How to start a story

How to Start a Novel: 8 Steps to the Perfect Opening Scene

With every novel he writes, Stephen King tries to invite the reader into the story with his opening. «Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.» Want to extend your readers an invitation they can’t resist? Look no further! Here are 8 powerful steps to help you start a novel:

1. Start by identifying your novel’s tone

As King says, the best novel openings aren’t just beautiful sentences — they’re invitations into a world of the author’s creation. That means the beginning of a novel should set the tone for all the writing that follows, letting the reader know what to expect as they make their way deeper into the story.

Consider your novel’s overall tone

Now, don’t worry if you’re the kind of writer who likes to figure things out as they go. We’re not suggesting you plan out your whole plot scene by scene: there’s still plenty of room for spontaneity here. You should, however, consider the overall tone of your story from the beginning, whether it’s as soft as spun sugar or as sharp as a blade.

Make sure you keep this tone in mind from the very start. An out-of-place opening, after all, is like a bloody knife on the cover of a wholesome romance: sure to have your readers blinking in confusion instead of eagerly turning the pages. To avoid this kind of tonal whiplash, you’ll need to have a sense of where your novel’s going before you craft its opening lines. This is especially important if you hope for this novel to be the first in a trilogy or series.

2. Set the mood with your first image

How do you create a mood for your novel, and keep it going right from the beginning? It’s all about setting your reader’s expectations.

If you’re writing a high-octane spy thriller with a shootout in every other chapter, you’ll need to orient your readers to that fast-paced, action-packed world right away. A more contemplative beginning, where your gun-toting hero reflects on his abandoned Catholic faith while recreating his mother’s gingerbread recipe from memory, might not be the best match. By the same token, your thoughtful, dialogue-driven novel about the psychological pressures of middle age probably shouldn’t open with a car chase.

Suspenseful or swoon-worthy? Your novel’s opening will set the tone for everything that follows.

Again, you don’t have to have every plot point in place to write an opening that’s tonally consistent with the rest of your book. Think of yourself as a painter choosing the palette for your next canvas. You may not have the whole composition in your head just yet, but you know whether to reach for yellow pigment, or blue.

3. Pick a point of view that suits your story

With your novel’s overall mood and tone in mind, you’re ready to make one of the most important writing decisions for your book: its point of view. Will you opt for colorful, voice-driven first person like in Huckleberry Finn? Or adopt a bird’s-eye view of the story with a third person omniscient narrator, like in Pride and Prejudice?

Of course, these are only two options from a vast array of possibilities. If you’d like to learn more about all the possible POVs and see examples of each in action, check out our detailed guide here.

Determine the right POV for your genre

No matter what, the POV you adopt should serve the needs of your story. Consider what’s typical of your genre — that gives you some indication of which POVs complement the literary conventions you’re likely to play with. Young adult novels, for instance, often use first-person narration so readers can really get to know their quirky, relatable protagonists. Mysteries, however, lean on third person limited to build up suspense and keep readers in the dark.

4. Write a memorable opening line

Now you’ve reached the hardest part of starting a novel — coming up with the actual opening line. Luckily, this is also where it gets really fun. After all, you get to do what you do best: write!

We’ve got a post on how to start a story that’s chock full of tips from editors and examples from the greats. But the truth is, there’s no one right way to craft an amazing opening line. You can startle the reader, like George Orwell.

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

… or enter your story in a low-key way, like Charlotte Brontë.

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.

The crucial thing is, whatever you come up with, it has to feel right at the beginning of your novel. And if you want some inspiration for your opening sentence, take a look at First Line Frenzy, where editor Rebecca Heyman critiques first lines submitted by writers like you. She also gives plenty of advice for starting your novel off right.

5. Don’t wait too long to introduce protagonists

With your opening line in place, you’re ready to ground your story with a human element. That’s right — it’s time to bring some characters on-stage and let them move the story forward.

Go light on the backstory

Introducing characters right from the start helps you avoid one major novel-writing mistake: an overly descriptive, info-dumpy beginning. You may have seen these before. There’s the travelogue opening, which pans slowly over a landscape with nary a human figure in sight. There’s also the worldbuilder’s info-dump: the author piling on details upon details about their alien homeworld or fantasy realm. No matter how beautiful the description or how fascinating the tidbits, this sort of opening will make the reader’s mind wander.

Don’t take your readers all over the map at the very beginning of your novel.

To avoid a stagnant, detail-clogged opening, introduce a key character — or a few — right away. They’ll act as lightning rods for the reader’s attention and their sympathy, getting them emotionally invested the way a sun-drenched meadow or a lecture on wizarding coinage never could.

Don’t start with character description

A word of warning here: don’t replicate all the disadvantages of a scenic opening by starting off with a block of character description! To really hook your readers, make sure your characters come on-stage doing something reflective of their personality, not just gazing at their own reflection for the reader’s benefit.

Free course: Character Development

Want to start off your story with unforgettable characters? Learn how here!

Don’t introduce too many characters all at once

One bad way to start a novel is opening without any characters. Another bad way? Introducing too many characters right from the get-go. Even if you’re writing a sprawling epic with a cast of hundreds, you want to be selective about the characters you introduce in your opening. Allow too many of them on-stage right away, and your reader’s attention will be split in too many directions. That makes it hard for them to get emotionally invested in any of your characters, or even remember their names!

6. Establish the stakes of the story

Starting your novel with well-drawn characters makes it easy for readers to feel like there’s something at stake: these are the people who will hurt when it all goes wrong. And make no mistake — something should go wrong. No one wants to read a novel without any conflict.

Of course, the conflict at the heart of your story doesn’t have to be life-and-death: not every book needs to open on a smoking gun or an unidentified corpse. But a sense of tension should be present from the very beginning of your novel, even if you’re writing the quietest literary fiction.

Show the reader what your character wants

In the end, establishing the stakes comes down to showing what your character wants. Now, that want can be grand, or it can be deeply personal, anything from overthrowing an oppressing regime to getting into college. The key is, it has to matter deeply to the character.

Of course, what your character wants can’t be too easy to attain. To give your novel the right about of tension, pursuing their goal needs to put something at risk, whether that’s their life or their peace of mind.

