How to start writing a story?
Begin your story well and you will hook readers till the end.
Each and every story has to be initiated somewhere. It actually matters less as to how the writer starts, but it does matter that he/she starts. To start the story anyway. Whichever way it takes to get writing.
Thereafter, the start of your story will matter very much, because it’s the first thing people will read, and if it doesn’t work, they won’t read on. Even if you’ve written the most brilliant piece of fiction you must focus on the starting. It will make your remaining work shine.
So, now comes the main question of how you can start writing a story? Let’s initiate with one small basic tip: You don’t have to start at the beginning. You can initiate it at any point in the process.
You must not stick to the first line you think of. Also, you can alternatively even for the second, or the third. The only thing that matters the most is that the starting of your story clicks its reader and makes them read more and more.
It’s a precious thing to take time to think of good ways to start your story, so follow the below tips on how to write your beginning.
Spark a reader’s interest
At the beginning of a story, all you need is for the readers to read ahead. So make sure you start in a way that makes them want to with some tips.
Let’s say 1)Pose a question; introduce a character; make a scene; lure them in with enticing prose; later put a clue to the direction the story is going to take ahead.
Now, plant the seeds of an idea; make a dramatic impression; provide them a taste of the action.
There are lots of other ways to begin a story however what they all have in common is that to be interesting they need to make a reader want to carry on and on reading. The initial few lines are called the Trump card to get readers. This would totally refer to agents, editors, and publishers interested enough in the story to read on.
Put a character in a setting
This doesn’t mean to add, like ‘it was a dark or stormy night’ the flowery opening to Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s Paul Clifford that is now known as a benchmark of bad writing. However, you may introduce a place and make an environment.
Eg. ‘Grandma was putting out the cups for the funeral tea when I got to know that I’d left the safe open’. Whose funeral it was? What is lying in the safe? Why did Mingus sleep on one particular blanket? What can be the implications of Laurence going back to the office tomorrow? Whose journey will be stalled by mist, and where are they currently?
So like that, we have characters, locations, and questions begging to be answered.
Introduce the main character
If you’re writing a character-driven story, start with the character. Make all readers see something about that character which will make them want to get to know them better and read further. Think in such a way as if it were being introduced to a real person.
For eg. ‘This is Emma and she works in HR’ is very boring. Instead, ‘What are you talking about, Emma? Client confidentiality? ‘This is Emma and she collects taxidermy frogs’ is a great conversation starter.
Never try to shoehorn in a full descriptive way right in the beginning: ‘Emma possesses yellow hair and blue eyes and was blindly in love with her fiance Greg’ is a terrible start. It is due to the reader not knowing who Emma is actually or caring about what she looks like or what she feels about her boyfriend.
Thus, you should keep in mind that the reader should care. Meanwhile, make it something that relates to the rest of the story.
Let’s say ‘Emma watched the cars crash in the distance,’ is the type of statement or line that signifies something about her like she’s the kind of person who watches cars crash or maybe she’s a person who has just witnessed something dreadful. The whole write-up indicates what the novel is all about.
It tells Emma why Emma was watching the car crash and can provide a hint to the writer’s style and what type of narrative might follow, such as detached, or dystopian.
Suppose as the first person there is a narrator you can make them speak something which can create interest.
For e.g ‘Oh! I can see the crashing of the car again. I got here just in time. That’s why people call me punctual.’
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