Tips on how to start a story

Yep we all know the beginning is very important. Not only to hook your readers but also your own interest to keep writing. It's also one of if not the most difficult part to write. So what are your tips?

ask your self

1. What message I want to give to my audience.
2. How can I give that message?

Number one: Make it interesting. People will often read through the first chapter; but if it doesn't grip them...

I always start with the part that's in my head first. If my idea for a story was based upon a woman answering the door, then that's what I begin with. When I get all of that down and feel satisfied with it, I look at what I've written and see what I can do with it: should that be the start of the story, or should I show who is knocking on the door and why? After I play around with that for a little while then I am ready to really start the story.

Write a scene, any scene. Even if it's in the middle. If you're a brainstorming person by nature, not a writer, you will be amazed at what can come out of actually writing something out.

Well, when it comes to published fiction, beginning=introduction. Its where you set the groundwork, lay down your Chekhov's Gun, bury your Hidden Depths, hint your Foreshadowing, and bring us under the charm of your characters.

Saying that, though, its best I point out that you're not really pointing out all that stuff at once — or at least you won't if you know what's good for your book. Because if you actually do sit down and introduce everything in sight, you're going to loose your grip on the actual story, and then loose anyone willing to read it. By introducing all this stuff, you're literally pitting yourself against the First Law of Metafictional Thermodynamics — the introductions working to slow your story to a crawl, and yet the story needing to keep moving to keep readers attention and stay alive.

That's the main reason why you'll get advice against infodumps in general, and a whole bunch of advice amounting to "grab and hold the readers attention from the get go". What makes any beginning good then, in my opinion, is keeping a happy medium between making the reader understand and keeping the heart of the story beating until it can take off unhindered.

Now, saying that then, there's also the fact that you don't need to get all that right on the first pass. Making things look perfect is what editing is for, and editing is a hell of a lot easier in general when you've got at least a decent chunk of book going for you, instead of just a few chapters. Even better if you're editing a whole book.

And finally, one last caveat: you can read all the advice ahead of time, understand it intellectually and store it away in your head for later, but it won't make real sense until you're actually writing. And that will be the point where you'll really understand the value of the advice, when you suddenly realize "Oh no! I can do X and Y — that would ruin the story!"

And then you remember someone has told you about that problem, recall what they said about it, and you get to see the miracle that good advice can give you — when something they say actually works.

…Hmm, went a bit too meta in general, I think, and kinda off-topic at the end there. But whatever — advice is advice.

Hmm I'm thinking, would it be a good idea to focus most of the first chapter on humor? I mean, start with a little exposition just to give your readers an idea of the story, but keep it snappy. But let the rest of the plot build beside the humor in the early stages of the story.

I think it's actually better than starting with action or drama like many others suggested. Reason being that those kinds of elements need to build. Humor on the other hand can entertaining instantaneously. Action is better when you know the characters more or else you wouln't even care much to root for them.

Have you tried outlining? See where you want the story to go—in terms of some of the humor, action, and drama, and then begin where it seems stronger.

As I said, I don't think I'd aim for where action or drama seems stronger. Those elements are meant to build. Trying to amke drama strong instantly will only turn out like narm and action isn't all that great when you don't know enough about the characters to root for or against anyone.

At least with humor the audience can read your book for laughs first.

When in doubt, kill a character off and go from there.

I have it on good faith that it's how George Martin writes his stories. And It Worked!

edited 18th Apr '11 3:50:21 AM by SavageHeathen

Two schools of thought. The first is to open with some massive event, some huge hook. The other is to produce a memorable atmosphere, which lets you know the kind of world you'll be staying in for the pages ahead. The reader can then decide if this is a world they want to visit, and whether they want to stay here. For an example of this done brilliantly:

"It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved, and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

The main hallway of the Sternwood Place was two stories high. Over the entrance doors, which would have let in a troop of Indian elephants, there was a broad stained-glass panel showing a knight in dark armor rescuing a lady who was tied to a tree and didn't have any clothes on but some very long and convenient hair. The knight had pushed the vizor of his helmet back to be sociable, and he was fiddling on the ropes that tied the lady to the tree and not getting anywhere. I stood there and thought that if I lived in the house, I would sooner or later have to climb up there and help him.

There were French doors at the back of the hall, beyond them a wide sweep of emerald grass to a white garage, in front of which a slim dark young chauffeur in shiny black leggings was dusting a maroon Packard convertible. Beyond the garage were some decorative trees trimmed as carefully as poodle dogs. Beyond them a large greenhouse with a domed roof. Then more trees and beyond everything the solid, uneven, comfortable line of the foothills. On the east side of the hall, a free staircase, tile-paved, rose to a gallery with a wrought-iron railing and another piece of stained-glass romance. Large hard chairs with rounded red plush seats were backed into the vacant spaces of the wall round about. They didn't look as if anybody had ever sat in them. In the middle of the west wall there was a big empty fireplace with a brass screen in four hinged panels, and over the fireplace a marble mantel with cupids at the corners. Above the mantel there was a large oil portrait, and above the portrait two bullet-torn or moth-eaten cavalry pennants crossed in a glass frame. The portrait was a stiffly posed job of an officer in full regimentals of about the time of the Mexican war. The officer had a neat black imperial, black moustachios, hot hard coal-black eyes, and the general look of a man it would pay to get along with. I thought this might be General Sternwood's grandfather. It could hardly be the General himself, even though I had heard he was pretty far gone in years to have a couple of daughters still in the dangerous twenties.

I was still staring at the hot black eyes when a door opened far back under the stairs. It wasn't the butler coming back. It was a girl." - Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep.

Perfect opening hook. The physical setting is described, painting a picture without getting bogged down in details. The physical description of our hero is there. The tone of the prose it set. Lets you know the sort of thing you're in for.

edited 18th Apr '11 4:28:09 AM by RPGenius