Writing Tips: Nailing The Start Of Your Story

First impressions count, and that goes for the start of any story.

Grabbing a reader by the first line is a pressure every writer feels, especially when you have to back that line up with an intriguing first paragraph followed by opening pages that will convince someone to keep reading.

If that’s something you want, here are some tips!

Writing Tips: Nailing The Start Of Your StoryHold Back On One Key Detail

While an opening isn’t the place to drown your reader in info-dumping explanations, it’s also not the time to be vague about everything.

To get a good balance, try holding back one key detail.

For example, let’s say your story start involves an erratic driver tearing along a dark, empty highway, internal thoughts of panic, and external mutterings of how “It’ll all go wrong” when they get there.

In this opening, you’ve given the reader the driver, the highway setting, and the impression something bad is about to happen. Where the driver is going is the one detail held back, and keeping that nugget of info out of the opening pages is guaranteed to pique interest.

If you’d held back on other things too, like the dark, empty highway, the panicking internal thoughts, or the out loud mutterings, the reader is left with a driver, driving. I think we can all agree that makes for a boring story start that’s just as lame as telling the reading everything now and leaving no mysterious trail for them to follow.

So, give key details like the who, what, when, and leave one key thing out, like the why, to create an intriguing start to your story.

Remove The Zero Care Factor

This is hard to get right in an opening, but if there is zero care factor for the reader from the get-go, they won’t follow your characters to the last page.

To get the reader on board as quickly as you can, try using an immediate character voice and/or showing your MC in a sympathetic light.

A save the cat moment in the opening pages, where your MC does something heroic or sympathetic to gain the trust of readers—such as saving a cat from a tree, or running into a burning building—helps.

If your story doesn’t allow for such a moment, a character voice that is immediate is your other option.

Think back to any books you’ve read where you just knew from the opening line that this was a character you were going to love going on adventures with. It’s one of those ‘when you know you know’ moments as a reader, and you can achieve it as a writer by knowing your characters well, and refining their voice in your edits until you can nail them in the opening.

Establish A Basic Setting

While you might think you’re doing a good thing by going light on your setting at the start of your story so you can get things moving, if a reader has no clue where things are taking place, all you’re doing is frustrating them.

Setting does not need to be described in minute detail at first, but if you have a lack of setting, it could be hard for a reader to get into your story world.

Make it a habit to describe only what’s necessary to give a sense of that setting. It doesn’t take much. A simple one sentence description of clinking glasses and the drone of chatter over muted music is enough to place your setting in a bar without taking precious paragraphs to do it.

Establish a sense of your settings with some basics and give your story start enough room for other exciting hooks.

Go For Medium Details

Just as too much setting endangers the flow of your book, too much detail about anything in your opening will dramatically slow the pace. You don’t want that. You want your reader to get a sense of everything with detail that’s necessary, not over-the-top.

Don’t stop and describe your character’s royal blue gown ripping at the hand-stitched satin ribbon seams as they escape through a broken tower window. That level of detail can come later when they’re changing out of their gown after escaping to safety. All the reader needs to know in the opening is that their gown got caught on broken glass, upping your tension with the only detail necessary at this point to keep the flow of the amped opening going.

Too little detail can be confusing, too much can slow things down. Aim for a medium balance to keep your start as exciting as possible.

Stick To The Relevantly Current

If you really want to nail your story start, and it works for the tale you’re telling, try to open with relevant, current events.

Random topics or observations that have nothing to do with the predicament of your opening character or situation are a no-go. This is why you see so much advice about kicking things off with an exciting incident. You’re telling this story because something triggered a change in the life of your MC. Why not start with that change, or it’s recuperations?

As an example, we have an MC starting a new job. They didn’t get this job because of a promotion or a fantastic interview. They have it because they were fired from their last job. The details for the firing will come later. The MC is at rock-bottom with this new job. It is their current situation and where the story starts.

How they got into this situation is what will be revealed as the story unfolds, but for now, open with where they are and why, and the reader will come along for the ride—and when you combine that with the other tips here, you should be able to nail the start of any story.

— K.M. Allan

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