7. Develop your inciting incident

Once you’ve established what’s at stake in your narrative, you have to bring the tension to the forefront with a compelling inciting incident. If you’d like to learn more about this all-important plot element, we’ve got a post that goes into the ins and outs of how to write a great one. But in a nutshell, your inciting incident is the event that sets your plot in motion.

Get to your inciting incident early

The inciting incident triggers the main action in your story, but it doesn’t have to be the first thing to happen. Still, if you want to hook your readers from the get-go, place it early in your novel — don’t make them wade through forty pages of backstory first.

Make sure it strikes the right tone

Like everything else about your novel opening, your inciting incident should be engaging while matching the overall energy of your plot. If you’re writing a quieter story, your inciting incident can be far subtler than a car chase.

Say you’re writing about a violinist who applies to music school against his parent’s wishes. Your inciting incident might be as simple as an acceptance letter from Juilliard showing up in the mail. A big envelope arriving by (non-owl) post may not be as much of a bombshell as Harry Potter learning he’s a wizard. But it gets the story moving without feeling tonally out of place.

8. Revisit your opening as your novel evolves

Once you’ve written the beginning of your novel — inciting incident and all — you’re not stuck with it forever. In fact, you should revisit it as your story develops. To make sure your opening scene still makes sense in the context of your book as a whole, work your way through this checklist when it’s time to revise:

✅ Does the tone of your opening still fit?

The premise — even the genre — of your novel can change over the course of the writing process. Make sure your opening isn’t an artifact of an old draft. If you started out with an earnest romance, only to see it morph into something more tongue-in-cheek, your opening scene should now have that satirical bite.

✅ Are you giving the right background info?

Like your genre, your setting can evolve as you write — you might end up refining some worldbuilding that was murkier at first. Make sure all of these changes have been incorporated into your opening. Do the details introduced still make sense, given how the world of your story looks now?

✅ Is your characterization consistent?

Of course your characters will grow and change over the course of the plot. But there should be a thread of continuity that makes each character recognizable. Take look at everyone who appears in your opening scene. Are they portrayed in a way that’s consistent with their behavior in the rest of the book?

Remember, revising the beginning of your novel is an ongoing process. And once you feel you’ve taken it as far as you’re able to, you can always loop in a professional editor to polish it even further. The key is to keep tinkering with it until you’ve got an opening that just feels right. We can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Are you working on the perfect opening for your book? Make sure the chapters that follow are just as strong as our post on how to write a novel!

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How to Start a Story: Bestseller’s Guide [+ Examples]

You want to learn how to start a story because you’re smart. You know the introduction of the book is the most important part.

After all, most readers skim those first few pages before deciding to read or not.

The key to writing a story that intrigues readers from the first page is ensuring you have all the elements of a strong opening—and you don’t want to skimp on it.

So what if you had a process that intrigued readers from the first page?

What if anyone who read your first few pages immediately wanted to buy your book?

It’s possible, and we have a proven system to make it happen.

Here are the steps for how to start a story:

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How to Start a Story: Bestselling Author’s Blueprint

By default, nobody wants to read your book. Not even your mother. Not really. She’ll humor you, she’ll hope for you, but she doesn’t want to.

Since nobody is instilled with an innate commitment to read your book, you must craft that desire personally. Your opening paragraph, hell, your opening sentence is as much largess most people will be offered.

As any good salesperson knows, a crack is an opportunity and anything that opens a little can be forced to open a lot. All you need is confidence, technique, and the guts to push forward.

To this end, when starting a story, you must:

Yes, that is a lot to ask from the first page, which is why so many writers stop before they get started.

Remember, the first page isn’t the first page you write, it is the first page someone reads. Of all the darlings you must get used to killing, your original first page should always be ripe for the axe.

If you want to learn more about creating a story readers keep coming back for, watch the interview with me below, where I break down the whole process, not just the start of a story:

#1 – Writing a strong opening sentence

Your opening sentence shouldn’t be a warning shot. No haphazard hail Mary you hope lands. It needs to be well-aimed and land solid. It sets a tone, introducing the reader to you and your world.

Like any first impression, it has as many don’ts attached as it has do’s. Let’s hit the do’s first.

You want to achieve a minimum of one and a maximum of three of these in your first sentence. Three is pushing it, you might want to try for that all-in approach, but you will just end up coming across disorganized.

A page long sentence can be an interesting, impressive feat, but as a first sentence, it reeks of smarter-than-the-room and will alienate most readers.

So try to bring in at least these three elements to your first sentence:

Diving off a cliff puts the reader immediately into the action. In film school, you will see this referred to as “in media res.” It works by forcing the reader to accept everything that is currently happening while also inviting them to see what happens next or hear what brought the character to this moment.

To execute this action-packed introduction, you need to have a firm idea of what is happening and deliver the setting with confidence, don’t over-explain and don’t linger.

Start of a story – opening sentence example:

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

#2 – Connect the character to the reader

One of the best things you can do at the start of a story is emotionally connect your character with your reader. If a reader is bought into the character and wants to learn more about them, they will buy your book and read the rest.

Connecting a reader to a character is done in several ways. You can show off a strength, reveal a weakness, or share an in-character insight. Each of these gives the reader a hook into the character, helping them to understand why they should follow along to see the character’s arc.

Brandon Sanderson, famous fantasy author, often gives the advice in his college writing class lectures that you want to do two of these three things to your character at the start of your story:

You never want to do all three, because you run the risk of creating a “Mary Sue” or a character that’s so perfect readers don’t believe they’re real.

And this is why we also recommend fully developing your characters before starting the writing process.

Start of a story – character example:

“Locke Lamora’s rule of thumb was this: a good confidence game took three months to plan, three weeks to rehearse, and three seconds to win or lose the victim’s trust forever.”

#3 – Produce intrigue

Producing intrigue works a lot the same as the Dive. The difference is you want to leave more questions than generate answers.

Again, the more you know about the story when you drop this first hint, the more clearly it will communicate.

Avoid vague prophecy, hit them with something that will echo when the reader arrives at the resolution.

Start of a story – producing intrigue example:

“Chris Mankowski’s last day on the job, two in the afternoon, two hours to go, he got a call to dispose of a bomb.”

