In the Beginning...
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Great Beginnings: 3 Keys
The beginning is a delicate time. Where is it I read that? Dune by Frank Herbert, I believe, or maybe in the movie version. Anyway, it happens to be true in regard to narrative. The beginning of any story is not only delicate—easy to make lackluster while just as easy to make melodramatic, manipulative, and heavy-handed—but is also the one sure opportunity the writer has to earn a reader’s interest. A scorching page two—or two through two hundred—isn’t going to do much good when someone never makes it passed your tepid first paragraph. Anyone who picks up a story to read a word is declaring their hope of being engrossed—but that magic moment may only last a page, a paragraph, or a single sentence or line.
So the question becomes how to write a story beginning that will keep the reader reading.
First off, don’t exaggerate the difficulty of the task. Writing anything that another person will find enjoyable, interesting, or provocative is a tough and complex task, granted. It does not, however, present the same difficulty as finishing an entire novel, or even of drafting a short story through to its polished best. Remember that your first sentence needs to give your reader cause to read the first paragraph; that paragraph buys you the first page; and that first page buys you the next. If you build your story with the idea in mind that everything you write is buying you another period of invested reading, you’ll quickly learn to link section to section to tell a good story. Your beginning doesn’t have to carry all the weight; it just has to carry enough weight to get to the next payoff point.
Writing a good beginning takes craftsmanship and a good deal of thought and willingness to revise, but with these things is an entirely reasonable expectation for any dedicated writer—all the more so if they have specific strategies for going about it. There are probably as many strategies for beginning a story effectively as there are writing styles, and, as always, if something that truly works for you differs from what you’ll read here, run with it. But throughout my years of reading, writing, and academic study of both, I’ve developed a three-fold theory of narrative beginnings that, I believe, covers the vast majority of great beginnings throughout story history.
I practice what I preach, as I use these techniques for every story beginning I write, as I will show you at the end of this essay. Before moving on to the specific techniques, though, I’ll offer a few additional things to keep in mind:
1) There is no clear definition of what constitutes the beginning of your story. Some readers will go through five pages or an entire chapter before deciding if the story has earned the right to more of their time; others will read a paragraph or less (and keep in mind that agents and editors are often, by necessity, this class of reader). Because of this variability, I recommend trying to incorporate as many of these three techniques for writing a good beginning as quickly as possible. I advise you never go more than a paragraph without implementingallthree; doing it in the first sentence of your text, if possible, is ideal.
2) If your story includes a prologue, be sure to use these strategies—again, I recommend as many as possible as quickly as possible while done artfully—both for the prologue and the first chapter. Some readers skip prologues; others read prologues last, while still others read them first. You need to have your bases covered. Wherever your reader may start your story, you need to have a potent beginning to pull them in and embed them in the narrative as firms and rapidly as possible.
With these tips in mind, we examine the characteristics of great story beginnings: they reveal character, incorporate conflict, and/or pose questions.
Great Story Beginnings Reveal Character
Those familiar with my essay on point of view know that I believe characterization to be story, and point of view thus becomes the primary mechanism of distinction between stories. Perhaps more importantly, we participate in storytelling to learn about and reinforce our understanding of ourselves, and we do that by seeing ourselves reflected in the characters of our stories. Characters that strike us as genuine people invite us to care. They make our stories relevant. With this understanding, it isn’t’ hard to see why beginning a story by revealing character is such a sound strategy. It attempts to give the reader a vehicle with whom to identity right away, increasing the chance that they’ll finish the ride through the rest of the story.
A good story beginning will often introduce the point of view character, not clumsily through description or telling, but through something truly revealing of their character. Idiosyncrasies are wonderful starting points for stories, so long as the oddity doesn’t stretch credibility. The sooner you give your reader a genuine feeling person to care about in the story, the more likely they are to care about the story itself. In most instances, this will mean the character interpreting and commenting on something in the story that is or will shortly lead to the central plot. Less common—and more complex—is the self-aware beginning of a character assessing herself, telling the reader who she is at the same time she confronts that understanding personally. Another tactic is giving characterization by reputation, that is, having other characters or voices comment on who or what the point of view character is. This is a risky gambit, especially when done in dialogue. Many people—including most editors—hate stories that start in dialogue. It’s on many people’s “Never To Do” list. That being said, it can be done effectively and well, especially if it persuades the reader to invest some kind of emotion in either the character speaking or, preferably, the point of view character.
