Writing
How to Start a Story
Mar
The initial phrases of a story are very important. They invite someone who has skimmed your book’s first page to either put it down or read the remainder of it. Here are 11 strategies to get a story started, whether starting from scratch or going back to the first draft.
1. A surprise
2. An image
3. Action
4. Brevity
5. A question
6. Appeal to curiosity
7. Describe your fictional world
8. Something new
9. Make it intense
10. Your open-heart
11. Gleefully hypnotize your reader
1. A Surprise
Imagine how people would react if you started the book and then changed the storyline.
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
— George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
2. An Image
Avoid exposition (the dreaded info dump) at the outset of your book, say, several editors. Start with a picture to prevent this. A picture may be a great hook without context or background. Incorporating visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory details early on can help you immerse readers in your novel’s environment.
“It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history.”
— Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
3. Action
Books that begin “in action” frequently strongly impact readers, introducing stakes and suspense right away. Lord of the Flies is a typical example, which begins with the lads on the island and then fills in the details afterward. If you choose this option, make sure your beginning action is intriguing enough for the reader to wait for character development. Jeanne Shaw
“The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon. Though he had taken off his school sweater and trailed it now from one hand, his grey shirt stuck to him and his hair was plastered to his forehead.”
— William Golding, Lord of the Flies
4. Brevity
Start with something simple that piques our interest.
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
5. A Question
The reader must seek an answer. Your novel’s beginning should be a question only readers can answer. It doesn’t have to be literal, it may be lyrical or metaphysical, but there must be a hurt that only reading can cure.
“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.”
— Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
6. Appeal To Curiosity
There are various ways to start a book, but I’ve found that the most effective ones appeal to a universal emotion: curiosity. If you can spark your readers’ interest from the first line, you can make them read your book. Make them question your characters: Where am I? Who are they? How are they? Who is a part? What’s the point?
“Royal Beating. That was Flo’s promise. You are going to get one Royal Beating.”
— Alice Munro, Who Do You Think You Are?
At the same time, your book’s introduction should not be wholly mysterious. Your opener must pique your readers’ attention enough to keep them reading to chapter two and revealing additional narrative aspects.
7. Describe Your Fictional World
Literary fiction pulls a reader in since the author knows a lot about what they’re writing about. If the opening page reveals a grasp of location, time, and language, I can relax into the tale. I won’t read on if the details are inaccurate, lacking, or ambiguous.
I believe that literary fiction has a feeling of gravity shaped by profound history. It’s clear that every syllable in a great work was assessed for truth and beauty vs. reality. The author’s Literary fiction, in my opinion, is as realistic as reality and as difficult to master.
“The madness of an autumn prairie cold front coming through. You could feel it: something terrible was going to happen. The sun low in the sky, a minor light, a cooling star. Gust after gust of disorder. Trees restless, temperatures falling, the whole northern religion of things coming to an end. No children in the yards here. Shadows lengthened on yellowing zoysia. Red oaks and pin oaks and swamp white oaks rained acorns on houses with no mortgage. Storm windows shuddered in the empty bedrooms. And the drone and hiccup of a clothes dryer, the nasal contention of a leaf blower, the ripening of local apples in a paper bag, the smell of the gasoline with which Alfred Lambert had cleaned the paintbrush from his morning painting of the wicker love seat.”
— Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections
8. Something New
Consider these two lines:
- “I’m sitting writing this at my desk.”
- “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.”
Which line intrigues you? I’d think it’s the first line of one of my favorite books, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. Say something unique in your first few phrases! A short sentence full of dread and omissions also works nicely.
“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.”
— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
9. Make It Intense
Intense openings don’t have to be loud or dramatic. Many writers like to open with a boom – a fire, a car tragedy, or other calamities. Draw us in like moths to the flame, but don’t let the blaze rage so hot we can’t come near.
“At dusk they pour from the sky. They blow across the ramparts, turn cartwheels over rooftops, flutter into the ravines between houses. Entire streets swirl with them, flashing white against the cobbles. Urgent message to the inhabitants of this town, they say. Depart immediately to open country.”
— Anthony Doerr, All The Light We Cannot See
10. Your Open-Heart
Assure readers that you are serious. Your first phrases should demonstrate your dedication to this tale. Write your book’s opening lines as though they were your last.
They are yours when readers are drawn into your deep investigations. “Here, take it,” I say to my heart every time I read Hugh Howey’s popular self-published book Wool.
“The children were playing while Holston climbed to his death; he could hear them squealing as only happy children do. While they thundered about frantically above, Holston took his time, each step methodical and ponderous, as he wound his way around and around the spiral staircase, old boots ringing out on metal treads.”
— Hugh Howey, Wool
11. Gleefully Hypnotize Your Reader
You want your reader engrossed throughout the tale, particularly at the start. This is your time to seduce your reader and make them want to keep reading. There is no need for drama, pyrotechnics, or upsetting content; just pay great attention to language, tone, and tempo. Dazzle your reader from the start, and they’ll gladly follow you.
“Like a match struck in a darkened room:
Two white girls in flannel nightgowns and red vinyl roller skates with white laces, tracing tentative circles on a cracked blue slate sidewalk at seven o’clock on an evening in July.
The girls murmured rhymes, were murmured rhymes, their gauzy, sky-pink hair streaming like it had never once been cut.”
— Jonathan Lethem, Fortress of Solitude
It’s difficult to establish best practices for beginning a novel since fiction should challenge, reinterpret, or enlarge rules. ” Writing a book should not be about copying someone else’s language or preferences.
However, many beloved books begin with a question, a direct statement, or amid the action. While there is no hard and fast rule for what works, following suggestions might help you pull readers into your tale.