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#4 – Elicit an emotion

Eliciting an emotion is about getting the reader to feel something, not just displaying emotive language. You don’t want the reader to feel for the character or the world, as those fall into other categories. One of the main ways to do this is by adding literary devices to your story.

With this opening, you need to place the reader in a specific emotional headspace to engage with the rest of the page.

You accomplish this by using trigger phrases and touchstones.

Usually, these are words or phrases that elicit an emotional response in a person, including words that paint a vivid picture at the same time. If it feels real to a reader, they’ll be hooked.

In the example below, we have “dead” and “sky” that forms a sort of juxtaposition, pulling readers in.

Start of a story – emotion example:

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”

#5 – Create a strong visual snapshot

Finally, a snapshot is exactly that, a picture painted in words. You don’t want to make a whole landscape. Take a look at a random post card for five seconds.

What stood out to you? How would you describe that scene to someone else?

That’s the essence of a snapshot, the highlights, and standouts, not the overview.

Typically, the best tips for creating a strong visual will be to use these three writing hacks:

In the example below in Little Birds by Hannah Lee Kidder, you really see the environment right from the first sentence. It pulls you in because the visual in your mind feels familiar, in a way. You can truly see it.

Start of a story – strong visuals example:

“Waking up every day to that goddamn shrilling tea kettle shooting steam into our kitchen, adding to the ever-growing smear on the ceiling.”

#6 – Construct a compelling first paragraph

If everything has gone to plan you have gotten a foot in the door, wedged the sucker open, stepped into the vestibule, and presented your wary, but accepting, mark… er reader, with your wares.

You haven’t made the sale yet, but you have an opportunity to deliver a spiel before they work a clever excuse to get you out.

Seize that advantage by showing that your opening sentence leads into an opening paragraph that isn’t just more of the same but a makes some promises that most of the rest of the pages are also going to offer something worth sticking around for.

Having gained some headway, you have more to lose than gain. That is, there are more wrong things to do with the first paragraph than there are right things.

The right course of action has three options for your starting paragraphs:

1. Staying the course

Staying the course means keeping the same tone and attention you presented in the first sentence. This works best for mystery stories or when you have started with a Dive.

In both of these cases, the idea is often to put the reader immediately into the world and you need to be careful not to shake the hook loose with too much pull.

Example: Back to Stephen King and The Gunslinger, the paragraph after the opening line is a delicious snapshot of the desert mentioned. It holds the reader, drawing them further into the enormity of the task presented by the preceding sentence. He already has us ready to find out more, so he sets the hook gently, rather than pulling us right into the boat.

Note also how he goes from one strong type of opening, the Dive (mixed with a character connection), into a snapshot. Right there he’s established three strong openings without breaking a sweat.

2. Ramping up gradually

Ramping up gradually is seen more often in character connections and snapshots. With each detail you add through the paragraph, you build interest. The character gets slowly separated from other characters of their type.

If you start with a high school student, you see how they break the mold. If you start with a city, you reveal what makes that city unique.

Example: Consider the wide panoramic opening of EM Forester’s Passage to India, how he shows the country in an almost dreamlike shot you can immediately visualize. The book was written before film was invented and yet it used a standard technique employed in nearly all aerial establishing shots.

3. Double down

The hardest technique to use is the double down. Here you pull hard and fast, hoping to take the opportunity gained by your first sentence to really wow the reader.

While this can be done with several techniques, you see it least commonly with the Dive. If your action is strong enough, more action blows the reader away. However, a complication to the action works.

By slipping in some Emotion or Intrigue you deepen the scene without pushing the reader out.

Example: In The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, a mysterious circus appears in the first sentence. Complicating this matter is the first paragraph which suggests the sudden appearance wasn’t the kind where it was simply not advertised in advance but hints it may well have materialized out of nowhere.

Regardless of the approach, remember that the first paragraph serves to grow your lead and hold the reader through the chapter.

While pulling is the goal, the main aim, as mentioned several times, is to avoid pushing the reader out.

We call these the Goldilocks Paradox:

In the Too Obvious scenario the reader develops a certain “Simpson’s Did It!” mentality. If they feel like they know exactly where the story is going, that this is just one more reprise of the hero’s journey, the fetch quest, the star-crossed lovers, they will put it down.

Conversely, if you go Too Obscure, they won’t have any investment. Sure, nobody has ever really read a book quite like those composed by Thomas Pynchon, but then again, ask anyone what Gravity’s Rainbow is about and be prepared to get a ‘the what and who?’ in response.

You want to land in familiar territory with some new spins. Don’t reinvent story structure or character, not in the first chapter. You need to gain trust before you start pulling the rug out from a reader.

#7 – Leave a hint in the last paragraph

While the first sentence gets the reader hooked and the first paragraph makes promises, the last paragraph needs to introduce more concepts while limiting resolution.

That sounds like a heavy order because it is. It isn’t all that bad once you break down the components.

Aim for one of the following:

Each of these chapter endings provides the reader a reason to keep going. Many television pilots fail at this, they either wrap up the first story and have nowhere to go, or they toss in a last-minute villain preview to suggest a larger threat somewhere.

Sure, it worked out for Avengers to tease Thanos but they also had the advantage of a sixty-year comics history to assure viewers they know how to build a multi-part story.

When you give a hint, you want it to be broad enough to be interesting but narrow enough that your resolution (within the next chapter or two) satisfies it completely.

If you toss an owl through a window to get Harry Hunter or Harry Potter to explore a magical world, you better make good on the magical world sooner than later.

If you are building up a large world and need to set several things in motion before you get to the major plot, which is a risky move in itself, you need to show the reader a roadmap. The hobbits need to get out of the Shire before they can get to Rivendell on their way to the ultimate goal.

#8 – Opt to end the chapter on a cliffhanger

Ending on a cliffhanger is usually a good call. The pulp stories of the 30s were sometimes christened Cliffhangers because they used this technique extensively. When releasing serial stories, it is the default way to go, how will our heroes get out of this sudden predicament!?

It makes the ending exciting and demands the reader pick up the next installment, or, in your case, turn the page and keep going just a bit further.