The next tab will give multiple examples of these three keys in action, including revealing character, but before we go there let’s move to the next key to great beginnings.
Great Story Beginnings Introduce Conflict
I sometimes say that when the characters in a story are content the reader isn’t. One of the most effective—and easiest—ways to get a reader interested is by dropping them into a situation with a ready made problem that is, to some degree, already unfolding. This is the classic notion of en media res, or starting a story in the middle. One primary purpose of this is to make sure that there’s a rich conflict established from the moment the story picks up. If your story offers conflict in the first paragraph or first line, a reader will be far more likely to read on and see how characters handle the problem.
This technique takes all forms in narrative. Perhaps the most common comes from the suspense and thriller genres: starting with a dead body. So common is this trope that it is more likely to earn a roll of the eyes than a quick turn of the page. But conflict doesn’t have to be so obvious or so leadenlyapparent. It could be as simple as a child holding a dopey holiday sweater and refusing to look up at Grandma. Conflict, even if barely hinted at, gives the reader cause to trust that interesting things are going to happen quickly in the story, which will drastically increase the likelihood that they stick around for a few pages to see exactly what those things may be. If your beginning has nothing going for it but the fact that it poses a conflict that the reader wants to see played out a bit further, it will buy you those crucial first paragraphs and pages that can engross the reader. Especially when that conflict uses the third key to great beginnings…
Great Story Beginnings Pose Questions
A basic understanding of psychology is very helpful for any storyteller. People are interested in people, and so knowing how people work goes a long way to filling your stories with content that feels real and relevant to readers. One things universally true about people is we like to know stuff and not knowing stuff bothers us. Questions, once posed to our minds, provoke an inherant craving for answers.
As storytellers we can use this fact to quickly wrap readers up in our stories. By starting a story with a question or questions—not literally posing them to the reader using first person, per say, but knowing that the content will trigger questions in the reader’s mind—we tease them to read on to find answers to these questions. Naturally, the more provocative—within reason—and compelling the questions, the more likely a reader is to read on in search of answers. Also, the more emotionally relevant the question is to the reader, the more powerful will be the need to find an answer.
Now, like all of these techniques, posing questions at the beginning of a story can be misused so as to be counterproductive. If the reader feels that a question has been posed simply to manipulate them, or they find that the answer to the question really has nothing to do with the story at all, they’ll likely slam shut the cover—and maybe hurl the book across the room. As storytellers, we shouldn’t view the beginning of our story as some type of trick or trap we’re adorning with a piece of cheese to catch the unwary. Rather, the questions posed at the beginning of the story should be an efficient introduction to the meat and matter of the story itself. Usually, they will say something at least tangentially connected to the story’s theme. Whatever the case, there should be more to the merit of questions starting your story than simply the reader’s continued reading. The answer to the question should be pertinent to the experience of the story.
Now that the theory has been covered, let’s see some great beginnings in practice and see if we can see why they are so effective.
Examples and How They Work
By breaking down how some very effective story beginnings work, we can see that these three techniques are almost always present, and are often combined to create greater effect. Because this is my site and I can do as I please—within legal and ethical reason—we’ll start with Neil Gaiman’s beginning of American Gods:
“Shadow had done three years in prison. He was big enough and looked don’t-fuck-with-me enough that his biggest problem was killing time. So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife.”
Note how this introduction utilizes all three of the techniques we’ve covered. There is a great deal of characterization in this passage. What do we know about Shadow? While he’s clearly a big guy who is plenty scary—and is aware of this—he doesn’t take pride in it, nor does it disturb him. In fact, for a convict, there’s a measured quality to him. He is aware of his situation and, all-in-all, is handling it well. He does what other inmates do without putting a great deal of emphasis on being big and strong and mean, and instead does coin tricks, revealing a personality open to mystery, magic, and a bit of showmanship. Finally, and most important to me, this is a man who loves his wife. But not only that, he thinks about how he loves her. It is easy to imagine a man wondering about what got him thrown into prison, and what that might cost him with his marriage. There is the possibility of self-recrimination and fear of what might happen. One can even imagine that this thinking about his wife is a kind of deliberate action, a choice, a kind of maintained focus that constitutes fidelity in this unpleasant and uncommon circumstance. All in all, there’s a lot about Shadow that seems authentic, interesting, and even likable.
As for the other techniques, conflict is certainly in place. He’s in prison! What did he do to get there? What will happen when he gets out, especially with his wife? Will he get out at all? At this point we know he’s counting (or killing) time, which suggests that he’ll get out at some point, but we don’t really know that. We do know his mind and heart are outside with his wife, and so long as he is not out there, conflict is present.
