What's the worst way to begin a story?

Massive info dump about everything that's ever happened in the character's life. I prefer beginnings that jump straight into the action.

Introducing a character, letting us get to know them and liking them... and then killing them off.

"What, you mean you actually thought that was this book's protagonist? No, here's the real guy."

Annoying.

A lot of rambling descriptions that dont even end up mattering!

True said:

For instance, I think the "Hi, my name is..." beginnings are quite annoying and usually turn me off from reading a book. You?

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Those type of beginnings tend to be bad, but I absolutely loved it in "The Lovely Bones".

"My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered."

Dream sequence can be a bother. A lot of people don't do it right, and they are frowned upon. Also, would prologues count?

Geek_Pride said:

Those type of beginnings tend to be bad, but I absolutely loved it in "The Lovely Bones".

"My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered."

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It has to be done right. Yeah, that sounds stupid, but there's a time and a place where a story should start like that. A story like The Lovely Bones is appropriate.

cryaegm said:

It has to be done right. Yeah, that sounds stupid, but there's a time and a place where a story should start like that. A story like The Lovely Bones is appropriate.

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It's a bit annoying in some things, but I didn't mind it in Animorphs as it just is so... I'm fumbling for a word now, but just the whole "My name is Jake/Rachel/Tobias/Cassie/Marco/Ax" is now an instant happy snap-back for me regarding that series.

a dream sequence prologue told in second person present and from the POV of a weather balloon.

Oh, I hate a dream sequence at the beginning of a book. Actually, anywhere in a book. I'm of the philosophy that there's nothing more boring than listening to someone talk about a dream they had. It's like listening to a story without a plot or a punchline -- and knowing it doesn't matter at all. I usually skim them.

As for the first names in the introductory paragraph, I've never minded them at all. But last year at RWA, I participated in an editor workshop where they read first pages to the crowd and then critiqued them. One of the editors went through the whole pile and pulled out a big stack, then proceeded to read the first line of every one to the crowd. Each one she'd pulled started with one of those introductory sentences. They went on to bash this kind of opening. It was kind of brutal (and I was feeling for the people whose pages were in that pile!), but the point was made.

shaldna said:

a dream sequence prologue told in second person present and from the POV of a weather balloon.

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*deletes current WIP before anyone notices*

Anything that doesn't have to do with the plot. Taking the first paragraph to describe the character's appearance/personality also irks me.

Quite a few of these have already been mentioned --

- Info-dump
- Dream sequence
- Situations that seem manipulated to hook us in:
- The "too much" of a hook. I hate the books that have first lines engineered to hook you in. Like in SUCH A PRETTY GIRL: "They promised me five years of safety but only gave me three. Today my time has run out." It's hard for me to describe, but it does bug me.
- Fake-out (i.e. the character thinks they're being followed/watched, but it turns out to be something else.)
- The fake-out protaganist. Or we start off from the POV of a character who dies a horrible fate and then doesn't become important until halfway through the book, or at all.
- The jump cut to a "more interesting" time, i.e. in "Twilight" how we start off with Bella v. James when it takes 300 pages to get there. It's kind of a sign that it's going to be a sloooow book. So slow that they have to take you forward 300 pages to interest you.

Some of these don't bother me as much as others. Like the overly-engineered hook -- I really don't care about it if the book that follows is kickass. But the jump-cut to past/future bugs me a lot.

One thing that DOESN'T bug me that always seems to show up on the things you must never never do -- start with the character waking up. I don't mind that at all. And I don't get all the hate for it, really.

The_Ink_Goddess said:

Quite a few of these have already been mentioned --

- Info-dump
- Dream sequence
- Situations that seem manipulated to hook us in:
- The "too much" of a hook. I hate the books that have first lines engineered to hook you in. Like in SUCH A PRETTY GIRL: "They promised me five years of safety but only gave me three. Today my time has run out." It's hard for me to describe, but it does bug me.
- Fake-out (i.e. the character thinks they're being followed/watched, but it turns out to be something else.)
- The fake-out protaganist. Or we start off from the POV of a character who dies a horrible fate and then doesn't become important until halfway through the book, or at all.
- The jump cut to a "more interesting" time, i.e. in "Twilight" how we start off with Bella v. James when it takes 300 pages to get there. It's kind of a sign that it's going to be a sloooow book. So slow that they have to take you forward 300 pages to interest you.

Some of these don't bother me as much as others. Like the overly-engineered hook -- I really don't care about it if the book that follows is kickass. But the jump-cut to past/future bugs me a lot.

One thing that DOESN'T bug me that always seems to show up on the things you must never never do -- start with the character waking up. I don't mind that at all. And I don't get all the hate for it, really.

