How To Start A Story

I'm going to talk to you about starting a story. If you want to stimulate the reader's imagination, you've got to give them something to work on. Try working on their senses.

And let's start with the sense of sight. I'm going to quote from a Sherlock Holmes novel by Conan Doyle. “Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece and his hypodermic syringe from its neat Morocco case.

With his long, white, nervous fingers, he adjusted the delicate needle and rolled back his left shirt cuff”. Okay, Sherlock is about to give himself a seven percent solution of cocaine, and it's quite graphically described. So you're in the room with him; that's a pretty effective opening, I would say.

There are other ways of appealing to the senses. You can appeal to all of them, touch and smell as well. And what's one of the best ways of doing that, appealing to all the senses? Describe the weather.

First, Lorri Moore, the American author, “The cold came late that fall, and the songbirds were caught off guard. By the time the snow and wind began in earnest, too many had been suckered into staying and instead of already having flown south, they were huddled in people's yards, their feathers puffed for some modicum of warmth. I was looking for a job”.

 That gives you the physical description, the feeling of the cold, and then it introduces the person and their predicament. Quite an effective contrast. That's what you're trying to do at the beginning of a story, is to draw the reader in to your world.

Writing expert Rupert Morris gives literary examples that will help authors to stimulate readers' senses and draw them in at the beginning of a story.