Finally, note all the questions this passage poses, many tied to the conflict. What did he do to get thrown in prison? How long will he be locked up? How did his wife respond? Is she waiting for him, or does he even know?
This first paragraph from Neil Gaiman is a final example of all three techniques used effectively and subtly, without being crass or obvious. But there are plenty of others, such as The Ax by Donald Westlake:
“I’ve never actually killed anybody before, murdered another person, snuffed out another human being.”
The conflict isn’t too hard to see here. The moment you use the word “murder” a reader’s going to know things have a chance to get really bad, really quickly. How about questions? The dominant ones in my mind include, “Who is this guy, who is he thinking about killing, and why?” Pretty good reasons to read on. As for characterization, there’s a complex person behind this statement, someone who is contemplating something—even if just in theory—that is horrific. And he does seem surprised, even a little daunted, by the prospect (which the rest of the paragraph makes much clearer). However, there is also something chilling in this beginning. While the idea of murder is clearly monumental to this character, and he seem to realize the severity of the action he contemplates, I detect no recoil or self-loathing for this consideration. The character seems offput by the logistics of the act, how grave and different it is from what he has known, rather than from a sense of it being wrong. He is, as I read it, a regular kind of person who is asking himself if he could murder someone and suspects that answer just might be yes. This is horrific, because it feels genuine and could so easily get most of us to say, “He’s just thinking about it, considering, so it can’t really be that bad. Right?” Again, all three elements are put in place to make a gripping beginning, and this time in one sentence.
Now lets take a more classical turn by examining some Charles Dickens and Jane Austin from A Tale of Two Cities and Pride and Prejudice, respectively.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,we were al going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
Conflict? Um, yeah, all that stuff about “winter of despair” and “season of Darkness” and “going direct the other way” promises quite a bit of nastiness, even if it is grandiloquently stated. Questions? A plethora, most centrally what time is being referred to and how could it possibly earn such a list of extreme dichotomies. As for characterization, contrast the exaggeration of the “noisiest authorities” with the narrator, who is clearly more grounded than the overenthused authorities. You get the sense that grounding is, in large part, callousness. There is experience here, the kind that creates skepticism of both angelic highs and demonic lows. We get the sense that the speaker has witnessed some terrible and wonderful things, and we might get to as well, but perhaps at the cost of being similarly jaded.
As for Austin:
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighborhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.”
The trifecta again. Conflict in the notion of scheming families maneuvering to claim wealthy men new to the area, regardless of the intentions of said men. Questions include who just moved in, and who is hunting him. As for characterization, those who read the book know that while this passage is certainly Austin commenting on her society, is is more accurately a tuning of the reader for Miss Elizabeth Bennett, whose voice and perception live on as one of the greatest of all western characters to this day. That astute satire is pure Elizabeth. Plus, Austin uses another tactic for strong beginnings that really goes without saying: being funny is good.
Finally, just to prove that I can when it suits me, we’ll move into the chick lit genre and examine the beginning of Bridget Jones’ Diary by Helen Fielding (which birthed the genre, after all).
“I WILL NOT: Drink more than fourteen alcohol unit a week.”
Starting with your protagonist chastising herself is a very efficient way to ensure conflict. Questions are left mostly to implication, but they’re there, most centrally, why so determined to act now when she hasn’t in the past? But clearly the strongest draw in this instance is characterization. This line is so revealing, both about who this character is and who she wants to be. And we certainly do know she is a she—how many men do you know who write critical lists about themselves? That, my friends, is a genuine feminine peculiarity.
In these examples we can see how truly great beginnings utilize the three characteristics of strong beginnings to kick off wonderful stories. There are far more examples than these, and countless instances of less well constructed beginnings to study as well. To finish off this essay, I’ll outline a few of the beginnings I’ve written and explain why I crafted them the way I did. Then I’ll let you decide if they are object lessons for imitation or avoidance.
My Beginnings
I think I’ll use three story openings I’ve written to illustrate my philosophy of a three-keyed story beginning. The beginning of Green Dragon Codex is not one of the three because I have written about that extensively in my chapter annotations for chapter one and the prologue. Those who are interested are encouraged to read there. The first of the beginnings I’ll use comes from an unpublished (so far) short story I’ve written titled The Bequeathment of Jasper Grabby. (For those who may be interested, it’s about a rich old man who dies and leaves his entire fortune to the relative who agrees to take his stuffed body home and sit it on the couch with their family for perpetuity. It’s either a satire or non-fiction piece, I can’t quite tell which.) Here’s how it starts and why:
“It was undeniably the first time the Grabby clan had been all together in one room, ever; all it took to convince them to congregate was 378 million dollars.”
