I can't figure out how to start my story off in an interesting way.

Start it in an uninteresting way. Then kill the first 3 chapters when you do your first edit.

How is it uninteresting? You haven't given us any details about your story.

ETA: I took a quick look at your most recent story in SYW. In that one, you do start somewhere interesting, but you're using a lot of telling where showing would be more effective, and there's a lot of distance between the reader and the character. Look up tips on how to get closer to your characters.

In what I read, I also noticed that we get very little sense of your character. Again, a result of this distant style of storytelling.

xYinxx said:

Yeah..it's just hard. u.u

Click to expand...

That's too bad.

Are you planning to do anything about it?

1. Pick up your plot thread at the beginning.

2. Follow it until something interesting happens.

3. Start writing.

Since you provided no context here, and I'm too lazy to click through to another thread, that's about the only advice I can give... except to reiterate what MookyMcD said: you can start in a boring place in the rough draft if that's what gets the ball rolling for you, then lop off the dull bits in revisions.

MookyMcD said:

Start it in an uninteresting way. Then kill the first 3 chapters when you do your first edit.

Click to expand...

Been there. Done that. Totally works.

Someone told me once to think of it like a party. Come in to it as late as possible when everyone is already plastered and committing dumb acts. After the first couple shots .......
Study the first pages of books you or the SYW thread here and see how other authors tackle it.
Nina is not advocating underage drinking.

MookyMcD said:

Start it in an uninteresting way. Then kill the first 3 chapters when you do your first edit.

Click to expand...

Alternatively, find out what the most exciting, crucial part of the story is, start right in the middle of that, and build the story around it.

Also, read a lot of stories and pay attention to good beginnings and what makes them tick, why they grab your attention. Then try one of those approaches with your own story.

MookyMcD said:

Start it in an uninteresting way. Then kill the first 3 chapters when you do your first edit.

Click to expand...

Agreed. Don't use it as an excuse to avoid writing. I've changed the beginning four or five times on my wip, and I'm at chapter 37.

I remember reading somewhere that you're supposed to start a story in the same place you'd pick up a puppy--a little in front of the middle.

A common beginner mistake is to start with lots and lots of backstory, or to spend chapters establishing the character's normality. While these approaches can work, most often, you want to start the story with whatever it is that disrupts the protagonist's life and launches him or her into the story arc.

Kylabelle said:

Also, read a lot of stories and pay attention to good beginnings and what makes them tick, why they grab your attention. Then try one of those approaches with your own story.

Click to expand...

^
I like this.

Also, a great piece of advice I got, from this board actually, was that your story problem should be present (in some form) from word 1. If you examine those good beginnings (as suggested above) I expect you'll see that either obviously or suggested, the story problem makes itself known.

I really struggle with this, too. This is one place where my beta readers have really helped me. Somehow they seem to be able to put their fingers on where my story really begins, despite a couple of chapters of jabbering up front!

I've also tried grabbing 10 YA novels (since that's what I write) from the bookshelf and reading the first page in all of them. It sparks ideas, at least.

I read a Writer's Digest article on it earlier. It may give you some ideas.

http://www.writersdigest.com/online...ne-for-your-novel?et_mid=655685&rid=239081016

Queen of Swords said:

That's too bad.

Are you planning to do anything about it?

Click to expand...

I have a filthy mind.

I like to start in the middle of the action, but that can get old and tired. Coming up with a way to intrigue the reader about a character and what is happening to them can be interesting. Also, don't give too much back story. I like to discover these things later on. You could even start it with a statement and then go from there (perhaps explore this one with first person POV).

And, well...think about what would strike your interest when you read a book. What is it that grips you from the beginning that makes you want to keep reading? These are all good things to consider when beginning a story.

bookworm92 said:

I read a Writer's Digest article on it earlier. It may give you some ideas.

http://www.writersdigest.com/online...ne-for-your-novel?et_mid=655685&rid=239081016

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. It lists a number of extremely effective opening lines of classic works. By the way, in most of these openings, the author tells us something.

