In the best stories, the reader’s attention keeps in sync with the rhythm of the prose. It’s like a snowball rolling down a hill. The ball picks up speed as the story progresses. And while that may be an intimidating standard for a novice writer, there are techniques to help your stories kick off with excitement.
From the first page you have captured our attention, either by your voice, or by introducing a question that is begging to be answered. In this article, I’ll go over the ingredients you need for a strong start to your story, give some examples, and I’ll offer a Story Weapon that includes three crucial points to consider.
A strong story opening captures attention through a clear voice, a compelling introduction to character, and an element of mystery that creates narrative momentum. Begin with tension, a dramatic question, and a meaningful anchor for your readers to care about.
Ingredients for a strong start
Clear voice
The first ingredient for a great start to your story is a clear voice. Whether it’s in the style of narration or a piece of dialogue from a pertinent character, give your reader a sense of who’s telling the story. The sound of a clear voice signals to the reader that the author is in command of the story and confident in its direction.
Let’s take a look at a great example of this: the first sentence of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Narrated by the protagonist Holden Caulfield, it reads:
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.
Without needing to describe Caulfield at all, we already have the seeds of who he is. There’s nothing generic about the sound of this opening sentence. It’s specific to the character, the fictional world, and the story. Who wouldn’t be at least a little curious?
An introduction to character
This leads to our next key ingredient: give a sense of the protagonist. While many big novels have multiple main characters or provide some description of the setting before introducing a protagonist, a strong start places the reader right next to the person they’ll be following. After all, we need a reason to care about the protagonist and the earlier we know them, the easier it is.
In the world of film, there’s the old “save the cat” adage. It suggests that we want to see the protagonist do something kind (like save a cat) as soon as possible to endear us to them.
Film professors will tell you that the audience latches on to the first person the camera points at, until we’re given a suitable alternative. Why do we do that, as readers or audience members? We want to understand the story and to do that, we need a perspective on the situation. That requires a character. It might be the perspective of a narrator character, like in the Holden Caulfield example. It might be an image of the character we’ll follow in the third person, like this example from Don Quixote, by Miguel Cervantes:
In a village in La Mancha, the name of which I cannot quite recall, there lived not long ago one of those country gentlemen or hidalgos who keep a lance in a rack, an ancient leather shield, a scrawny hack and a greyhound for coursing.
Right off the bat, we’ve got an image of who we’ll be following in the course of the story. The titular Don Quixote is presented to us in the first sentence (prologue notwithstanding). Given how legendary this character has become, it’s refreshing to note that all we get in the first glance are some aged weapons and a greyhound.
“Writing the opening lines of a story is a bit like starting to ski at the steepest part of a hill. You must have all your skills under control from the first instant.”
– Marion Dane Bauer
An aspect of mystery
The third and final key ingredient for a strong start to your story is an aspect of mystery. Intrigue is the best way to entice your reader, especially if you’ve included the last two ingredients. With a sense of the voice and a character worth following, the next thing we need is somewhere for them to go. By gradually telling the reader the things they need to know about the story, rather than starting with a block of exposition, you slowly lead them along the path of the story.
This is also a way to signal the way in which the world of the story or the events are unique. After all, a big reason to read a book is to find something that we don’t see on a day-to-day basis. Here’s a classic example from 1984, by George Orwell:
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
Already, you’ve got a reason to keep reading. What is this world where there are thirteen numbers on a clock? How does that even work? Orwell, in a masterstroke, is sure to include mundane details in the first sentence as well to ground the mystery. It’s odd for a clock to have thirteen numbers, perhaps less so on an alien world or in a magical realm. But Orwell specifically tells us that this world still has Aprils, which makes the clocks even odder. Now you’re hooked.
Examples of strong starts
Here are a few more examples of strong starts to stories for inspiration!
The Path to Power by Robert Caro
On the day he was born, he would say, his white-haired grandfather leaped onto his big black stallion and thundered across the Texas Hill Country, reining in at every farm to shout: ‘A United States Senator was born this morning!’ Nobody in the Hill Country remembers that ride or that shout.
Turning to an example from the world of nonfiction, Robert Caro’s work exemplifies the use of literary techniques to showcase the drama in the unfolding of a real life. His series on President Lyndon Johnson is a masterpiece. It’s the work of a genius (in the world of letters) on a genius (in the world of politics).
