The first page is your showcase

I've been going over and over the first page of Eyemind in my edits.  It originally started with a leisurely scene of an artist arriving on a new planet and noticing every little detail about the landscape.  

I might have been able to get away with that if the story had stayed as, essentially, a relationship story, but now it's most definitely a future crime story.  I needed to ditch all those descriptions and get on with the action.  So now the novel starts a scene later, with Keri finding out about the dangerous interactive artworks fort the first time

Our first page is our showcase, and it has to be even more sharply edited than the rest of the piece.  It's important not to start too early and leisurely, but there are a host of other things a first page must do too.

It should introduce the main character.  This person should be the first one readers encounter in the story.  They dislike realising later on that the first person they met and formed an attachment to is a minor one.

Our first page should give us some sense of setting.  When I'd finished my edit of Eyemind I realised I'd taken all the setting out of chapter one.  I needed to put a small amount back to 'anchor' the action. 

The first page also sets the tone for the story.  Is it serious or funny?  Dark or lightweight?  What period are we in?  Often the first page will give an indication of the genre of the piece too.

That's a heavy burden for one page of writing to carry, but if you don't get it right you run the risk that the reader doesn't bother with the rest of your story.  The effort to make your first page the best it can be is definitely worth it.