If you are fortunate enough to come up with something half as good, don't be led astray by a friend who gives you the old knee-jerk "show-don't-tell" advice. The first line of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I'm glad there wasn't a writing-school expert telling him, "Don't tell us, Leo! SHOW us!"

Telling can be very effective in the right places.

Just keep writing.
Don't care about whether it is interesting or not interesting.
After you finish your first draft of your novel, then begin to edit and brainstorm ways to make the story interesting.

Opening scenes/paragraphs often end up being edited or even cut entirely when you come to revise your story (lots of people start in the wrong place, put too much exposition etc because it's their way of working out the back story in their own heads), so it's not worth worrying about too much at the beginning, especially if worrying about it is stopping you getting on with the rest of the story.

Roxxsmom said:

I remember reading somewhere that you're supposed to start a story in the same place you'd pick up a puppy--a little in front of the middle.

Click to expand...

This is the most adorable writing advice I've ever heard.

As for the actual question - read openings, think about your own story and where it gets good, and write your best guess and hack off the rest later.

We've all been there.

I think the trick at first is to just start. You can always change it later, and if it means you get stuck into the story, then that's a good thing.

Also, I find that knowing my story and my characters better helps to figure out what type of start I need, and what information, tone ect I need to get across.

Quinn_Inuit said:

MookyMcD said:

Start it in an uninteresting way. Then kill the first 3 chapters when you do your first edit.

Click to expand...

Been there. Done that. Totally works.

Click to expand...

I haven't but I've heard this advice. And in a recent review of an older WiP that I want to brush off and finish and submit to Viable Paradise this year, I ran into this very thing. I read my first three chapters, I was a little 'eh, it's okay'. Read the fourth chapter and had a DU'OH moment, followed by a forehead slap because that chapter four was a really fantastic place to 'start' the story. It was like the first three chapters were me clearing my throat.

...which I guess it kind of was.

Kylabelle said:

Alternatively, find out what the most exciting, crucial part of the story is, start right in the middle of that, and build the story around it.

Click to expand...

I wish this worked for me but so far it doesn't really. Leading me to believe that I am either boring as hell or I have a really bad concept of what is 'exciting and crucial'.

Roxxsmom said:

I remember reading somewhere that you're supposed to start a story in the same place you'd pick up a puppy--a little in front of the middle.

Click to expand...

Best. Ever.

Roxxsmom said:

A common beginner mistake is to start with lots and lots of backstory, or to spend chapters establishing the character's normality. While these approaches can work, most often, you want to start the story with whatever it is that disrupts the protagonist's life and launches him or her into the story arc.

Click to expand...

Hm. Interesting point about it being a common beginner mistake. Much of what I read about openings, and has been actually said on these very boards, is that you start as close as you can to the exciting bits but just far enough away to establish the character's normality. So, in saying that, I guess you're right. A beginner, trying to do this, may still be trying to start the story too early.

So I guess I don't disagree.

gothicangel said:

It's a first draft, write anything. You can make it exciting and interesting once you have a full draft of the book. At the moment your agonizing about something you might abandon 20,000 words in.

Click to expand...

_Sian_ said:

I think the trick at first is to just start. You can always change it later, and if it means you get stuck into the story, then that's a good thing.

Click to expand...

Yep to both those bolds. You're gonna have to edit when you're done so just pick a place and start writing. The true beginning will most likely come clear after you've gotten a chunk of it written and can look back with clarity.

_Sian_ said:

Also, I find that knowing my story and my characters better helps to figure out what type of start I need, and what information, tone ect I need to get across.

Click to expand...

Which I find I get to by writing about three chapters of throat clearing.

I believe any opening can be interesting, as long as it contains both character and story. In this case, story means a situation that poses some kind of problem for the character.

I think the best opening I've read in a modern novel is the way Stephen King and/or Peter Straub opened The Talisman. Brilliant writing, great character, interesting situation, but no violence.

Find a novel with an opening you really like, and do the same thing, only in your own way.

Practice.

Critique other openings.

Practice.