In the Beginning

Every story has a start. One of the struggles of putting that first sentence on paper, however, is determining where that start is. Starting a story in media res creates a whole different pacing than starting it at the start of the chain of events. Some people might start their story with a prologue. (Or three prologues, I'm looking at you Brandon Sanderson.) Others, I'd say bad comedians and overzealous fantasy writers, might opt to begin at the beginning, as the big bang sets of time, space and the universe itself.

Where do you like to start your stories, and what do you belief makes a strong start?

For me I think a description or at least world understanding is of importance. While I do agree with Bardothren, I also would add some details on the world or info on the characters.

My style tends to be more of an introduction or somewhat exposition on the characters.

Save for Shattered Crest, which is following the whole thing Bardothren talked about earlier (despite being more than 1-3 chapters).

I either try to get info into the reader to help their grasp in the beginning, give a instance or horrendous thing in the past to build character/relation, or give lore (have yet to do that on this site though).

Conflict is always a great place to start, or begin with a reflection. Foreshadow something to come along much later in the story or series of stories or really place the reader in the middle of a conflict whether it be physical, verbal or mental. Get the reader to question themselves and they'll be more interested in finding out why you bring up those things.

Personally, although I'd like to paint a picture with words for my readers when I start out I find that I can easily ramble on for nearly a thousand words on a single place. To me at least it's becoming more apparent as time goes on that you should start smaller and then escalate rather than start with something grandiose and then struggle to maintain or grow even higher from there.

It varies from story to story, but like others said I tend to either start out with conflict, whether it be some sort of action or something more emotional, or a bit of worldbuilding. Before my beginnings can get a little too much exposition (no good haha), so I've been trying to get my beginning start the action/emotions sooner.