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Everything in a story is important. Every paragraph, every sentence, even every word has a purpose. This is especially true in the opening to a story, where the words have multiple purposes. What are some techniques that can make an opening effective?
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1
There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
--Nicolo Machiavelli
When asked, 'How do you write?' I invariably answer, 'one word at a time.'
--Stephen King
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Once upon a time, I wanted to write a story. I knew the ending and the twist in the plot that got there. I knew the characters, their goals, stakes, and obstacles. I even knew endless details about the fictional world they lived in. I knew everything about my story. Well, almost everything. I never finished this story because, you see, I didn’t know the beginning.
Actually, that’s not quite true. I did know the beginning. I even wrote a beginning--a crappy one, but I had a beginning. I just didn’t know how to write a good beginning. Writing an effective beginning to a story, or a novel, or even this newsletter for that matter, is a task that continues to befuddle me.
The first step is to admit you have problem, or so they say. So that’s where I’ll start: I have a problem writing beginnings.
No, I didn’t even get that right. I don’t have just one problem. I have multiple problems writing beginnings.
The Problems
Here’s the thing. Every part of a story, every paragraph, every sentence, even every word has a purpose. Kurt Vonnegut said that every word should advance either character or plot, and preferably both. He was speaking of short stories, but his advice is still pretty compelling. The preacher in Ecclesiastes was right: to everything there is a purpose, at least when it comes to writing. In fact, if we believe Vonnegut, everything has at least two purposes.
When it comes to beginnings, it gets even more complicated. The opening word, sentence, and paragraph have to launch the story, sure, but what does that even mean? What should an opening do to launch a story? Here’s a partial list, in no particular order, of some of the stuff an opening ought to do.
 Hook the reader. If an opening does nothing else, it should do at least this. Those opening lines everyone recognizes are memorable because they do exactly this.
Launch the fictional dream playing inside the reader’s head. Your reader is your partner in imagining your fictional world. Whether you like it or not, your reader is going to bring their own experiences and expectations to your story, so you may as well work with that by putting them forcefully inside your story.
Establish the point of view. Since you’re going to put your readers inside your fictional world, go all the way and put them in the head of your POV character.
Orient the readers by answering at least some of the who, what, when, where, why, and how questions.
Establish what kind of story you are writing. Is it a mystery or a romance? Is it SciFi or a suspense? In addition to genre, the story might have a particular tone. Is it funny or serious? Sad or happy? Fantasy or hard-boiled realism?
Show the conflict in the story. No conflict? No story.
Establish the here-and-now of the fictional world.
Name your protagonist.
Start with action. Put your protagonist in motion, interacting with the fictional world, i.e., start in media res.
Give the protagonist goals and, if possible, establish the stakes, and obstacles.
That’s ten things. The list isn’t exhaustive. Give me a minute, and I’ll think of another ten. You see what I mean about multiple problems.
Some Examples
The good news is that you don’t have to do all ten. Indeed, the opening for a novel can skip almost everything on list if it hooks the reader. Consider, for example, this spectacular opening paragraph to Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer.
She only stopped screaming when she died. It was then that he started to scream. I don’t know about you, but I can’t resist a book with that kind of opening. It sold over forty million copies, so others must have felt the same way.
Archer's opening is effective because it raises compelling questions. Why did she scream? And why did he scream only after she died? Dickens famous opening is the same--how can it be both the best and worst of times? It contrasts two opposing things. Melville's opening to Moby Dick implicitly asks why we should call the narrator Ismael--is that his name or is he hiding something? Indeed, this ambiguity hints at the unreliability of the narrator. The meloncholy tone of the opening to Rebecca
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. raises the question of why the narrator is dreaming of returning to this place called Manderlay.
Making the reader think why can be an effective hook. Bradbury's opening for Fahrenhieht 451 is another example, among many.
It was a pleasure to burn.
Sometimes the opening sentence is effective not for raising a question but for answering an unspoken question. Tolstoi opens War and Peace with the famous line
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Other openings can suggest interesting things about the narrator, as in Vonnegut's opening to Slaugherhouse Five
All this happened, more or less. This is the quintessential opening for an unreliable narrator.
A dramatic opening hook is one way to grab readers, but by no means the only way. A less dramatic, but still disquieting, hook, appears in the opening sentence to Orwell’s 1984.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. The description is unremarkable but for the number “thirteen.” Clocks don’t normally strike thirteen, and moreover it’s an unlucky number, so its appearance suggests that something unusual is going on. It's the juxtaposition of the ordinary weather and the extraodinary clock that hooks the readers and makes them wonder, "why thirteen?"
Juxtaposing the ordinary with the extraordinary is a technique , which is to say, it's a trick you can use more than once. Dean Koontz may not be my favorite author, but he’s a master at hooks that use this techinque. Consider this one, from Dragon Tears.
Tuesday was a fine California day, full of sunshine and promise, until Harry Lyon had to shoot someone at lunch.
