What are some of your favorite story openings (Author's Edition)

[MFontana]

I already asked something like this for the readers, but this one here's for all you authors out there.
What are some of your favorite openings to write for your stories?
Do you prefer writing In Media Res openings (IE: Starting in the action or in the moment)?
Or perhaps something slower, where you gradually build up the story into its inciting incident before thrusting the characters (and the reader) into the action?
Or maybe something else entirely?

What are your thoughts? What do you prefer?
--

Spoiler

Personally, I prefer writing a mix. I'll tend to open a story with a Prelude (generally told from the protagonist's perspective in first-person limited), followed immediately by Chapter 1 starting right in the thick of the action. Or in the moment. You'll see something just like that with Aethara: The King's Path as well. Volume 1 opens on the Prelude, a brief (400 word) intro from the perspective of Marius Valthorne, before Chapter 1 drops you (the reader) right into the moment.

 

[Juia_Darkcrest]

I always loved the use of a natural phenomenon to lead into the scene.

The first chapter of the Wheel of Time comes to mind...


Born below the ever cloud-capped peaks that gave the mountains their name, the wind blew east, out across the Sand Hills, once the shore of a great ocean, before the Breaking of the World. Down it flailed into the Two Rivers, into the tangled forest called the Westwood, and beat at two men walking with a cart and horse down the rock-strewn track called the Quarry Road. For all that spring should have come a good month since, the wind carried an icy chill as if it would rather bear snow.

It is a wonderful opening to the scene that follows.

 

[Eldoria]

opening? Do you mean prologue or chapter 1?! Well, I tend to start with an atmosphere for a quick worldbuilding, then get down to the story premise, usually an action that contains human values, beliefs, ideologies or dark past. for example, a mother who feeds her daughter but she herself suffers from PTSD, a sister who searches for her long lost sister by 'sweeping' villages, a fight between 2 friends because of betrayal of idealism, etc. Then close with an emotional cliffhanger.

 

[Our_Lady_in_Twilight]

I really like reading a good 'slow start', but I think it's a lot more challenging to actually write it well. Essentially you still need hooks and incitements, just on a much smaller scale - ie you can have five chapters in the little village before the orcs turn up, if you have a mini arc about pinching apples and catching a glimpse of the village beauty. But it takes much more skill to capture readers with such low stakes.

It is a wonderful opening to the scene that follows.

There are no beginnings and endings to the turning of the Wheel, but it was a beginning...

 

[Deleted member 266]

I'd like to start with something immediate... something happening in the scene, not the setting.

First Person:
"I was bleeding. The blood from the cut on my brow flowed freely, forcing my left eye to flutter..."

Third Person:
"The clash of steel chimed through the forest like an angry song. Hunger gnarled at Ben’s gut, but instead of a slice of hard bread and a wedge of cheese, the man in front of him was only willing to offer the slice of cold steel, too deadly for his taste."

I guess it's kind of In Media Res, but don't really go back before the action, the action is where the story starts.

 

[MFontana]

opening? Do you mean prologue or chapter 1?! Well, I tend to start with an atmosphere for a quick worldbuilding, then get down to the story premise, usually an action that contains human values, beliefs, ideologies or dark past. for example, a mother who feeds her daughter but she herself suffers from PTSD, a sister who searches for her long lost sister by 'sweeping' villages, a fight between 2 friends because of betrayal of idealism, etc. Then close with an emotional cliffhanger.

In the words of Jarlaxle Baenre... "Yes."

In other words, I mean however you open your stories/books. Favorite way to write an opening. Be it Prologue, or Chapter 1. Where do you like to begin a story when you're writing it?
In essence, all of those could generally be considered "In media res" because you're starting in the action, and the moment.

 

[CinnaSloth]

Slow burn.
Chapter one, introduce characters. End chapter one with the problem.
Start chapter two by explaining the problem, and expand.
Chapter 3 make it impossible to solve the problem.
Every chapter after- build upon the problem, characters, and the world until the problem seems possible. WRONG! rip it away, and do it again!!!
Big EARNED finish. No handout. No undeserved wins.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

One of the greatest openings ever is to a short story - but it's only great BECAUSE it's a short story. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I'd have to re-read it to remember which event it opens on but you're kind of left not knowing if it really happened, or if it's all in his head - or if there's another level of reality altogether.

The best opens engage the reader somehow - either by tossing them into the action, by introducing them to a situation that they should want to know more about, by letting them see a hint of a mystery.
Some all-time classic opens:

"In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit."

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we were all going direct.to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

"The Miss Lonelyhearts of the New York Post-Dispatch (Are you in trouble? Do-you-need-advice? Write-to-Miss-Lonelyhearts-and-she-will-help-you) sat at his desk and stared at a piece of white cardboard."

" You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly."

"One morning, as Gregor Samsa awoke from anxious dreams, he discovered that during the night he had been transformed into a monstrous bug."

"Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested."

"You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings."

" Once, there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids."

"All this happened, more or less."

"Mr. & Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."

"The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed."

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun."

" It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain, he fell madly in love with him."

" Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations."

(this list comes from a site claiming to have the 100 best opening lines or paragraphs in all of fiction; this is the only one I felt I had to include, even though I never read the book, because it kind of fits): "This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it."

"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed."

" No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality walked alone."

"The story so far: In the beginning, the Universe was created."

" Sam Vimes sighed when he heard the scream, but he finished shaving before he did anything about it."

"Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing."

"That was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry."

 

[Envylope]

I start with whatever will hook the readers into my story premise. Since I wrote isekai a lot before, it was always a death leading to who they became.

The current story I'm writing lead with an action sequence that contained the main character's struggle with her weakness.

 

[AnEmberOfSundown]

"The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

Can't beat it. Douglas Adams nailed it in one.

 

[Our_Lady_in_Twilight]

The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light.

 

[Elmir_Arch-Ham_of_Omega]

I prefer In Medias Res.

"We're always In Medias Res. You were born In Medias Res; a footnote to the history of two people. You yourself had decided who you are after the fact you've had a few years in your belt already. Just when you think it had all began, the starting point continues to grow further."
- My barber

 

[AmbreaTaddy]

I like a direct approach, something that will directly show the reader the tone of the story. For exemple, 'I Blinked And Now I'm Famous' starts like this :

The pandemic. In 2019, it was like a wave of fear and despair that swept over the world and left no one untouched. People were sick, a lot died, but even for those who somewhat escaped the clutches of the virus, life was changed forever.

We directly know 'ok, the story is about someone who has lost things after the pandemic'. On the other end, I started 'The Sun Was Blinding Me So' with a longer description, because I needed to establish from the beginning that this was a fantasy universe with strange beings :

She was almost human from the waist up, except for her strange triangular ears and the two twisted horns on her forehead. But down below, she had sturdy little legs set with hooves. She was a pacle. Her red pupils had elongated irises like two swords lying on the ground, further reinforcing the terrifying look that this ash-gray skin gave her, and the many expression lines that enclosed her face. Her long, black, shiny hair formed a curtain in front of her head, protecting her from outside eyes and from anyone wanting to come into contact with her. At least she would have hoped so.

In one paragraph we get a lot of information : There is a female character, she is a strange being that isn't human, we know her physical appearence, and we have a hint that she hates people. All of that at once, but at least we have the basic setting for this character and a few hints for the world of the story.

A different approach would be, like I did in the second book 'The Sun Will Always Shine', starting directly with a dialogue :

"What will happen to General Drought?"

One line, and we already have the first plot line : Something is going on with General Drought, the book will probably focus on him and what will happen to him.


Openings are important, that's why I don't have a recipe and I change it for each story