Where to Begin
Look ahead...or back?

That which is static and repetitive is boring. That which is dynamic and random is confusing. In between lies art.  —John A. Locke (1899-1961)

How do you know where to start a story? How can you tell if you've started too soon or too late? I am reminded of a quote from Graham Greene the British writer. He said in the opening line of his novel "The End of the Affair".... "A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look ahead...or back."    —Scriblr

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From Shona Hamilton
I agree with Jude Mason [see Jude's entry below], it just sort of happens. I sit at the computer, usually the laptop, having had a story buzz about in my head that needs writing. I sit down and just try to type out all the words in my head, the spelling, grammar etc are at this stage totally irrelevant. The important thing is to get all the story down. I can edit it to make more sense afterwards. So far I've been lucky enough to just let the story tell itself!

From Kathleen Bradean
I think you begin a story when your character is about to face the defining moments of his/her life.

From Rebecca Montague
I was taught that you establish your main character in his/her normal, daily life in the moments just before whatever happens to set off the story goal occurs. This introductory segment could be one line or an entire chapter, depending on the story.

That's where I start my stories. Admittedly, I don't always keep that as the opening. Sometimes I find I need to move further back in time, sometimes further into the future in order to provide the proper "hook" for the reader.

Defining what exactly comprises the initial "disaster" is sometimes difficult, and results in rewrites. For example, the first draft of my book "Barnfire" started in Seattle, WA with the main character getting off school, driving home, and walking in on her fiancée and another woman. This prompts her to take her uncle up on an offer to the spend the summer in PA, which is where the bulk of the novel takes place.

On rewriting, I realized I had mistaken the physical movement between WA and PA for the initial "disaster", when it wasn't. As it was published, the opening scene is the main character being wakened by someone yelling "Fire", a much better hook and closer to the point of the real disaster, which is when the lead meets the romantic interest for the first time. I dropped two chapters of what I had initially thought was very important set-up to get to the "real" start of the story.

In another (yet unpublished) novel, I started similarly, having the main character meet the romantic lead in the first few pages. In rewriting, I have found I need to add either a prologue or some other pre-writing to adequately explain why the character is where she is and why meeting the romantic lead is going to be such a disaster.

So my best advice is to start writing at the point where the story grabs "YOUR" interest. Then you can go back and tweak it until has the proper hook to keep the reader turning the pages.

From Emma Keigh
When I wrote my first long-form story (fan-fiction, nothing publishable), I started at the beginning and ended up with two novellas with a short story between them before I got to the end of the main character's story. After months of rereading and rewriting, I ended up with a novel that began at the beginning of the second novella, and continued with the parts of the first novella and the short story interleaved.

Begin at the beginning is good advice, but I find in media res (in the middle of things) to be a more dramatic (and compelling) opening.

From G. Gregory
For me, a story starts when and where the light comes on. Now...how does one define that rationally? I have no clue. And honestly I've never had the curiosity to question "the muse" when she shows up. I've written a bunch of stories and many lines of poetry. Most of it started with a flash of an idea that had no logical beginning point. The story just started, and it became something that was snatched out of the context of something bigger than myself. 

From Anonymous
The tried and true (and logical) answer for where to begin a work is at the point of interest, so you can hook readers into the rest of the tale. It depends on the work, the length, the action, the tension. A good solution is to get the story down on paper (so to speak), and the point of interest will jump out at you, so you can re-structure the work if necessary.

Can't say I agree with this Muse stuff.  I think it makes for a lazy writer. Waiting for your  muse to strike is pretty much giving yourself a handy excuse not to take responsibility for your talent, or lack of. One of the best bits of advice I've read is No Muse is Good News. That article nudged me away from waiting for inspiration to strike, and into trusting myself to write, and write the best story I can that came from me - and not some mythical muse. 

From Jude Mason
Where does it begin, that single flash, even when it's a genre I'm not familiar with, or may not be particularly fond of, it's always a flash of imagery, a feeling for one or more of the characters, a place, a smell. I begin to type, and to be honest, I don't remember going back and starting a story in a different place. I have no idea why, or how I personally do it, it just happens. I've also never wondered why a story begins in a certain place, it just does.

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