how do you open your story

One thing that may be the most important part of writing your story is the opening. I mean, even an absolutely horrendous one can't exist without one. How do you prefer to start your stories?

An incredibly catchy opening line is my favourite way to go. One that pulls the reader in, can set the scene and maybe leaves enough mystery or intrigue to make them want to read on. The story has already started before the reader starts reading. The characters and world are established, and the reader has opened the story to find something already taking place.

I could give you a list of examples but I'll only use two.

This is the opening line from a fanfic I've not uploaded yet: 'The little Absol raced through the Shadow Lands, his breaths coming quick and heavy as he fled the massacre behind him.'
It's already intense and one would wonder what exactly the Absol is running from. Yes, a massacre, but what happened? Hopefully they'll keep reading to find out!

I like to start my comedy stories with a line of speech or something crazily random - "You know, I still don't understand why they're sending us on this mission." - is how I opened Rivers and Waterfalls.

Both of those stories are one-shots, but my longer stories start in very much the same way.

I absolutely never, under any circumstances, begin a story mid-conversation, which seems to be a trend. It is my biggest gripe when I start reading something and it begins in the middle of dialogue. It's such a horrible technique. I could say the same about writers beginning scenes conveniently in rooms with a mirror as an excuse to go into info dump mode about their character's appearance. It's really insignificant.

I will begin stories mid-scene, though, or as a scene is beginning. The draft I'm currently working on as part of my NaNoWriMo begins with two sisters in their bedroom, one of them doing up her hair and the other one watching her, but doing their own thing at the same time. It's mid-scene and a really simple yet effective scene, but there's no dialogue until after the setting and a bit of the mood is established.

Actually, I'm willing to contest the point of opening with dialogue. (Granted, there is a sizable chunk where it falls flat and is irrelevant in what I've read, but done right, it works very well.) "Done right" also means that the opening line of dialogue introduces a concept, character or two, and a potential conflict.

As for me, I just start wherever feels right for the story and what will become the mood of it. There is always potential for conflict in my openings, though I avoid exposition like the plague. If it's actually needed, it can be worked into the flow of the story properly.

SeleneHime said:

Actually, I'm willing to contest the point of opening with dialogue. (Granted, there is a sizable chunk where it falls flat and is irrelevant in what I've read, but done right, it works very well.) "Done right" also means that the opening line of dialogue introduces a concept, character or two, and a potential conflict.

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The problem with opening a story with dialogue is that it creates a delay and a lapse in the flow of the opening scene. The reader is immediately plunged into a conversation with absolutely no context - no idea of who the characters are, where they are, when the story takes place, what they are talking about, or even what world they're in. Granted the reader doesn't need to know every single one of those details in the opening scene, when something is opened with just dialogue or even a full conversation, and then the actual scene building takes place, it disrupts the flow as the reader now has to go back and reread the dialogue to understand the context, if they even bother to do so at all. This mental backtracking sort of stalls the opening scene, which makes it difficult to really engage the reader.

Beginning with dialogue while introducing characters or plot is also disruptive to the flow. I see a lot of introductions that are written like:

"Blah, blah," she said. She was a fifteen year old student... [full paragraph of character description and introduction]
"Blah, blah blah!" He exclaimed. He crinkled his nose in disgust, shaking his brown hair out of his eyes and... [yet another full paragraph just to introduce and describe this character and what they're doing]

...and so on. It renders the conversation as irrelevant or even disruptive as the story is being set up mid-conversation, and is distracting. It's just something that is not effective in any way. It falls into the "show, don't tell" advice when it comes to writing. I'm definitely guilty of writing like that in the past though lol.

