The simplest answer is anywhere you want.
Consider the kind of fiction you like. Start with your favorite authors-- look at
how they approach beginnings. If you are
on a tight budget, go to a library. If
that seems old-fashioned (sigh, anguish) then click over to your favorite
Amazon free-peek and browse the opening lines. Take a look at the start of the novel or
story. What opening lines/paragraphs draw you in? What hooks you? Most people are inspired to write because
someone impressed them. Most writers
start out as readers. Somebody cast a
spell on you with their words. Probably
that is why you want to return the favor.
Here are a handful of my favorite starts:
"First of all, it was October, a rare month for
boys. Not that all months aren't
rare. But there be bad and good, as the
pirates say. Take September, a bad
month: school begins. Consider August, a good month: school hasn't
begun yet. July, well, July's really fine:
there's no chance in the world for school. June,
no doubting it, June's best of all, for the school doors swing wide and
September's a billion years away."
--Something Wicked this Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
"It was December—a bright frozen day in the early
morning.
--
"A Worn Path," Eudora Welty
"I read about it in the paper, in the subway, on my way to work. I read it, and I couldn't believe it, and I read it again. The perhaps I just stared at it, at the newsprint spelling out his name, spelling out the story. I stared at it in the swinging lights of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside."
--"Sonny's Blues," James Baldwin
"I read about it in the paper, in the subway, on my way to work. I read it, and I couldn't believe it, and I read it again. The perhaps I just stared at it, at the newsprint spelling out his name, spelling out the story. I stared at it in the swinging lights of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside."
--"Sonny's Blues," James Baldwin
"Nobody was really surprised when it happened, not
really, not at the subconscious level where savage things grow."
--Carrie, Stephen King
"My earliest memories involve fire."
--A Drink
Before the War, Dennis Lehane
"My father said he saw him years later playing in a
tenth-rate commercial league in a textile town in Carolina, wearing shoes and
an assumed name."
--Shoeless
Joe, W.P. Kinsella
These are a few opening gambits that grab me--but the opening lines of
stories and books that you love will probably teach you more than any list that
I could provide. I like Lawrence Block's
mysteries. He's another writer I've
mentioned that has shared his wisdom. I
notice he almost always begins with some sort of action and a time stamp. At the very least he likes to play with
numbers in his openers:
"On the last Thursday in September, Lisa Holtzmann went
shopping on Ninth Avenue."
-- The
Devil Knows Your Dead, Lawrence Block
I include that one because it is something of a professional practice in crime fiction.
Here's a classic from Kate Chopin:
I include that one because it is something of a professional practice in crime fiction.
Here's a classic from Kate Chopin:
"Little Mrs. Sommers one day found herself the
unexpected possessor of fifteen dollars."
--"A Pair of Silk Stockings" Kate Chopin
It can be simple. "Call me Ishmael" is about as
simple an opening as there is...and it is attached to a whale of a story.
(Ow.) The point? Simple is good if you are stuck. And the
truth is that you can always go back and change it. Don't let the notion of a perfect start stop you from starting at all.
This list could go on, but again, check out the stories and novels that you like, that drew you in, that grabbed you and led you to actually read the tale.
This list could go on, but again, check out the stories and novels that you like, that drew you in, that grabbed you and led you to actually read the tale.
Please allow me to digress: In my blog about description I pointed out that a handy
trick to build your skills is to try copy-writing the prose of an author you
like. If you have not tried this, and
you feel stuck or lack confidence in your skills-- try it.
One of the most fun moments you will have is that EUREKA!
moment when you realize that you would not have written that sentence in that
way. That you could, in fact, have
written that one sentence better. Every
time I look at something I've written I find a reason to rewrite, something to
improve. Alas.
But when you see this in the work of a real honest-to-God
professional-- wow. You start to realize
that yes, maybe you can.
And if you stick with it, you will.
So back to that sticky problem of where-to-begin.
The answer is: right
now.
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