One of the questions I hear frequently from aspiring writers is, “How do I start a story?” Even seasoned writers have days when the story won’t come. Talking to a reporter for Interview Magazine in 1995, Martin Amis said of novel-writing, “If I come up against a brick wall, I’ll just go and play snooker or something or sleep on it, and my subconscious will fix it for me.” Good advice, for sure. But if snooker and the subconscious don’t do it for you, here are a few tips to get you going.
- You can begin “in medias res,” or in the middle of the action. When you’re telling a friend a story, you rarely begin with, “I was born in such-and-such hospital in such-and-such city.” Rather, you jump forward to the exciting part, the middle of the action of your own life. “I was standing in front of the old movie theater on Amsterdam Avenue when…”
- You can begin with a character in a strange or tense situation (Gregor Samsa wakes up as a cockroach in “The Metamorphosis”, Mersault is on trial for murder in “The Stranger”).
- You can begin with a line or two that describes the setting, then move on to who is in the setting, and why.
- You can begin with a writing prompt that takes you somewhere totally unexpected.
- You can begin with an inciting action: a man on vacation jumps off a cliff into the cold water below, and as he is jumping we see a large rock jutting up from the surface of the water.
- You can begin with a phrase, an image, a place, a memory, a character who demands to be heard.
- You can begin by withholding information. A great example of an opening paragraph that sets up tension by withholding information is Shirley Jackson’s classic short story, “The Lottery.” It begins with a sentence about the setting, then moves on to describe the townspeople gathering for an event. In the happiness of the opening paragraph, it is clear that something is about to happen; that something turns out to be quite terrible and dramatic. Here’s the opening paragraph.
The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o’clock; in some towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 2th. but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner.
- A story can begin anywhere, but the most important thing about the beginning of a story is that it draw the reader in by introducing both character and conflict.