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Wow, you got all of em, in my opinion. I especially hate the "more interesting" time thing. It drives me crazy.

The_Ink_Goddess said:

- The "too much" of a hook. I hate the books that have first lines engineered to hook you in. Like in SUCH A PRETTY GIRL: "They promised me five years of safety but only gave me three. Today my time has run out." It's hard for me to describe, but it does bug me.
- Fake-out (i.e. the character thinks they're being followed/watched, but it turns out to be something else.)

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I really can't stand either of these. It's blatantly manipulative and, because it comes right at the beginning of the novel, carries no emotional weight whatsoever. I've actually stopped reading because because an author tried to hard with one of these only for it to fall flat.

BrigidMary23 said:

As for the first names in the introductory paragraph, I've never minded them at all. But last year at RWA, I participated in an editor workshop where they read first pages to the crowd and then critiqued them. One of the editors went through the whole pile and pulled out a big stack, then proceeded to read the first line of every one to the crowd. Each one she'd pulled started with one of those introductory sentences. They went on to bash this kind of opening. It was kind of brutal (and I was feeling for the people whose pages were in that pile!), but the point was made.

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Wait, sorry, did you mean that the editors didn't like, "Hi, my name is Kate and I raise radioactive goats in my backyard" or that they don't like using the name at all in the first paragraph?

Also, I hate melodrama right off the bat. Maybe I'm just cold, but unless it's incredibly well done, I don't like listening to a character I know nothing about crying over his/her dead mom. I guess I just feel like I'm being manipulated, or because this is so different from my life, it's hard to get in at that point.

I usually don't like it when they start with the strange/magical/sad/horrible/fill-in-the-blank circumstances of the MC's birth.

I hate books that start with a character staring out a car window. Especially if it's raining.

BrigidMary23 said:

I'm of the philosophy that there's nothing more boring than listening to someone talk about a dream they had. It's like listening to a story without a plot or a punchline -- and knowing it doesn't matter at all. I usually skim them.

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TOTALLY.

Dreams, mirrors and prophecies.

*worries* Is someone being told off class for surreptitiously receiving a text and reading it a bad way to start?

I do have a dream, but it doesn't start the story. And it's just a description of a place, really. Do I have to line up against the wall so I can be shot now?

No, I have a dream too. But it's 3/4 of the way through, and nothing twilight-y.

As for your start, sounds fine.

Sage said:

So it's really amusing to take this thread and consider what things are okay to start a story with.

Not:

- a formal introduction to the MC
- description
- action (might be considered too falsely hooky--does suspense go here too?)
- angst
- infodump
- the past
- the future
- dreams
- another character

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I think this shows how subjective books are, though. I hate formal introductions, don't like descriptions, love action/suspense as long as it has a sensible place in the MS at that time (i.e. H. Moskowitz's AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME opening for "Break" is all action, but there isn't a better way to open it), past/future works in some books (e.g. Chuck Palahnuik's oh god I love his writing but I can't spell his name "Fight Club", "Lullaby"), dreams can work and another character...is something I hate. Unless it has its place for a twist or something. Angst doesn't bother me at all.

For example, books where this stuff works --

- Introduction to the MC: it's only a snippet of a book that I don't even know if it was finished, but I'm still in love with Hannah Moskowitz's:
"Let's get the names out of the way first. Mine is Body Count Beatrice." That's an example of the much-maligned "name" beginning, and I guess an infodump would be PUSH by Sapphire.

- Description: SLEEPING DOGS by Sonya Hartnett. HOLES by Louis Sachar.

- Action/suspense: SOPHIE by Guy Burt. WHAT HAPPENED TO CASS MCBRIDE? by Gail Giles.

- Angst: This is one that personally doesn't bother me at all, but I don't tend to like the staring-out-of-windows one. LESSONS FROM A DEAD GIRL by Jo Knowles. ELSEWHERE by Gabrielle Zevin. Lotsa lotsa YA books.

- The past: MERCY by Jodi Picoult

- The future: SPECIAL TOPICS IN CALAMITY PHYSICS by Marisha Pessl

- Dreams: REBECCA by Daphne du Maurier, for heaven's sake

- Another character: THE RAG AND BONE SHOP by Robert Cormier.

Anyway. My point, made in a very long and roundabout way, is that you can make ANYTHING work. We just see a thread like this and think about all the examples of stuff like that that we don't like.

There are good and bad ways to do everything.

For instance, as Beth mentioned, Rebecca starts with a dream, and it's done really well.

Eclipse also starts with a dream. and it's not so great.

the same goes for anything else, from phrophecies to mirrors to death/birth etc.