The start of your story bears a heavy responsibility: grabbing hold of your reader’s attention and keeping it. If the beginning fails, you risk losing your reader before they see your gripping build-up or spectacular climax. Yes, knowing how to start a story is that critical.<\/p>\n
But no pressure, eh?<\/p>\n
There are two aspects to beginnings: where to start, and how to start. Here are guidelines to help you with each.<\/p>\n
All stories are about change. A story happens when someone’s life is interrupted by an event that throws them off-balance. This event is known as the\u00a0inciting incident<\/strong>. Nailing down this event is key in figuring out how to start a story.<\/p>\n In order to throw your character off-balance, you must first give it some sort of balance. This balance is the character’s status-quo. Without the inciting incident, your character would have stayed in this status-quo\u00a0indefinitely.<\/p>\n If you start too far ahead of the event, you’ll be writing too much of the character’s status quo. Status quo, by definition, lacks conflict and interest.<\/p>\n If you start too far after the event, the reader will remain in the dark about your character’s place in life and their current motivation.<\/p>\n The sweet spot is somewhere around your inciting incident. Give the reader a glimpse of your character in their status quo. Then bring in the event that changes it all. This way, the reader would know who your character was before the event, and why the event affects them.<\/p>\n Outliers<\/strong><\/p>\n There are, of course, other places to start a good story. One of them is just before the climax, leading up to the climax but stopping short — and then doubling back to tell the full story before we see how it is resolved. This method has been used heavily in the past, so be careful\u00a0in employing it.<\/p>\n A similar structure is the\u00a0frame story<\/strong>, which is a story that takes place within a story. For example, a driver picks up a hitchhiker (the outer layer). Along the way, the hitchhiker tells the driver about a\u00a0past visit to a haunted house (the inner layer).<\/p>\n With frame stories, it’s important to tie the inner layer with the outer layer in order to give the entire piece a unifying theme. In our example, the hitchhiker can end his tale by saying that he died in that haunted house\u00a0and that he is, in fact, a hitch-hiking ghost.<\/p>\n Avoid the Following:<\/strong><\/p>\n Once you’ve chosen where to start your story, you have to decide\u00a0how to do it. What would be the words that ensnare your readers?<\/p>\n\n
2. How to Start a Story: Using a Good Hook<\/h2>\n