I really like this one. Conflict is evident, as people who clearly can’t stand each other—a family who has never been truly together before in their lives—is now gathered because of money. We know that can’t be good. There are tons of questions about where the money came from and why they’ve gathered. As for characterization, there’s a boatload, from the fact that this family hates each other and members keep their distance, to the observation that money has overridden this aversion, to the sarcastic nature of the language, which suggests that the story will not be too kind in its portrayal of these people. Even their name, Grabby, brings to mind an uncouth greed, doubly crass for its obviousness. As beginnings go, this is one of my favorites ever.
Another beginning I really like, largely because I broke the rule that you never start a story with dialogue, comes from my unpublished (for now) period suspense novel The Other Side of the Moon. It’s the story of Eddie Chesney, a wealthy obsessive-compulsive committed to a state of the art asylum in 1900 Alabama. I’m quite proud of this book and truly think it will be published some day, hopefully not too long in the future. So watch for it. Here is my rule-breaking beginning:
“Oh Edward, please stop this fuss! Go with these men and, I promise, all will finally be well.”
I think this beginning works, even though it is dialogue, because it obeys my three keys. It starts with conflict in the form of an argument between two people. We aren’t sure who they are, but we know they aren’t getting along on this issue of going somewhere, and haven’t been getting along for quite a while, to judge by “all will finally be well.” There are loads of questions about who is talking, who exactly is Edward, and where he may be going and why. As for characterization, there is a notion of long-suffering here. We wonder what the relationship is between these people, and get the feeling that it is perhaps family; certainly it is formal. The speaker calls Edward by his full name, which implies either great formality or exasperation. In this case, both are correct. That frustration with someone close to us is something we can all identify with, and, I believe, gives enough authenticity for the reader to want to read the next line.
Finally, the beginning of my longest work, my 350,000 period Greek epic, Beyond the Marble. This is the story of an Athenian penkrationist who struggles to preserve his marriage and family from the strains of fame and duty as the age of the polis, the powerful city-states of Greece, comes to an end with the rise of Macedon and Alexander the Great. All but a few chapters are written in first person, and so I had to get to know my protagonist, Aeson, and his voice very well. It was very important to me that this come through in the beginning of the story, and what I came up with is as follows:
“At one time or another, in those moments of waxing ego and waning sense, every man wishes to stand amongst the gods. Trust me, it’s not as grand as you imagine.”
The scope of this novel is suggested by this line, the notion of a man who rises to nearly deific status—and finds anything but contentment at that height. This is a conflict dealing with success and happiness, and really about a man vs himself. One questions many things after reading this passage, most notably how did this person rise to such stature and why he found it lacking, but much is revealed as well. The conflict and the characterization given in this passage are often the same. We get the sense that this man is jaded in a way, disillusioned, but not to the point of being bitter. He speaks of the desires of every man, as if he considers himself an ordinary man, yet carelessly denigrates the adulation of standing amongst gods, as if even this is not enough to impress him. He speaks of waxing ego and waning sense the way only someone of rare self-realization would, but his claim of status suggests that he is possessed of a strong ego not totally conquered. And yes, he does speak, directly to the reader. The book is set up with a first person present tense prologue and epilogue that bookend the narrative, allowing Aeson to tell his own story. The form, one quickly realizes, is that of an old man returned to Olympia one last time to see his Olympic statue, his immortality in stone, and in a crowd oblivious to a man they would once have worshipped, literally tells his life’s story to the one person who will listen: the reader.
I am proud of these beginnings and of the stories that follow them. I feel these brief lines, in each instance, give the reader ample reason to read on, which is the burden of any story beginning. But then, I feel similar if not identical satisfaction with every story beginning I write, because I believe in these three keys. I feel that any beginning that includes conflict, poses questions, and reveals character, even subtly or modestly, is a passage of which I can be proud. I also believe it is an experience a reader will enjoy enough to keep reading. There are certainly no promises in narrative. What is relevant, even poignant, to me, may be unimportant to others. But for those willing to write without impossible guarantees of success, I recommend these three strategies for writing fine story beginnings, and truly believe that the results will be as confidence generating for you as my experiences have been and continue to be.