Cliffhanger Generation Tricks and Tips:

Dropping a new character into the scene, especially one that shows up with the same aplomb as a first sentence Character Connection, gets the reader going. They want to know who this is, and why they will have importance to the next section.

The end of the first chapter of Stardust by Neil Gaiman does this perfectly, introducing us to a baby delivered via faery door. You have to turn the page to find out more.

In a Lingering Question scenario, you invite the reader to ponder something about the event that just transpired.

Why was it so hard, so easy, what was the significance of the turns? Any question that goes unanswered makes the reader wonder. In a serial, they would have to wonder for weeks, or months. In a book, they can always find out by turning a few pages.

Sudden insight works somewhat the opposite of the Lingering Question.

Here, a character understands something that just happened, something the reader may have been in the dark about, this often goes hand in hand with the next tip. Knowing what is at stake drives tension and the character and reader both being ‘in on it’ delivers.

The Depths Appear works well in science fiction, horror, and fantasy stories.

Any place where the world isn’t just what is known, where other dimensional forces can act, where a universe of possibilities can exist, it is possible for something else to be out there.

Alluding to the larger forces at the end of a first chapter puts the story into a context against these larger, more meaningful threats. This is especially a good idea when your first chapter reads like a self-contained story.

#9 – Try a bookend for the first chapter

I lied about the mother thing, turns out she really does want to read your book. She always did, she can’t not, mostly because she loves you.

This type of ending paragraph reflects the Bookend.

Here, you offer a mirror version of the first sentence to show that what has been set up and was so gripping originally has turned around. This works especially well for stories that start in a known world.

Dorothy isn’t in Kansas anymore, Alice ends up down the rabbit hole, and the once bright sky is now overcast with the coming troubles.

#10 – What to AVOID at the start of a story

While you toil to create these openings, you want to avoid a few key elements. Each of these can destroy your efforts and drive the reader into dismissal mode.

Avoid these elements when starting a story:

World building is about establishing what your world is, not what it isn’t. Describing how the regular world works and then adding ‘but mine doesn’t do that’ wastes a lot of time.

Expect your reader to know mundane information and don’t bother repeating it. It bores you to write and the reader to read.

Cliché’s have their place in an established book genre. Don’t confuse a genre trope with a cliché. What you want to avoid is saying the same thing in the same way.

Your fantasy world may well have a dungeon and a dragon, but you don’t want to put those facts too close to each other.

Cliché will kill emotion in its cradle. Readers want to feel something genuine and cliché is the opposite of that.

Far too many science fiction stories start with someone coming out of some kind of sleep. There is a temptation to start the story from the very first conscious moment of the character but remember that you don’t even really remember the first few minutes of your day.

Start the story where you remember starting your day, usually after breakfast and post stimulant.

Not convinced? Alien 3 started with Ripley waking up in a tube. Nobody likes Alien 3, ergo, no starting by waking up.

How to Start a Story Example:

“The thing was big and white and hairy, and it was eating all the ice cream in the walk-in freezer.” — Monster by A. Lee Martinez

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How to Start a Story

This is a question I hear a lot: How do I start my story? The answer is simple, but not easy. Got your diving mask on? Ready to figure out how to start a story? Here we go!

The short answer:

How To Start a Story

If you’re stuck wondering where to start a story, just remember this: a story starts where “normal” ends. So where does normal end in your story?

Of course, there’s more to it than that. If you want the full answer, read on:

Why It’s Hard to Start a Story

The main problem here is that when we think of stories starting, we think of ​finished ​ books, ​completed​ movies, stories that have been edited and polished and buffed until they grab you from word one and don’t let go until the final page.

Your brand-new story is not going to look like that.

We all face the Creative Gap, something I talk about often, and probably will until I die. We know what good stories are like, but our beginning stories are never that good because it takes time and effort to create well. That journey can be discouraging.

The creative gap is hard to cross, fellow writer. Darn those good tastes that got us into writing in the first place.

How to Start a Story

Your story starts where “normal” ends.

To put it another way, the pattern of your character’s life is “normal.” A dragon-rider, a robot-mechanic on Mars, a pirate, whatever their deal is, the pattern of their life is their normal. When that pattern breaks is when your story begins.

The whole point of a story is it goes somewhere. There’s forward motion. Things at the end are not the same as things at the beginning. Your character faces something and either overcomes it or doesn’t, and the transformation of maturity / character / understanding / status / location / etc. is the story your reader empathizes with enough to follow.

The journey IS the story.

So when does the pattern break? Here are some examples.

SLEEPING BEAUTY: Lovely day, lovely baby, OOPS here comes the evil fairy to curse the child and break the expected baby-day pattern.

IT (the book by Stephen King): Ordinary 1950s small town, unpopular kids making friends, OOPS here comes an intergalactic monster who dresses like a clown and ruins this otherwise normal childhood.

HARRY POTTER: Abused orphan living under the stairs, attending school, surviving bullies, minding his own business, when OOPS he talked to a snake and now he’s attending magic school!

THE BOOK THIEF: Just Death here, going about his ordinary day, when OOPS this little girl in World War II didn’t die but should have, prompting him to follow her the rest of her life.

When normal breaks, your story begins.

This is true for memoirs, too. They often follow this kind of pattern: Here I am, an ordinary child, when my father suddenly dies and changes the entire trajectory of my life.

Yes, there’s variation. Yes, there are flashbacks and teeny intros (like Dumbledore leaving baby Harry with the Dursleys). However, those aren’t where the story starts. Those are backdrop; set pieces; trees and wallpaper and bridges and roads, and they all exist to get your story where it’s going.

Once you know where your story starts, you can worry about little teeny intros later. Getting it started comes first.

Where NOT to Start Your Story

In a way, you already know this answer because you’ve experienced it.

Ever started a book that began with a character’s day but went on with the normal of that day a little too long, leaving you uninterested?

Usually, that’s because the book is covering things you don’t care about. Nine times out of ten, those things are skippable because you already know them.

That means the story began a few pages after where that author chose to start. Once you understand what a character’s normal is, you rarely want to read it.

As readers, we don’t need normal. That’s not how to start a story.

We need to see normal break.

