What is the best way to start off a story?

what is the best way to start off a story?

*record scratch*

>call me Israel

Guaranteed to win every publisher over

*Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin plays

In all seriousness, start it in a way that exposes the key elements of the story. Have it so that once the story has begun, little else has to be introduced. Especially if it's a short story.

The way you have to rewrite because you realize later it sucks and doesn't connect to the rest of the story. This is also how you become a better writer. Just write you mongrel dog.

in the middle of the act. The "beginning" of a story is not the beginning of that character's story or the story of that world. Telling a story is like checking in on someone for a certain amount of time. All stories end inconclusively

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

"My name is [insert name] and this is my story"

t. Animorphs writer

Aujourd’hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.

You're probably wondering how i got here...

"This definitely isn't a dream,"

Depends on the fucking story but personally I prefer in media res with a smaller conflict which mirrors the main stuff and key themes on a smaller scale, and then introducing the main stuff in chapter 2 or so.

Make the reader ask a question

do something radical, like start off the story in the middle of the bigger plot you are trying to right about and work your way backwards, but only to move forward in the bigger plot towards your conclusion

>right
*write

"That's me. You're probably wondering how I got in this wacky situation..."

"Uuuungh, w-why can't I stop? M...my hips are moving themselves!"

Make the reader answer a question

A 10 question quiz that unlocks the book if answered successfully

"Once upon a time"

With the character waking up of course.

In medias res.

objectively this

t. brainlets that can't actually come up with a nice opening

The ending

Alan Aardvark.

Woke up, I have a lotta feet and my back is hard lol

Then why don't you explain to the class why you think so?

cheating desu, nothing will ever top this

With an etymological exegesis of the protagonist's name.
Alternatively, with a side character finding the protagonist's nose in a freshly baked loaf of bread.

CRASH

You have to start the story with as many big words as possible so the dumb reader immediately quits reading and only intelligent readers are allowed to read the book.

An invocation to the gods.

The story im currently writing starts with the protagonist getting the shit kicked out of him because he hasn't paid some money he owes

ok, this is the right answer

>Ο Μούσα...

A long rambling prologue explaining the history of the world. Bonus points if it's set in our own world

Start by throwing the reader into the middle of things, not necessarily the middle of the story. Have conflict all the way through

c h e c k e m

Make sure that the story is front loaded with lots of exposition and description. By the end of the first chapter I should know
>name
>age
>gender(s)
>occupation
>city
>government structure and who's in charge
>description of what all key characters look like
>key characters outlook on life
>any special abilities?
>who is the bad guy?

The more the better

I read less bookies than fingers on my hand, but in what I'm trying to write I started out with the protoganist in a place of quiet reflection.

Ay naw HOL UP
*smacks lips*

The air smells like salt

BACK THE FUCK OFF??????

>The smell of freshly baked bagels fills the air. Bernsteins long, drafty nose barely had barely caught a wiff before he jumped out of bed, brimming with anticipation. "Lox too!"

sounds original

The only memorable part of the book

Recommend me books like this, I love no

>Non-linear story telling*
phoneposting is horrible

Cloud Atlas. Not that good btw.

SEX....there now that I got your attention check out this cool dude with a bunch of guns and a mission of revenge.

A story im working on is set in a prison, and starts with the protagonist hearing a new young inmate being raped in his cell

>"... and they lived happily ever after." X sighed while closing the book.
This is how I'm starting my short story.

>any special abilities?
>who is the bad guy?
kek

What if my aim is to obfuscate the name/age and reveal them much later in the book?

You have to start with the character getting up, and then describing how he reacts to the weather outside.

sounds like shit already

most likely, its the first thing iv attempted to write since high school English class

Are you writing John Cena fanfiction?

Fuck, that's actually a brilliant idea but no. I'm thinking of having the character experience a rebirth of sorts and be given a new name.

>in french
*tips fedora*

A lot of gen x'ers and millennial writers (both genders) like starting their quirky story doing a quirky thing

>She was arranging sugar cubes in a pentagram like she always did as she waited for her waffles to to finish toasted in her waffle maker

Or some gay shit like

>He finished putting up his laminated ducks on the clothes line--art exhibit friday.

God I hate the state of literature today---120IQ people and below are so easily impressed.

Kill yourself

"It was a dark and gloomy night..."

Mine starts with a deep emotional reflection on events that clearly have shaken the character deep to his core. The scene is then repeated to close the book with a different character feeling the same depth of emotion.

stormy you fucking retard

It's my own original intro you dingus.

Slaughterhouse Five

Well I wouldn't recommend it as such, but it applies

that's deep

CRASH

Shrek did it first

Thus have I heard

I do realize it's a common trope, but I feel it fits quite nicely as the primer to the story. I could word it differently, but the core of the start stays the same. Is it really that sinful to begin it like that?

With the main character when he's young with his mom and the mom dies. Hooks Normie women right away. They read the most out of everybody. After that do what ever you want.

It's absolute garbage

This. Wholeheartedly this.

It reeks of "look at all of these other authors just doing the same shit, I'm so creative and different".

>Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.

True, nervous, very very dreadfully nervous I had been and am -- but why do you say that I am mad? The disease has sharpened, not destroyed, not dulled my senses.

- What Happened, first paragraph

むかしむかし、

immediately

really it depends on several factors.
the length of your story
the genre perhaps
but ultimately in a way that should hopefully keep the reader entertained best
I like to start somewhere where there is room for growth but not from the complete beginning as you learn more about the past while moving towards the future, if that makes sense...

>reply to this post or your mum dies in her sleep

Whatever is best for the story.
Also, don't listen to anyone saying things like it HAS to be in medias res, or some jaw-dropping crap, because they're basically just admitting that they're a pleb writing for plebs.

>the opening scene of the big lebowski

You probably just want meme answers, but seriously there is no best way to do anything in literature. You just use what's best for the situation. Else this is like asking what's the best color for the bottom left corner of your painting. Some assholes will shout anything from brown to green to red, but really it just depends on what the hell you're painting. start your story the way it should start.

Underrated.

Sounds like Kafka

In tears. Best way to start a book for sure.

>George realised, with a sort of laugh, that every joke he had recently heard had been told by himself, to himself, and at his own expense.

It sounds nothing like Kafka

nice

>ctrl+f CRASH
>2 results
cant even meme your own memes fags

Very good

unironically, the best answer

BANG

How Kafkaesque

>Kafkaesque

"Your father was a coward".

Any stories that begin in a similar fashion?

THUS

Mike, Molly, John and Janet are waddling to the store as penguins do when John DeMerki slows down next to them in his 2031 Honda Gear.

At the beginning.