The beginning is a delicate time. Where is it I read that? Dune by Frank Herbert, I believe, or maybe in the movie version. Anyway, it happens to be true in regard to narrative. The beginning of any story is not only delicate—easy to make lackluster while just as easy to make melodramatic, manipulative, and heavy-handed—but is also the one sure opportunity the writer has to earn a reader’s interest. A scorching page two—or two through two hundred—isn’t going to do much good when someone never makes it passed your tepid first paragraph. Anyone who picks up a story to read a word is declaring their hope of being engrossed—but that magic moment may only last a page, a paragraph, or a single sentence or line.
So the question becomes how to write a story beginning that will keep the reader reading.
First off, don’t exaggerate the difficulty of the task. Writing anything that another person will find enjoyable, interesting, or provocative is a tough and complex task, granted. It does not, however, present the same difficulty as finishing an entire novel, or even of drafting a short story through to its polished best. Remember that your first sentence needs to give your reader cause to read the first paragraph; that paragraph buys you the first page; and that first page buys you the next. If you build your story with the idea in mind that everything you write is buying you another period of invested reading, you’ll quickly learn to link section to section to tell a good story. Your beginning doesn’t have to carry all the weight; it just has to carry enough weight to get to the next payoff point.
Writing a good beginning takes craftsmanship and a good deal of thought and willingness to revise, but with these things is an entirely reasonable expectation for any dedicated writer—all the more so if they have specific strategies for going about it. There are probably as many strategies for beginning a story effectively as there are writing styles, and, as always, if something that truly works for you differs from what you’ll read here, run with it. But throughout my years of reading, writing, and academic study of both, I’ve developed a three-fold theory of narrative beginnings that, I believe, covers the vast majority of great beginnings throughout story history.
I practice what I preach, as I use these techniques for every story beginning I write, as I will show you at the end of this essay. Before moving on to the specific techniques, though, I’ll offer a few additional things to keep in mind:
1) There is no clear definition of what constitutes the beginning of your story. Some readers will go through five pages or an entire chapter before deciding if the story has earned the right to more of their time; others will read a paragraph or less (and keep in mind that agents and editors are often, by necessity, this class of reader). Because of this variability, I recommend trying to incorporate as many of these three techniques for writing a good beginning as quickly as possible. I advise you never go more than a paragraph without implementingallthree; doing it in the first sentence of your text, if possible, is ideal.
2) If your story includes a prologue, be sure to use these strategies—again, I recommend as many as possible as quickly as possible while done artfully—both for the prologue and the first chapter. Some readers skip prologues; others read prologues last, while still others read them first. You need to have your bases covered. Wherever your reader may start your story, you need to have a potent beginning to pull them in and embed them in the narrative as firms and rapidly as possible.
With these tips in mind, we examine the characteristics of great story beginnings: they reveal character, incorporate conflict, and/or pose questions.
Great Story Beginnings Reveal Character
Those familiar with my essay on point of view know that I believe characterization to be story, and point of view thus becomes the primary mechanism of distinction between stories. Perhaps more importantly, we participate in storytelling to learn about and reinforce our understanding of ourselves, and we do that by seeing ourselves reflected in the characters of our stories. Characters that strike us as genuine people invite us to care. They make our stories relevant. With this understanding, it isn’t’ hard to see why beginning a story by revealing character is such a sound strategy. It attempts to give the reader a vehicle with whom to identity right away, increasing the chance that they’ll finish the ride through the rest of the story.
A good story beginning will often introduce the point of view character, not clumsily through description or telling, but through something truly revealing of their character. Idiosyncrasies are wonderful starting points for stories, so long as the oddity doesn’t stretch credibility. The sooner you give your reader a genuine feeling person to care about in the story, the more likely they are to care about the story itself. In most instances, this will mean the character interpreting and commenting on something in the story that is or will shortly lead to the central plot. Less common—and more complex—is the self-aware beginning of a character assessing herself, telling the reader who she is at the same time she confronts that understanding personally. Another tactic is giving characterization by reputation, that is, having other characters or voices comment on who or what the point of view character is. This is a risky gambit, especially when done in dialogue. Many people—including most editors—hate stories that start in dialogue. It’s on many people’s “Never To Do” list. That being said, it can be done effectively and well, especially if it persuades the reader to invest some kind of emotion in either the character speaking or, preferably, the point of view character.
The next tab will give multiple examples of these three keys in action, including revealing character, but before we go there let’s move to the next key to great beginnings.
