How Many Different Ways Can You Open A Story?
On different openings to stories, and how to judge which one fits your work best.
Last week, we talked about the beginnings of our stories needing to fulfil some sort of contract. And this week, I’m going to offer a few ways you can think about opening a story. The question in the title is a little bit of a cheat because I’m sure you can open a story any which way resonates, if you want to. What matters is that it establishes the contract you will go on to fulfil and it keeps the reading read word after word, sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, page after page.
Three very specific ways you can open a story are doing something characterful, doing something world-building, or doing something action-packed. You may start thematically, asking a question or using an aphorism. Or you may begin stylistically. It has to be a memorable sentence because it’s the first sentence that leads to the next sentence that leads to the next that leads on and on on and on.
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