Technical Topics -- Five Pointers on Openings

Someone asked:
What should I do?  I'm sixteen.  All my openings are lame.


Whether you start writing at sixteen or sixty, the mantra is:  The first million words are for practice.

You are not unique in having trouble with openings.  It is technically difficult to write the start of a story.

The very first page of a book has to strong-arm the reader away from the checkout line at the drugstore or the kitchen table at home over a bowl of oatmeal
and into your story.

You have to make the reader care about the character before she knows much about him.
Grabbing the reader is never about something the reader knows.  It's always about how she feels.

But -- talking information here -- you also got to get across where everybody is and why,
and what it looks like,
and what's gone on,
and what just happened,
so the reader doesn't feel all-at-sea.

That's just in the first couple paragraphs.

So beginnings tend to give a writer the pip.
Even if she is not 16.

General advice
(and what is an army of suggestions without a general?)

1)  Hit the ground running.

This is sometimes expressed as 'start in the middle of action'.
But what it boils down to is -- something interesting is going on.

Not so much, Grandpa lost the ranch fifty years ago.
And more, signing the mortgage that buys the ranch at great financial risk.


Not so much, the airport and talking about take-off and checking through baggage.
But more, the protagonist, 30,000 feet over Cleveland, noticing that the cabin crew are all giant penguins.
With teeth.


2) Reveal character.

Many people believe, (well, I do,) that stories grow out of character.

So one purpose of the first scene is to reveal character.  We disclose the inner heart of our protagonist with action.

So, not so much folks explaining the protag's problems.
And more, noting that our heroine is up to her knees in dragon guts and wiping the ichor off her blade and shuddering  but even so she steps over the still-twitching dragon and heads inside the cave.

3)  Something is about to happen.

It's not just that Penelope has slain a large reptile.  It's what awaits her in the cave. 


It's not that Mary stands in the lunchline, swiping change from the backpack in front of her.  It's Gregory, turning around, catching her with her hand on his wallet.

Why?

4)  Leave questions.

Don't tell the reader all the 'why'.
Make the reader ask . . .  'why'?


5)  Keep it short

Here, if ever, be concise.  Stick to the point.  The reader will forgive discursion later, when she is immersed in the story.  Not on page one and two.