Great Story Beginnings Introduce Conflict
I sometimes say that when the characters in a story are content the reader isn’t. One of the most effective—and easiest—ways to get a reader interested is by dropping them into a situation with a ready made problem that is, to some degree, already unfolding. This is the classic notion of en media res, or starting a story in the middle. One primary purpose of this is to make sure that there’s a rich conflict established from the moment the story picks up. If your story offers conflict in the first paragraph or first line, a reader will be far more likely to read on and see how characters handle the problem.
This technique takes all forms in narrative. Perhaps the most common comes from the suspense and thriller genres: starting with a dead body. So common is this trope that it is more likely to earn a roll of the eyes than a quick turn of the page. But conflict doesn’t have to be so obvious or so leadenlyapparent. It could be as simple as a child holding a dopey holiday sweater and refusing to look up at Grandma. Conflict, even if barely hinted at, gives the reader cause to trust that interesting things are going to happen quickly in the story, which will drastically increase the likelihood that they stick around for a few pages to see exactly what those things may be. If your beginning has nothing going for it but the fact that it poses a conflict that the reader wants to see played out a bit further, it will buy you those crucial first paragraphs and pages that can engross the reader. Especially when that conflict uses the third key to great beginnings…
Great Story Beginnings Pose Questions
A basic understanding of psychology is very helpful for any storyteller. People are interested in people, and so knowing how people work goes a long way to filling your stories with content that feels real and relevant to readers. One things universally true about people is we like to know stuff and not knowing stuff bothers us. Questions, once posed to our minds, provoke an inherant craving for answers.
As storytellers we can use this fact to quickly wrap readers up in our stories. By starting a story with a question or questions—not literally posing them to the reader using first person, per say, but knowing that the content will trigger questions in the reader’s mind—we tease them to read on to find answers to these questions. Naturally, the more provocative—within reason—and compelling the questions, the more likely a reader is to read on in search of answers. Also, the more emotionally relevant the question is to the reader, the more powerful will be the need to find an answer.
Now, like all of these techniques, posing questions at the beginning of a story can be misused so as to be counterproductive. If the reader feels that a question has been posed simply to manipulate them, or they find that the answer to the question really has nothing to do with the story at all, they’ll likely slam shut the cover—and maybe hurl the book across the room. As storytellers, we shouldn’t view the beginning of our story as some type of trick or trap we’re adorning with a piece of cheese to catch the unwary. Rather, the questions posed at the beginning of the story should be an efficient introduction to the meat and matter of the story itself. Usually, they will say something at least tangentially connected to the story’s theme. Whatever the case, there should be more to the merit of questions starting your story than simply the reader’s continued reading. The answer to the question should be pertinent to the experience of the story.
Now that the theory has been covered, let’s see some great beginnings in practice and see if we can see why they are so effective.
Examples and How They Work
By breaking down how some very effective story beginnings work, we can see that these three techniques are almost always present, and are often combined to create greater effect. Because this is my site and I can do as I please—within legal and ethical reason—we’ll start with Neil Gaiman’s beginning of American Gods:
“Shadow had done three years in prison. He was big enough and looked don’t-fuck-with-me enough that his biggest problem was killing time. So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife.”
Note how this introduction utilizes all three of the techniques we’ve covered. There is a great deal of characterization in this passage. What do we know about Shadow? While he’s clearly a big guy who is plenty scary—and is aware of this—he doesn’t take pride in it, nor does it disturb him. In fact, for a convict, there’s a measured quality to him. He is aware of his situation and, all-in-all, is handling it well. He does what other inmates do without putting a great deal of emphasis on being big and strong and mean, and instead does coin tricks, revealing a personality open to mystery, magic, and a bit of showmanship. Finally, and most important to me, this is a man who loves his wife. But not only that, he thinks about how he loves her. It is easy to imagine a man wondering about what got him thrown into prison, and what that might cost him with his marriage. There is the possibility of self-recrimination and fear of what might happen. One can even imagine that this thinking about his wife is a kind of deliberate action, a choice, a kind of maintained focus that constitutes fidelity in this unpleasant and uncommon circumstance. All in all, there’s a lot about Shadow that seems authentic, interesting, and even likable.
As for the other techniques, conflict is certainly in place. He’s in prison! What did he do to get there? What will happen when he gets out, especially with his wife? Will he get out at all? At this point we know he’s counting (or killing) time, which suggests that he’ll get out at some point, but we don’t really know that. We do know his mind and heart are outside with his wife, and so long as he is not out there, conflict is present.
