Here’s some thoughts on starting stories.
The cardinal rule is to include most of
the individual elements that make up the story. An opening paragraph should
have a distinctive voice, a point of view, a rudimentary plot and some hint of
characterisation.
You might be tempted to begin your
narrative before the action starts but far better to begin at the first moment
of something interesting happening, which is more likely to grab the reader‘s
interest.
If you feel compelled to begin a story
with dialogue, keep in mind that you’re thrusting your readers directly into a
story in which it’s easy to lose them early on. So keep the dialogue to a
minimum. One way around this is to begin with a single line of dialogue then offer
some context before proceeding with the rest of the conversation.
John Dean
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