配偶》，以惊人的事实展开叙述——这些事实可以立刻吸引住你的注意力，让你屏住呼吸：Clifford R. Adams, director of the Marriage Counseling Service of the Pennsylvania State College, began an article in The Reader's Digest, entitled "How to Pick a Mate," with these startling facts-facts that make you gasp, facts that make an arresting opener:

“如今，我们的青年从婚姻当中获得快乐的机会真是微乎其微。离婚率升高的速度令人触目惊心。如果1940年六桩婚姻中有一桩会触礁，那么到了1946年，我们预计将是四桩中有一桩。如果这种迹象长期继续下去，到50年代就将是50%了。”Today the chances that our young people will find happiness through marriage are slim indeed. The rise of our divorce rate is frightening. One marriage in five or six landed on the rocks in 1940. By 1946, it is expected to be one in four. And if longrange trends continue, the rate in fifty years will be one in two.

这里还有几个例子，也是以“惊人的事件”开头：Here are two other examples of "arresting facts" openers:

“军事部门预测，原子战争的头一夜，会有两千万美国人遇害。”The War Department predicts that, in the first night of an atomic war, twenty million Americans will be killed.

“数年前史哥利·霍华德报纸花费176000美元做了一项调查，希望发现零售商店的什么地方顾客们不喜欢。这是迄今为止对零售业最昂贵、最科学、最彻底的调查。调查问卷被送往16个不同城市的54047个家庭。问题之一是：‘你不喜欢本镇商店的什么地方？’A few years ago, the Scripps-Howard newspapers spent $ 176,000 on a survey to discover what customers disliked about retail stores. It was the most costly, the most scientific, the most thorough survey ever made of retail selling problems. Questionnaires were sent into 54,047 homes in sixteen different cities. One of the questions was: 'What do you dislike about the stores in this town?'

“这个问题的所有答案里几乎有五分之二是相同的：无礼的店员！”Almost two-fifths of all the answers to that question were the same: Discourteous clerks!"

讲演一开始便作惊人之语的方法，之所以能让听众产生共鸣，就是由于它震撼了听众的思想。这一种“震撼技巧”，利用出人意料来达到获得听众注意讲演题材的效果。This method of making startling statements at the beginning of a talk is effective in establishing contact with the listener because it jars the mind. It is a kind of" shock technique" that enlists attention by using the unexpected to focus attention upon the subject matter of the talk.

在华盛顿的一名学生，便使用了这种引起好奇的方法。她的芳名是梅格·席尔，以下就是她的开场白：One of our class members in Washington, D. C., used this method, arousal of curiosity, as effectively as anyone I have ever heard. Her name, Meg Sheil. Here is her opening:

“有整整十年的时间我曾是囚犯。不是在寻常的监狱里，而是在忧虑自己不够好和惧怕批评筑起的监狱中。”I was a prisoner for ten years. Not in an ordinary prison, but in one whose walls were worry about my inferiority and whose bars were the fear of criticism.

你难道不想多知道一些这种真人真事吗？Don't you want to know more about this true-life episode?

惊人的开头也有个危险应该避开，那就是过分戏剧化，过分地耍噱头。我还记得有个家伙以对空放了一枪来展开讲演，他是获得了注意，可也把听众的耳膜震破了。A danger of the startling opener must be avoided, that is, the tendency to be over-dramatic or too sensational. I remember one speaker who started his talk by shooting a pistol into the air. He got attention all right, but he also blasted the eardrums of his listeners.

开场白应平易近人，好像是在与听众促膝而谈。对此，有个方法有效，可以有效地让你了解你的开场白是不是真像平日的谈话，那就是在餐桌上试讲。如果你的方式不够平易，就不能在人们用餐时采用，那么恐怕对听众就不够亲切了。Make your opening conversational in manner. An efficient way to discover whether you have an opener that is conversational is to try it out across the dinner table. If the way you open your talk isn't conversational enough to be spoken across the dinner table, it probably won't be conversational enough for an audience either.

可经常见到的是，应该获得听众兴趣的开头却往往成了讲演中最枯燥的部分。譬如我最近听到一个讲演人这样开始：“要信赖上帝，并且相信你自己的能力……”这样的开头说教意味重得就像白水煮白菜。再听听他第二句话，渐渐有意思了，他说：“1981年我母亲成了寡妇，有三个孩子要养育，但却身无分文……”为什么讲演人不是第一句话就叙述寡母领着三个嗷嗷待哺的幼儿奋斗求生的事情呢？Frequently, however, the opening of the talk that is supposed to get the listeners' interest is, in reality, the dullest part of the talk. For example, I recently heard a speaker begin like this: "Trust in the Lord and have faith in your own ability ... " A preachy, obvious way to begin a talk! &t note his second sentence; it is interesting; it has heart throb in it. "My mother was left a widow in 1918 with three children to support, and no money..." Why, oh why, didn't that speaker begin in his first sentence by telling about the struggles of his widowed mother with three little children to support!

想引起听众的兴趣，就不要等从绪言开始，应从一开始便进入故事的核心。If you want to interest your listeners, don't begin with an introduction. Begin by leaping right into the heart of your story.

法兰克·毕杰就是这么做的。他是《我如何在销售行业中奋起成功》一书的作者，能够在第一句话里便制造悬念，简直称得上是悬疑大师。在美国青商会的赞助下，他和我曾在全美各地做巡回讲演，谈论有关销售的事情。他谈论“热心”所用的开始方式更高妙无比，总教我由衷地佩服：一不讲道，二不训话，三不说教，四无概括的言论，一开口就进入题目的核心。他这样开始的：That is what Frank Bettger does. He is the author of How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling. He is an artist when it comes to creating suspense in his first sentence. I know, because he and I traveled together all over the United States giving talks on selling under the auspices of the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce. I always admired the superb way he opened his talk on enthusiasm. No preaching. No lecturing. No sermonizing. No general statements. Frank Bettger leaped right into the heart of his subject in his first sentence. He began his talk on enthusiasm like this:

“在我成为职业棒球选手后不久，我遇到一生中最让我震惊的一件事情。”Shortly after I started out as a professional baseball player, I got one of the biggest shocks of my life.

这样的开始会对听众产生什么效果？当时我在场，亲眼看到听众的反应——他立刻就引起了大家的注意，人人都急着想听听，他为什么会震惊，他是怎么办的？What effect did this opening have on his audience? I know, I was there. I saw the reaction. He had everyone's attention instantly. Everyone was eager to hear why and how he was shocked, and what he did about it.