Hikari Takahashi said:

"Blah, blah," she said. She was a fifteen year old student... [full paragraph of character description and introduction]
"Blah, blah blah!" He exclaimed. He crinkled his nose in disgust, shaking his brown hair out of his eyes and... [yet another full paragraph just to introduce and describe this character and what they're doing]

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You actually gave an example of the dialogue introductions that should be burned with fire. It's also loaded with exposition and rough details that should be scattered throughout, too. Now, I'm going to quote a children's book for my example, but only because it's one that most of us have probably read at some point or another:

Charlotte's Web said:

"Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.

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Choppy because of the age group it was written for, but:
- Introduces the characters.
- Offers a question.
- Implication of tension.

Ender's Game, another book from my childhood, also has a good example of opening with dialogue.

Ender's Game said:

"'I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one.'"

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- Question, apprehension, and character introduction. Check.

You could also probably find entire essays on the discussion of this technique, but I won't bother cluttering the thread. Back to the point of your first paragraph: The opening paragraph should have plenty of room to work in the immediate and necessary details, but it shouldn't have to have the entire setting crammed into it. At that point we'd be ODing on "show versus tell". Dialogue can be used as a hook as much as anything else, as long as it's handled with care.

Yeah, can't say I agree that opening with dialogue is a problem, nor that starting in the middle of a conversation means that you're going to have to slow things down later to catch readers up to what's going on. You can simply build the context as the scene/conversation unfolds, same as you would if you'd started in the middle of that scene but just chosen not to start with the dialogue specifically. I have seen people say that they don't like stories starting on a piece of dialogue, but everyone has different preferences in what they like to read, and I don't think the fact that some people don't like it is reason enough to say that it's a bad way to go about things.

Generally I prefer to use some form of in media res for my openings. The style depends on what kind of story it is, but usually I like something that presents the reader with a mystery or question that they will, hopefully, want to read on to learn more about.

Depends on the atmosphere you want to convey.

For the dialogue part, I actually enjoy jumping into the middle of a conversation. My initial reaction, I would bet, is what the writer(s) want out of the reader. "What's going on?" "What am I reading/listening to right now?"

Plenty of movies do this as well. How many times do you see the opening credits while there's dialogue going against a black screen transitioning into the opening scene? I see it as atmosphere building.

Of course it has to be done right, and that's tricky. I don't think there's any formula for it. It's up to your creativity.

I don't think it's really thread clutter, we're all discussing the main topic anyway, and it's probably one of the most important aspects of the entire story so it's easy to get into a pretty in-depth discussion about it. Like you said SeleneHime, there are probably entire essays on this lol.

The targeted demographic definitely makes a difference, too. You have to take care in what would grab the attention of who you're writing for - are you writing for young kids, teenagers, adults? Different things grab the attention of different demographics, and the trick when writing for more mature audiences is finding the balance of generating enough conflict and plot-relevant details to pique the interest of the reader, while withholding a great deal of information. The opening of a story needs to work effectively and quickly in grabbing the attention of the reader, and children's stories need to work even more quickly for obvious reasons.

There's a balance that needs to be achieved, and it's typically thrown off when it begins with dialogue.

Comparing opening techniques between movies and stories is like comparing apples to oranges, movies have the benefit of providing visuals and other sounds, writing is a lot more limited. The mediums are too different to really compare.

Hikari Takahashi said:

Comparing opening techniques between movies and stories is like comparing apples to oranges, movies have the benefit of providing visuals and other sounds, writing is a lot more limited. The mediums are too different to really compare.

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That's why I said dialogue against a black screen that's transitioning into a scene. As the viewer, all you hear are voices of characters you don't know, in an unfamiliar setting, if only for a few seconds or a couple lines.

You compare this to a novel opening up with a few lines exchanged between two or more characters you don't know. What their conversation is based on can set the stage for the entire story. This might take a page to convey whereas a film can accomplish this in the first 5-10 seconds.

In both media, I'm here looking for a story. If the novel opens up with dialogue, that's like me eavesdropping on a conversation. If what the characters are discussing grabs my attention, then we have a winner, much like if the author decided to open up with interesting details covering X character in Y setting.