Where Will You Start Your Story?

First off: don’t panic. You’re allowed to get this wrong.

As long as you write the thing, you can always fix the opening.

Pantsers: For now, write the scenes that are in your head. Write what you know — even if it’s the very end of the story. You can rearrange those scenes AFTER the book is finished.

Plotters: Write the first scenes in your outline. You can decide AFTER the book is finished if that’s where you really ought to start.

Second of all: don’t panic. I know I said that already, but it’s easy to miss.

Writing can be scary. We want our books to be as glorious as the ones we’ve read, and they can be — they just don’t start out that way. Books are like Olympic sports. See this showboat?

All those medals! Wow, right? Well, he started out like this:

That kid is very cute, but he is not winning any gold medals.

He had to grow up and walk and run and trip and fall and splash in the kiddie pool and learn to hold his breath and practice for years.

Your book is an Olympic sport. You’re learning to write it. Give yourself time and patience. You’ll get the right opening. Just write story first; then you can tweak it. Patience, Padawan!

Do you have any tips for how to start a story? Let us know in the comments.

PRACTICE

Take fifteen minutes to write about the moment in your story when normal breaks. When you’re done, leave your beginning in the comments, and don’t forget to reply to three other story starters, too!

How to Start a Story: Examples and Inspiration

It happens to the best of us: you open a new word document, you’re faced with the many possibilities that a story can take, and then you realize you don’t know how to start a story. Or you do know, but you’re not sure how to start this story. Or you know exactly what this story is supposed to be, but you can’t seem to find the first words.

Whatever the case, there are many good ways to start a story, but simply starting somewhere can prove challenging. How do other writers do it?

This article tackles the tricky concept of how to start a story. We’ll take a look at different strategies, examples, and ideas you can use to improve your own work. And, we’ll look at what not to do as you start a new draft of your story.

In order to understand how to start a story, we should first examine what your story’s beginning must accomplish.

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What Should the Start of a Story Accomplish?

No matter where your story begins, it needs to accomplish a few things for the reader. There are many ways to start a story, but without a certain amount of context and intrigue, the reader will fail to understand what the story is about or where the story is headed.

Most stories, regardless of length, will establish the following items early on:

Characters

Who are the main characters of your story? Of course, many more characters may be introduced as the story progresses, but we should know early on who our protagonist is, as well as some relevant relationships that make the story unfold.

Try to give the reader a peek into your protagonist’s psyche right away. Learn more about this at our article on Character Development.

Try to give the reader a peek into your protagonist’s psyche right away.

Setting

Where is your story taking place? Often, the story begins somewhere safe, where the protagonist hasn’t yet been forced from their home. Or, if your protagonist doesn’t go on a physical journey, they still go on an emotional one—a journey in which their home begins to feel a lot less like home.

Establishing the protagonist’s relationship to their setting helps define where the story exists and where the story will go. Learn more at our article on Five Functions of Setting in Literature.

Establishing the protagonist’s relationship to their setting helps define where the story exists and where the story will go.

Point of View

Who is telling the story, and from what vantage point? Is it the protagonist themselves, or a close friend of the protagonist, or some distant third party observer?

A story’s points of view can shift over time, but we should know right away “who’s holding the camera” as the story unfolds before us. Our article on Narrative Point of View explains this in detail.

We should know right away “who’s holding the camera” as the story unfolds before us.

The mood of a story refers to the general emotional atmosphere conveyed by the work itself. It is both the feelings expressed in the work and the feelings that the writer wishes to evoke from the reader.

Stories are often defined by specific moods, and although the mood of a story is complex and shifts over time, it should be established right away through the author’s style and word choice. Here’s a succinct write-up on how literature establishes mood.

Although the mood of a story is complex and shifts over time, it should be established right away through the author’s style and word choice.

Conflict

Your story starts where the conflict starts. No, many stories don’t have an inciting incident within the first paragraph. But, your story must establish early on the cause for the story’s existence: the conflicts, disagreements, and contradictions that the story will develop and (maybe) resolve.

Your story starts where the conflict starts.

As we examine “how to start a story” examples, take note of how each story start establishes character, setting, mood, conflict, and point of view. Other elements in story writing, like plot, style, and themes, are developed over time, as are these initial 5 elements. You can learn more about working with the elements of fiction at our article The Art of Storytelling.

How to Start a Story: Examples from Literature

Every story requires its own unique beginning. The ideas we list below can help you decide where you jumpstart your story, but pay careful consideration to the intent of your opening lines. Are you trying to surprise the reader? To situate them in the story’s setting? Or, perhaps, to baffle the reader while also generating intrigue?

Here’s 12 ways to start a story, with examples from published works of literature.

1. How to Start a Story: Dialogue

Readers are nosy: they like being involved in the social lives of the story’s characters. Dropping the reader in the middle of a conversation will certainly pique the reader’s interest, especially if that conversation itself is interesting.

One such story that drops the reader in the middle of dialogue is “Never a Gentle Master” by Brittany N. Williams.

“Ain’t no good coming of messin’ in other folks’ business.” Madear’s voice broke through the silence of the workroom. “Especially not Qual’s.” Kae jerked, and the dried lavender cracked in her hand, spilling the remnants of fragrant purple flowers all over the table. The venom in her grandma’s voice as she spat out the name shook her but she didn’t dare look up from her work.

“The man’s meddling with death magic,” Momma said to Madear as she strode into the workshop, “and that right there makes it our business.”

By starting with dialogue, this story drops us in the middle of the tension: meddling, death magic, and workroom gossip. Dialogue writing has its own challenges; learn how to start a story with proper dialogue at our article How to Write Dialogue in a Story.

Note: some writers and publishers don’t like this method of starting a story, because we don’t know anything about the character before hearing them speak. If you open your story with dialogue, that dialogue should intrigue the reader, introduce conflict, and offer some characterization. Show us through the character’s word choice who the character is.

2. How to Start a Story: Conflict

Conflict is the lifeblood of a story. Without conflict—man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. self, etc.—there is little else propelling the story from beginning to end.

Of course, conflict doesn’t have to be an all-out war. Yes, dueling wizards and angry gods counts as conflict. But, it can also be something far more everyday.