In the start of a biographical series that spans thousands of pages, Caro succinctly captures the essence of his story in just a sentence. We get introduced to the character of Lyndon B. Johnson in a characteristic, self-mythologizing lie. We get a sense of Caro’s narration, which weighs in on affairs by giving the reader the evidence. He doesn’t say that President Johnson invented this story. He just says that no one else remembers it. The intrigue created by this little anecdote is enough to get the reader to the next page.
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
I flipped through the CT scan images, the diagnosis obvious: the lungs were matted with innumerable tumors, the spine deformed, a full lobe of the liver obliterated. Cancer, widely disseminated. I was a neurosurgical resident entering my final year of training. Over the last six years, I’d examined scores of such scans, on the off chance that some procedure might benefit the patient. But this scan was different: it was my own.
The opening paragraph of Dr. Kalanithi’s memoir, written as a last act before his death, is another great example of how literary techniques are just as necessary in a non-fiction story. The premise of the book is delivered immediately. We know something about the narrator immediately and we’re given a glimpse of a contradiction, which grows into an internal conflict. We’re reading about a doctor who gets sick. Dr. Kalanithi was a great lover of literature and his memoir is a testament to his study of it.
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn’t always so lucky. Less than a century ago men and women did not have easy access to the puzzle boxes within them. They could not name even one of the fifty-three portals to the soul.
From the treasure trove of Vonnegut’s work, the opening paragraph of this story gives us an instant taste of the sardonic wit behind his narration. We’re given some intrigue in the last sentence of the paragraph, drawing the reader in. Right before this paragraph, there’s even an opening epigraph from the protagonist Malachi Constant: “I guess somebody up there likes me.” That checks all three of our boxes!
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams:
The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
It doesn’t get much better than this opening line to the sequel of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The narrator’s voice is patently clear, and this tone permeates the whole series. Learning more about the “bad move” and the universe where everyone is mad about existence (not that different from our own) is enough of an incentive to keep reading.
There’s no introduction of character in the first lines here, unless you count the universe as a creator. Arthur Dent and Tricia McMillan are mentioned on the next page, but not with much detail. This is a good reminder that these tips are meant to help you, but you can cast aside what doesn’t work for your story!
Three Versions of Judas by Jorge Luis Borges
In Asia Minor or in Alexandria, in the second century of our faith, in the days when Basilides proclaimed that the cosmos was a reckless or maleficent improvisation by angels lacking in perfection, Nils Runberg, with singular intellectual passion, would have led one of the gnostic conventicles.
Turning to the world of short stories, we have an example from the pages of the illustrious Borges. We’re given a sense of voice, with the mention of “our” faith and the interesting diction. There’s our protagonist, who has been characterized as someone with “singular intellectual passion.” There’s a sense of mystery; it’s hard to imagine anyone being familiar with “gnostic conventicles.” This story is also only five pages, but it nevertheless starts off with an erudite bang.
Your story weapon: Three points to consider
Let the above examples be inspiration, rather than standards of success.
Here are three points that will ensure your story starts strong.
- Something is out of balance. Right from the start, something is off. In other words, if you are writing about the Garden of Eden, we want to experience the forbidden apple. In this way, you have provided context for the fragility of paradise. There is tension. There is a threat or a temptation. While the opening of your story begins with the status quo, we must introduce the theme immediately, and that is dramatized as a dilemma for your protagonist. The dilemma, in this example, might be that while the protagonist lives in paradise, they might also feel trapped, and that in order to grow, things might have to get messy. They might need to bite the apple.
- Begin with a question. I don’t mean a literal question, but rather, a question for your reader. This again, speaks to your theme, i.e., “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Do you see how this opening line from Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities captures your curiosity? Why was it the worst of times? What happened?
- Give us one thing to care about. Keep it simple. Don’t introduce eight characters in your opening paragraph. We can’t see the world the way you can. Lead us gently down the garden path. It is not just what happens in your story that matters, but the order of events in which they are revealed. Some writers start too slowly, taking too much time to get to the story, while other writers do the opposite, expecting the reader to catch up, while mistaking confusion for mystery. You must give us something to care about if we are to become invested in your protagonist’s journey.
If you would like guided support in crafting powerful openings and developing stories that sustain momentum from the first page to the last, join one of my next workshops: The 90-Day Novel, The 90-Day Memoir, Story Day.