Had The Godfather novel opened up in a similar way to how its film version started, I don't think the author would've lost me then and there.

A: "I believe in America. America has made my fortune. And I raised my daughter in the American fashion. I gave her freedom, but I taught her never to dishonor her family. She found a boyfriend; not an Italian. She went to the movies with him; she stayed out late. I didn't protest. Two months ago, he took her for a drive, with another boyfriend. They made her drink whiskey. And then they tried to take advantage of her. She resisted. She kept her honor. So they beat her, like an animal..."

Let's just say this "pretend" novel started that way with no other description. No context. Just someone rambling.

We have no idea who the guy is. Who don't know if he's talking to himself or another person. Coincidentally, this is how the film portrayed the scene. The man is just talking, but we have no idea who he is, where he is, etc.

He continues, and someone else follows up with:

B: "Why did you go to the police? Why didn't you come to me first?"

A: "What do you want of me? Tell me anything. But do what I beg you to do."

With only these lines opening up this "pretend" novel, the reader knows the following now:

1. Person A has experienced something quite terrible. His daughter was assaulted.
2. Person B is listening to this story, much like we are, but Person B knows what's going on.
3. Person A is seeking Person B's help.

I'm okay with this. This is a strange situation and I want to know a little more. The author got me and now the novel can start working in character descriptions, their existing roles, show some body language... which is indeed what follows, as Person A, Amerigo Bonasera, approaches Person B, Don Corleone, and whispers a request in his ear. This is particularly powerful because now the reader has no idea what was said and this is immediately followed by Corleone saying:

"What is that? That I cannot do."

Again, let's just go back and pretend this is how The Godfather novel opened up, rather than with:

"Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her. The judge, a formidably heavy-featured man, rolled up the sleeves of his black robe as if to physically chastise the two young men standing before the bench. His face was cold with majestic contempt. But there was something false in all this that Amerigo Bonasera sensed but did not yet understand."

The hook is very similar and invokes similar wonder in the reader. Just like if the novel opened with dialogue, this opening line and subsequent ones tell the reader the following:

1. Bonasera has experienced something quite terrible. His daughter was assaulted.
2. Bonasera is seeking help.
3. Bonasera suspects something odd about what's to come.

So for the real novel, this scene then goes on to briefly cover Bonasera's circumstance as a law-abiding Italian-immigrant who has found his footing in America. After a couple other scenes (introducing several other key characters, including Corleone), the reader won't meet Bonasera again until roughly page 30ish where we get the scene from the movie and its opening dialogue.

What the writer could have done in the "pretend" version is open with the dialogue and then dive into a brief review of Bonasera's circumstances, just like the real novel. The film's dialogue does mention Bonasera's trip to court, how justice was not served, which led to Bonasera's seeking out Corleone.

So now we have flashback material here. Love it or hate it, writers use it. So the "pretend" version could easily go right into how the real novel structured its opening and then rearranged how other characters are introduced to the reader.

I went on much longer than I expected. I just wanted to compare traditional writing with movie writing and how one medium can translate into another. It really just depends on how it's done. Whether one is better than another is subjective.

Hikari Takahashi said:

The targeted demographic definitely makes a difference, too.

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And this is very true. Curiosity in yuppies is definitely not the same as curiosity in children or curiosity in adults on the brink of their midlife crises.

I'm a big fan of nonlinear narrative and general time shenanigans. Starting a story with the ending is a particular favorite of mine. It sets up expectations in the reader that you can then manipulate.

Otherwise my openings tend to be a quiet moment just before a big event. It gives me a bit of time for character/world building before I push the plot off the high-dive. XD

It's really hard to explain. I guess I just try to think of the main character. I write my stories in first person, so it usually starts out with the their thoughts. I'm actually really bad at starting stories. If I don't do it properly, I always feel like as the chapter progresses that the story is only getting worse. I can literally spend hours trying to think of a way to really start them. XD