Finally, note all the questions this passage poses, many tied to the conflict. What did he do to get thrown in prison? How long will he be locked up? How did his wife respond? Is she waiting for him, or does he even know?
This first paragraph from Neil Gaiman is a final example of all three techniques used effectively and subtly, without being crass or obvious. But there are plenty of others, such as The Ax by Donald Westlake:
“I’ve never actually killed anybody before, murdered another person, snuffed out another human being.”
The conflict isn’t too hard to see here. The moment you use the word “murder” a reader’s going to know things have a chance to get really bad, really quickly. How about questions? The dominant ones in my mind include, “Who is this guy, who is he thinking about killing, and why?” Pretty good reasons to read on. As for characterization, there’s a complex person behind this statement, someone who is contemplating something—even if just in theory—that is horrific. And he does seem surprised, even a little daunted, by the prospect (which the rest of the paragraph makes much clearer). However, there is also something chilling in this beginning. While the idea of murder is clearly monumental to this character, and he seem to realize the severity of the action he contemplates, I detect no recoil or self-loathing for this consideration. The character seems offput by the logistics of the act, how grave and different it is from what he has known, rather than from a sense of it being wrong. He is, as I read it, a regular kind of person who is asking himself if he could murder someone and suspects that answer just might be yes. This is horrific, because it feels genuine and could so easily get most of us to say, “He’s just thinking about it, considering, so it can’t really be that bad. Right?” Again, all three elements are put in place to make a gripping beginning, and this time in one sentence.
Now lets take a more classical turn by examining some Charles Dickens and Jane Austin from A Tale of Two Cities and Pride and Prejudice, respectively.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,we were al going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
Conflict? Um, yeah, all that stuff about “winter of despair” and “season of Darkness” and “going direct the other way” promises quite a bit of nastiness, even if it is grandiloquently stated. Questions? A plethora, most centrally what time is being referred to and how could it possibly earn such a list of extreme dichotomies. As for characterization, contrast the exaggeration of the “noisiest authorities” with the narrator, who is clearly more grounded than the overenthused authorities. You get the sense that grounding is, in large part, callousness. There is experience here, the kind that creates skepticism of both angelic highs and demonic lows. We get the sense that the speaker has witnessed some terrible and wonderful things, and we might get to as well, but perhaps at the cost of being similarly jaded.
As for Austin:
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighborhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.”
The trifecta again. Conflict in the notion of scheming families maneuvering to claim wealthy men new to the area, regardless of the intentions of said men. Questions include who just moved in, and who is hunting him. As for characterization, those who read the book know that while this passage is certainly Austin commenting on her society, is is more accurately a tuning of the reader for Miss Elizabeth Bennett, whose voice and perception live on as one of the greatest of all western characters to this day. That astute satire is pure Elizabeth. Plus, Austin uses another tactic for strong beginnings that really goes without saying: being funny is good.
Finally, just to prove that I can when it suits me, we’ll move into the chick lit genre and examine the beginning of Bridget Jones’ Diary by Helen Fielding (which birthed the genre, after all).
“I WILL NOT: Drink more than fourteen alcohol unit a week.”
Starting with your protagonist chastising herself is a very efficient way to ensure conflict. Questions are left mostly to implication, but they’re there, most centrally, why so determined to act now when she hasn’t in the past? But clearly the strongest draw in this instance is characterization. This line is so revealing, both about who this character is and who she wants to be. And we certainly do know she is a she—how many men do you know who write critical lists about themselves? That, my friends, is a genuine feminine peculiarity.
In these examples we can see how truly great beginnings utilize the three characteristics of strong beginnings to kick off wonderful stories. There are far more examples than these, and countless instances of less well constructed beginnings to study as well. To finish off this essay, I’ll outline a few of the beginnings I’ve written and explain why I crafted them the way I did. Then I’ll let you decide if they are object lessons for imitation or avoidance.
My Beginnings
I think I’ll use three story openings I’ve written to illustrate my philosophy of a three-keyed story beginning. The beginning of Green Dragon Codex is not one of the three because I have written about that extensively in my chapter annotations for chapter one and the prologue. Those who are interested are encouraged to read there. The first of the beginnings I’ll use comes from an unpublished (so far) short story I’ve written titled The Bequeathment of Jasper Grabby. (For those who may be interested, it’s about a rich old man who dies and leaves his entire fortune to the relative who agrees to take his stuffed body home and sit it on the couch with their family for perpetuity. It’s either a satire or non-fiction piece, I can’t quite tell which.) Here’s how it starts and why:
“It was undeniably the first time the Grabby clan had been all together in one room, ever; all it took to convince them to congregate was 378 million dollars.”
