Craft an Engaging Beginning: Three Strategies to Kickstart Your Story

How do you get to that point of starting up your story? You've been staring at the paper or blank screen for days and you've still got nada. Try not to get anxious; it will come, and there are strategies for working through it. Here are a few tips for getting yourself started up.

1. Your Opening Sentence

Write your opening sentence. It could be, "The cat sat on the mat." Or even, "Once upon a time."

And after the cat sat on the mat? Perhaps the dog came in and the cat ran away. Or put up a fight. Now... replace the cat with a man or a woman. Add a description. Put someone in your favourite colour and outfit. Cat, man, woman, it doesn't matter who at this stage. You will be able to improve or amend all these elements of your story later on.

"She sat at the bar, sipping a glass of champagne."

What's she wearing? What's happening around her? Other people she can see? Smells, sounds, colours? What does the champagne she's drinking taste like? Does it remind her of anything?

This doesn't have to be your actual story: it's just to kick start things. At this point you may be already structuring a plot in your mind for the overall tale. So you could have something like this:

Keep your ideas simple and you'll find that your imagination will add the extra bells and whistles.

Chapter One: Everyday routine activity; shocking outcome: A woman leaves her home, goes shopping and is caught in a robbery. Your chapter ending and hook: one of the robbers points his gun at her.

Chapter Two: She's shot, taken to hospital and is told the seriousness of her injuries: Hook: The doctor tells her she may never walk again.

Chapter Three: She returns home and tries to return to normality. Hook: she meets an intriguing new neighbour who she believes has a secret connected to the robbery.

And so on. This is the basic vanilla idea, but of course your writer’s mind is already spinning off into numerous strands of creativity that would make it much better. Don't be afraid of writing any old words or descriptions; you're going to change them anyway. Many times.

Keep your ideas simple and you'll find that your imagination will add the extra bells and whistles. Trust it and in no time you'll be on your way to starting your story.