Scenery, like weather, can be boring, but a skilled writer can transform the setting into a powerful character. Here’s an example, the opening to Red Wind, by Raymond Chandler.
There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.
This opening is brilliant because it doesn’t try to do everything. The protagonist, Phillip Marlowe, doesn’t even appear until the second paragraph, for example. But it certainly both hooks and orients the reader, along with conveying exactly what kind of novel this will be. The pitch-perfect tone of this opening also serves to launch the fictional dream playing in the reader’s head.
The first paragraph of a novel can get by with doing fewer things on the list. Novels, after all, have time to do the other stuff, like establishing goals, stakes, and obstacles or details of the fictional world. Short stories are different from novels, though. They are, after all, short. That structural constraint means that the opening in a short story generally has to do more of the things on the list while still doing the most important: hooking readers.
It's a challenge to tick off all the elements of the list, but it can be done. Bret Harte’s stories of the wild west almost always cover all or most of the elements on the list. Consider the opening paragraph of “The Outcasts of Poker Flat.”
As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he was conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night. Two or three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as he approached, and exchanged significant glances. There was a Sabbath lull in the air which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked ominous. The next couple of paragraphs of this classic story complete the list and set up the plot.
Daniel Keye’s opening to “Flowers for Algernon” also does almost everything on the list. We meet his protagonist, Charlie Gordon, with a journal entry. Charlie’s earnest hope to be “smart” juxtaposed with his pathetic spelling and grammar hooks the readers by making them want to cheer for him.
Dr. Strauss says I shud rite down what I think and evrey things that happins to me from now on. I dont know why but he says its important so they will see if they will use me. I hope they use me. Miss Kinnian says maybe they can make me smart. I want to be smart. My name is Charlie Gordon. I am 37 years old and 2 weeks ago was my birthday. I have nuthing more to rite now so I will close for today.
Richard Wright’s opening to “The Man Who Lived Underground” is yet another example that does most of the things on list.
I’ve got to hide, he told himself. His chest heaved as he waited, crouching in a dark corner of the vestibule. He was tired of running and dodging. Either he had to find a place to hide, or he had to surrender. A police car swished by through the rain, its siren rising sharply. They’re looking for me all over.
This opening is fraught with tension, the promise of conflict, and mystery—all hooking the readers to keep going.
Sometimes the opening is also foreshadowing. Consider the first sentence of Stephen King’s Christine.
This is the story of a lover’s triangle, I suppose you’d say—Arnie Cunningham, Leigh Cabot, and, of course, Christine. The punchline, as the reader soon learns, is that Christine is a car.
Leave it to King to produce a single sentence that, in its profound insight, hooks the reader while doing none of the other things on list. This is the opening to his short story “The Body”
The most important things are the hardest things to say.
He opens his forward to his first collection of short stories, Night Shift, with another compelling one-liner.
Let’s talk, you and I. Let’s talk about fear.
Other Considerations
Besides the difference between short stories and novels, within novels each chapter has its own opening. The first paragraph for the first chapter launches the novel, and is the most critical. Indeed, the entire first chapter should, by the end, have ticked off many elements of the list.
Even if the first chapter does complete the list, the opening of each subsequent chapter still has its own list of objectives--sometimes a subset of the above and sometimes the entire list. Often, a new chapter involves a new setting, or a change in point of view, or even a change in tone, so the author must attend to these aspects of orienting the reader. Even where things don’t change, a chapter break is often a reading break: a day or more might pass before the reader picks up the novel again. So, for example, re-establishing the point-of-view and the here-and-now of the fictional world at the start of a new chapter is generally a good idea.
Finally, if you can't figure out how to start your story, or--as in my case--have flawed opening, write the parts you do know how to write. Don't let the task of creating an awesome beginning stop you from writing the rest of your story. Strike while the creative urge is fresh and bring those characters and their fictional world to life on the page. Structurally, there is probably an inciting incident that sets off the action of your story, so start with that or, if necessary, just after that. Once you've written from that point to the end, it can be clearer what to put into your beginning that foreshadows and launches the rest of the action. It might be a clock striking the thirteenth hour, or the realization that the most important things are hardest to say, or it might be just detailing the protagonist's actions, as in Bret Harte's story. The important thing is to write and not stew over how hard it is or expect perfection from a first draft.
Conclusions
An effective opening must, at a minimum, hook readers and make them want to keep going. The more effective the hook, the less it has to accomplish. Novels can get by with just hooking the reader, but short stories usually have to accomplish more because of the constraints of the form.
I admit I have a problem with openings. I also admit that my thinking on openings has evolved. Sometimes, the most effective opening is the one that is different, that breaks the rules, and shocks the reader. It’s good to make lists, but they aren’t the end of the story, or even the beginning. Picasso said, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Lists are helpful, but don’t write like a robot, checking things off a list. Write like a wizard, beguiling your readers with magic.
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