I really like this one. Conflict is evident, as people who clearly can’t stand each other—a family who has never been truly together before in their lives—is now gathered because of money. We know that can’t be good. There are tons of questions about where the money came from and why they’ve gathered. As for characterization, there’s a boatload, from the fact that this family hates each other and members keep their distance, to the observation that money has overridden this aversion, to the sarcastic nature of the language, which suggests that the story will not be too kind in its portrayal of these people. Even their name, Grabby, brings to mind an uncouth greed, doubly crass for its obviousness. As beginnings go, this is one of my favorites ever.
Another beginning I really like, largely because I broke the rule that you never start a story with dialogue, comes from my unpublished (for now) period suspense novel The Other Side of the Moon. It’s the story of Eddie Chesney, a wealthy obsessive-compulsive committed to a state of the art asylum in 1900 Alabama. I’m quite proud of this book and truly think it will be published some day, hopefully not too long in the future. So watch for it. Here is my rule-breaking beginning:
“Oh Edward, please stop this fuss! Go with these men and, I promise, all will finally be well.”
I think this beginning works, even though it is dialogue, because it obeys my three keys. It starts with conflict in the form of an argument between two people. We aren’t sure who they are, but we know they aren’t getting along on this issue of going somewhere, and haven’t been getting along for quite a while, to judge by “all will finally be well.” There are loads of questions about who is talking, who exactly is Edward, and where he may be going and why. As for characterization, there is a notion of long-suffering here. We wonder what the relationship is between these people, and get the feeling that it is perhaps family; certainly it is formal. The speaker calls Edward by his full name, which implies either great formality or exasperation. In this case, both are correct. That frustration with someone close to us is something we can all identify with, and, I believe, gives enough authenticity for the reader to want to read the next line.
Finally, the beginning of my longest work, my 350,000 period Greek epic, Beyond the Marble. This is the story of an Athenian penkrationist who struggles to preserve his marriage and family from the strains of fame and duty as the age of the polis, the powerful city-states of Greece, comes to an end with the rise of Macedon and Alexander the Great. All but a few chapters are written in first person, and so I had to get to know my protagonist, Aeson, and his voice very well. It was very important to me that this come through in the beginning of the story, and what I came up with is as follows:
“At one time or another, in those moments of waxing ego and waning sense, every man wishes to stand amongst the gods. Trust me, it’s not as grand as you imagine.”
The scope of this novel is suggested by this line, the notion of a man who rises to nearly deific status—and finds anything but contentment at that height. This is a conflict dealing with success and happiness, and really about a man vs himself. One questions many things after reading this passage, most notably how did this person rise to such stature and why he found it lacking, but much is revealed as well. The conflict and the characterization given in this passage are often the same. We get the sense that this man is jaded in a way, disillusioned, but not to the point of being bitter. He speaks of the desires of every man, as if he considers himself an ordinary man, yet carelessly denigrates the adulation of standing amongst gods, as if even this is not enough to impress him. He speaks of waxing ego and waning sense the way only someone of rare self-realization would, but his claim of status suggests that he is possessed of a strong ego not totally conquered. And yes, he does speak, directly to the reader. The book is set up with a first person present tense prologue and epilogue that bookend the narrative, allowing Aeson to tell his own story. The form, one quickly realizes, is that of an old man returned to Olympia one last time to see his Olympic statue, his immortality in stone, and in a crowd oblivious to a man they would once have worshipped, literally tells his life’s story to the one person who will listen: the reader.
I am proud of these beginnings and of the stories that follow them. I feel these brief lines, in each instance, give the reader ample reason to read on, which is the burden of any story beginning. But then, I feel similar if not identical satisfaction with every story beginning I write, because I believe in these three keys. I feel that any beginning that includes conflict, poses questions, and reveals character, even subtly or modestly, is a passage of which I can be proud. I also believe it is an experience a reader will enjoy enough to keep reading. There are certainly no promises in narrative. What is relevant, even poignant, to me, may be unimportant to others. But for those willing to write without impossible guarantees of success, I recommend these three strategies for writing fine story beginnings, and truly believe that the results will be as confidence generating for you as my experiences have been and continue to be.