In “A Duck Walks into a Bar” by Joshua Bohnsack, for example, the conflict is a child’s struggle to understand jokes—and his parent’s struggle to teach him about the world.

My son is trying to write a joke. He thinks this will help him make friends and let people know he’s friendly. He wants me to tell him if the jokes are funny. He doesn’t know whether I am being sincere most of the time, so he asks me to clarify.

He says, “Mommy. What does the scarecrow say to the pigeon?”

I tell him I don’t know.

“‘Just leave me alone.’”

I tell him I don’t think that’s a funny joke.

By starting with conflict, the author wastes no time getting to the heart of what they’re writing about.

3. How to Start a Story: Setting and Mood

Stories transport us to faraway places—places we’ve never visited, times long past, and settings we can only dream about. Every character has a relationship to their setting, and that relationship often lends itself to the mood of the story: the overall feeling, aesthetic, and emotional landscape of the work.

Starting the story with its setting can pull the reader in and establish a compelling mood. In “Fjord of Killary” by Kevin Barry, the author does just that.

So I bought an old hotel on the fjord of Killary. It was set hard by the harbor wall, with Mweelrea Mountain across the water, and disgracefully gray skies above. It rained two hundred and eighty-seven days of the year, and the locals were given to magnificent mood swings. On the night in question, the rain was particularly violent—it came down like handfuls of nails flung hard and fast by a seriously riled sky god. I was at this point eight months in the place and about convinced that it would be the death of me.

“It’s end-of-the-fucking-world stuff out there,” I said.

By giving the reader details about the place, its people, and its bleakness, the author sets the mood of the entire story. Learn more about developing settings at our article What is the Setting of a Story?

4. How to Start a Story: Backstory

Backstory refers to events that have happened prior to the story’s present-day action. While backstory isn’t necessary to follow the story’s plot, it is essential for understanding specific pieces of information.

Backstory offers context, and sometimes, the author wants to get that context out of the way first. In “The Missing Limousine” by Sanjena Sathian, the story explains why the protagonist gets hooked on The Bachelor, and why this is unusual for her, before getting into the story’s actual conflict.

By establishing basic facts, the author uses backstory to characterize her protagonist and propel the story into its central conflict. Do note: don’t write too much backstory, just give us enough to contextualize the conflict before moving the story forward.

5. How to Start a Story: Everyday Life

Your story’s conflict might dramatically alter your protagonist’s life. They might go on a journey, a quest, or even be forced into a life they didn’t ask for. Something that will highlight this dramatic shift of events is showing the reader what the protagonist’s everyday life was like.

On the morning of June 15th, Guy Burckhardt woke up screaming out of a dream. It was more real than any dream he had ever had in his life. He could still hear and feel the sharp, ripping-metal explosion, the violent heave that had tossed him furiously out of bed, the searing wave of heat.

He sat up convulsively and stared, not believing what he saw, at the quiet room and the bright sunlight coming in the window.

He croaked, “Mary?”

Guy Burckhardt wakes up from a terrible dream and finds himself back to everyday life: a shower, a wife, and an office job. It’s only when Guy investigates the eerie normalcy of his life that he comes to find all of it is a façade.

Note: starting your story with the protagonist waking up is generally a cliché idea. But, if you read all of Frederik Pohl’s story, you’ll understand exactly why he has to do this. Whether your protagonist gets shipped to the other side of the world or the other side of the universe, consider starting your story at home.

6. How to Start a Story: Theme

A theme is a central idea that propels a story forward. Themes are often abstract concepts, like love, justice, and fate vs. free will. When the characters of a story have to reckon with certain difficult situations, their decisions become springboards for the story’s various themes.

Sometimes, the story needs to unfold before any themes emerge. Other times, the author might lead with the theme before letting the story act that theme out. Take the opening lines from two works of classic literature:

Anna Karenina leads with the story’s dissection of happy and unhappy families, while A Tale of Two Cities leads with the bifurcated realities of the rich and the poor. Both novels, of course, have many more themes than just these, but these stories start rooted to a central idea, then unfurl to encompass a wider understanding of life.

7. How to Start a Story: Interesting Language

Charles Baudelaire once said “Always be a poet, even in prose.” Following this advice, sometimes all you need to start a story is some interesting word choice.

This brief introduction is packed with interesting language. For starters, it’s written in the second person, which is a daring way to write a story, because it situates the reader as the story’s protagonist without any other context. Additionally, the sentence is a mix of dialogue and narration, but without the use of quotation marks, making it structurally intriguing. Finally, the alliterative phrase “beady, bootblack eyes” is rich with description and characterization while also being a pleasure to read.

8. How to Start a Story: In Media Res

Under traditional storytelling models, like Freytag’s Pyramid, there’s a clear progression of events. After the exposition introduces us to the story’s characters, and settings, an inciting incident kicks off the story’s conflict. During the rising action, the conflict escalates, until a climax decides the fate of the protagonist.

When a story starts in media res (Latin: “in the middle of things”), the author chooses to start the story in the middle of the rising action, skipping over the exposition and the inciting incident.

For example, Homer’s The Iliad begins in the 9th year of the Greeks’ 10-year siege against Troy. We are introduced to major characters like Achilles, Agamemnon, and Odysseus, and also to the influence of the Gods like Hera and Zeus. Only as the story unfolds do we also gain some backstory, such as the reason for the war’s beginning and the previous lives of the story’s protagonists.

9. How to Start a Story: Frame Story

A story that starts at the end is called a frame story, which is another way to play with traditional narrative structures. Also known as a story-within-a-story, frame stories begin at the end of the conflict. Often, a character who is not part of the conflict will wander into the story; eventually, a character who was part of the conflict regales this wanderer, transporting us to the story’s beginning.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë offers a great example. In this novel, Mr. Lockwood, who is not part of the story’s conflict, becomes a new tenant of Thrushcross Grange. Thrushcross Grange is tended to by Nelly, a housekeeper who witnessed all of the story’s conflicts. Nelly tells Mr. Lockwood about the romance, violence, drama, and death that has unfolded in Thrushcross Grange’s recent history.

