Practice Corner - Starting your story

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Starting your story - things not to do.


What make you want to read a story? Well, the summary for one. But, even with the best pairings and tag lines to get them to click that link, if you don’t hook your reader in the first paragraph, or so, their out.

With so much fanfiction to read, (or things in general) what will catch your reader's eye? What will turn them away?

Here are some tips on what not to do, from The Writing Cafe.

Starting with Dialogue

When you start with dialogue or an onomatopoeia is a bad idea because your readers don’t have any context about:
Characters
Point of View
Narrators
Setting
Current Action
It can confuse the reader rather than intrigue them. Most readers don’t have the patience to read on to figure out what that dialogue is about, who it was directed to, and who said it.
I know there are a lot of books that begin like this, but very few are able to get away with it.
Other bad beginnings/cliche beginnings may include:
Waking up
A daily routine (shower, breakfast, etc.)
Moving
Irrelevant weather
Info dumps
Excessive back story/exposition
Dreams
Flashbacks
Too much description


What do you think? What makes you turn back? Or what hooks you in?