Thus, the story begins at the end, with Mr. Lockwood moving into a now-quiet Thrushcross Grange. Then, the story jumps to the beginning, with the cast of characters that propel the house’s strange and awful history.

10. How to Start a Story: A Hook

A hook is a simple premise for a story that, when told to the reader, instantly draws them into the story. Many of the other examples listed here can also be viewed as hooks, but a hook directly states the reason for the story’s existence and invites the reader to learn more.

For example, the story “Chouette” by Claire Oshetsky hooks the reader instantly.

I dream I’m making tender love with an owl. The next morning, I see talon marks across my chest that trace the path of my owl-lover’s embrace. Two weeks later I learn that I’m pregnant.

You may wonder: How could such a thing come to pass between woman and owl?

I, too, am astounded because my owl-lover was a woman.

There is so much happening in these first few lines. A same-sex owl romance leads to an inter-species pregnancy? Yes, please tell me more.

11. How to Start a Story: A Question

Some stories begin with a question, and the entire story responds to the conundrum that question presents. Just like a story that starts with theme, starting with a question will draw the reader into the story’s central ideas.

Of course, a story can also begin with a question that baffles the reader, hooks them in, or tries to characterize its protagonists. Take the opening line of Gilbert Sorrentino’s novel Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things:

12. How to Start a Story: Compelling Characterization

Readers are drawn to stories for a variety of reasons. However, very few stories would satisfy if they lacked interesting characters. Great characterization can be a byproduct of the many good ways to start a story.

In “The Killer” by Sarah Gerard, we learn so much about the story’s protagonist just by watching her observe other people.

How Not to Start a Story

Because people have been telling stories for at least 4,400 years, there are many ways to start a story—and many of them are cliché, unconvincing, or simply boring for the reader. Let’s briefly look at how not to start a story.

Do note: rules are made to be broken, and there is no single standard of good or bad writing. So, while we discourage people from starting stories using the following methods, there might be a reason for doing so in your story. Just be intentional: if your story starts with a dream, for example, make sure that dream is absolutely essential to the story’s conflict, and that there is no better place from which to begin the story.

Nonetheless, if you want to submit your stories to literary journals or publications, be wary of the following story beginnings:

Starting with a dream.

This story start will mostly confuse the reader. They’ll think what’s happening in the dream is happening in real life, and when that turns out not to be the case, the reader will feel tricked, as well as bored with real life. Plus, dreams are rarely a source of conflict, which your story should start with.

The protagonist wakes up.

This is perhaps the most cliché method of starting a story. It doesn’t generate conflict or tell us anything interesting about the character. Yes, some stories need to show us everyday life before it’s drastically altered. But, since all people wake up, we don’t need to know about your character waking up, we just need to know details about everyday life that will, eventually, be altered.

Starting with character summary.

Don’t introduce your characters with basic, summaristic info. In other words, don’t start your story like this: “Sean Glatch was a 20-something writer in ABC City; one day, he woke up on the other side of the world.” This kind of writing is devoid of any style or intrigue. The reader wants to connect with the story’s characters on a personal level, so these summaristic details should be embedded in the story itself, rather than stated directly to the reader.

Cliche beginnings.

Once upon a time, people started their stories with “once upon a time.” But, even if your story begins on a dark and stormy night, tell the reader something a bit more compelling.

Starting before the conflict.

If the first page of your story doesn’t have conflict, then your story hasn’t started yet. Readers will nod off very quickly if they don’t know why they’re reading this story. The conflict doesn’t have to be clear or explicitly stated, but it does need to drive the narration right away, even as we’re learning about the story’s characters and settings.

Disconnected worldbuilding.

Perhaps your story begins on Planet X, which has an icy surface, endless tundras, and snowy mountains as tall as Olympus Mons. Nonetheless, the reader wants to follow people, not planets. So, instead of introducing the reader to this snowy world devoid of human conflict, show us the protagonist fighting against the cold, baring their teeth against chilling winds and subzero hypothermia.

Further Readings on Storytelling

For more resources on story writing and development, take a look at these handy articles.

Additionally, the American Book Review has a list of the 100 best first lines from novels. Perhaps one of those lines will inspire your own story’s beginning.

How to Start a Story

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The first page of your story is where the reader decides whether to immerse themselves into the story or not. They don’t have the clearest of ideas of what will happen next but the way the story started lures them to go on.

Writing a compelling start to your story is hard: you have to come up with something that can set the tone for the entire story, get editors invested in the story, and keep the readers’ eyes to the pages.

What can you do to turn your first pages into something that hooks readers and make them keep turning the pages?

So what’s a good way to start a story? There are many, and I’m going to serve you with some of the proven ways to start a story.

Let’s get started.

Why Your Story Needs a Good Start

I touched on this in a post that talked about plotting a novel. The thing is, nobody’s got time for your story unless it promises to be an exciting read. Today’s readers have a lot of exciting stuff going on around them that they have so little time to expend on figuring what your book’s all about.

Unless you give them an early reason to stick around, you can be more than sure that they’re dropping that book or story.

Au revoir! Adios! On to better things.

A good strong start is vital, not only for hooking readers but agents and publishers too.

Ways to Start a Story

1. Start with a question

If you start your story with a question, the reader may want to find the answer but they would have to read to find this answer. This means that they will at least go past the first page.

You can choose to be subtle when posing this question, poetic, or schematic. Whichever way you choose, make sure the solution has to be found when the reader reads on.

2. Start with action

Begin your story in medias res (in the midst of the action or plot). This is what the current younger generations are in love with; they want a story filled with tension right from the start.

But if you decide to start your story this way, you need to make sure that the opening scene has well-SHOWN, compelling action.

3. Start with a plot twist

Right from the get-go, give them a startle. You don’t have to go overboard with your opening, but you have to aim for the unexpected beginning. Somehow, you have to get into your readers’ minds, figure out how they would expect the story to begin, then nudge the beginning in an entirely different direction.

4. Appeal to the readers’ curiosity

Humans are a very inquisitive species. You have to take advantage of this curious nature and create a start that leaves them with a lot of emotions, speculations, and a thirst for answers.

Start your story in a way that makes the readers want to know more about the characters, settings, and whatever is going on in the story. A start that appeals to the reader’s curiosity is like a charm―it wills them to continue reading the story without knowing what’s going to happen in your short story, novella, or novel.

5. Give them a new way

Just come to think of it, who starts a story by saying:

“I still remember the day I was born, the day of my recent birth.”

Apparently, Kemi Ogunniyi started with that line.

The thing is, that line will have you wondering if that’s possible or who could be able to remember the day they were born.

After googling that, you’d find out that can’t happen. You’d surely come back to the story to find out what kind of creature was able to find the day they were born.

6. Charm your reader

This is your chance to show the reader how good the story is. It’s also your one chance to impress your masterly of fiction writing upon your readers.

Grab your chance and use scrumptious language, tone, and pacing. Once a reader knows you’re a good writer, they will read almost any story you throw at them.

7. Introduce the reader to a mystical world

This is especially crucial for fantasy writers. You have to use the first paragraphs to take your readers to a great fictional world that is likely going to intrigue them.

Good fantasy writers display insights or vast knowledge of history and future technological trends. They take the beauty of the past and fit it with future tech and come up with a language so befitting that this world becomes very realistic. If you can show bits of this in your first paragraphs, you’ll be able to hook the reader.

8. Don’t be too vague

If you decide to start with some mystery or with a question, do it in a way that doesn’t confuse the reader. If you’re trying to be too clever by introducing your story with ‘too much mystery’, you may end up not making sense and the reader might not continue reading your story.

9. Start with compelling dialogue

Starting a story with dialogue can be disastrous. If you start with a whirlpool of dramatic, less compelling dialogue, you’re bound to lose some of your readers.

The dialogue has to be effective and must be used sparingly.

10. Save the beginning for last

The thing about writing a fictional story is that it rarely pans out exactly the way you initially plotted it―it always evolves in some way.

Usually, the way you open differs from the end. The best way to go about crafting an opening that effectively resonates with the rest of the story is to come back to the beginning once you finish the story. If there’s some patching up to be done, then you can refer to the rest of the story to have a start that reflects the story.

Key Features of a Good Start

A good start to a story ought to do, at least, one of the following but not all of them:

1. Connect the reader to the protagonist

A good start introduces the reader to the main character(s) and their world.

2. Elicit an emotion

The start has to invoke some sort of feeling from the reader. Trying to make the reader have empathy for characters or feel like they’re inside the story’s world is a bit long-term and will take longer than the opening paragraphs, you should reserve that for later.

For the opening paragraph(s), you just need to set up the reader―emotionally―for the rest of the first page(s).

3. Present a snapshot

The starting lines or paragraphs have to paint a vivid picture of the story. Be careful not to end up writing a summary of the story; rather, use highlights and standouts to create this snapshot.

4. Produce intrigue

I already talked about intriguing the reader and I would like to reemphasize the importance of having a fascinating and luring opening.

An intriguing opening has to be exciting and leave some more questions to be found when the reader reads on.

What Are Some of the Greatest Opening Lines?

Later in this post, I have accompanied two opening paragraphs from two famous authors with the lessons we can take from them. But before we get to that, here are some of the best of the opening lines from bestselling novels.

“I write this sitting in the kitchen sink”

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.

“The story so far: in the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams.

“Jack Reacher ordered espresso, double, no peel, no cube, no foam, no china, and before it arrived at his table he saw a man’s life change forever.”

The Hard Way by Lee Child.

“I’d never given much thought to how I would die – even though I’d had reason enough in the last few months – but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.”

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.

Dos and Don’ts for an Exciting Story Opening

1. Always try to start with your main character(s). You have to introduce your protagonist right in the opening paragraph. No need for stalling, you can introduce the MC as early as the first sentence―the earlier your readers get to know whose story it is, the better.

2. Don’t stall on introducing the love interest or villain. Once you get the protagonist settled, don’t take long to introduce the other half of the story―if it’s a romance piece, show the reader the love interest and, in other genres, introduce the ‘bad guy.’

3. Avoid “He woke up” at all costs. Please, I beg of you, don’t start with your MC getting out of bed.

4. Don’t overwhelm your readers with a lot of character introductions. Introducing a bunch of characters in a few opening pages of your story will only leave your readers confused and frustrated.

5. Don’t drown the reader in bland descriptions of the setting or backstories. The story has to unfold, bit by bit. Instead of dumping untimely backstories or setting descriptions, you can start with dialogue and action. The background bits can come later in the story.

Starting A Good Story: Lessons from Famous Authors

Here are two examples of good ways to start a story from famous authors:

Example 1

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

― A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

With this start, Dickens tries―successfully―to paint a picture of the instability, the hope, and the chaos of the time and cities in which the events in the stories took place. In this intro, he was poetic with the choice of words and phrases, and he used that poetry to forewarn you to get ready for a bumpy ride.

“Hearing the click behind him, Parker threw his glass straight back over his right shoulder, and dove off his chair to the left. The bullet furrowed a line through the plans on the table, the sound of the shot echoed loud and long in the closed room, and Parker rolled amid suddenly scrambling feet, his arms folded in tight over his chest. He didn’t have a gun on him, and the first thing to do was get away from the guy who did.”

― Plunder Squad by Richard Stark

Richard Stark went right into the action with this intro. He took a chance because when you start at the peak, you have nowhere else to go but down unless you have a wicked twist up your sleeve. But he cooked a good story, so I guess it went well for him.

Start Writing Your Story

A good start, alone, won’t salvage a story that is deficient in a lot of other good qualities.

Having said that, I’d also like to emphasize that a brilliant opening line might be the difference between you and authorship or something better―the bestselling status. A fascinating opening can even serve as a foretoken for a great story you have in store for the reader.

Good writers know how to use a riveting start to cast a spell on their readers, editors, and publishers. And, they make sure that the rest of the story is brilliant so that the readers are engrossed even after the riveting opening evaporates from their minds.

About Jessica Majewski

Jessica started off as an avid book reader. After reading one too many romance novels (really. is it ever really enough?), she decided to jump to the other side and started writing her own stories.

She now shares what she has learned (the good and the not so good) here at When You Write, hoping she can inspire more up and coming wordsmiths to take the leap and share their own stories with the world.