How to Begin

Confession: I have been staring at a blank Google doc now for almost fifteen minutes, trying to find an entry point for this resource on beginnings. My job here at the top is to convince you to keep reading—to hook you in some way. I considered trying out a bunch of different opening lines à la Michael Scott. I thought about listing some of my favorite first sentences across literature. Really though, I just want to say something we all know is true: beginnings are hard. 

We’re all on the same page here, right? I’m not the only one staring at blank Google docs for what feels like endless amounts of time before I finally start typing only to delete all the words and begin again a few more times?

(I can feel your solidarity, so thank you for that.)

Good beginnings are hard. Full stop. 
But good beginnings aren’t, of course, insurmountable.

Before we get into what I think makes a good beginning, I’d like to share three of my absolute favorite essays. I’m linking them below in case you want to read them in entirety (10/10 recommend), but I’m also going to pull out just their opening lines. Read them carefully. Think about what makes them so strong, and then read on. 

• What Would You Grab in a Fire? by Megan Stielstra

Opening lines: “I was getting ready for bed when I heard sirens. No big deal in the city, right? We hear them all the time. I brushed my teeth — they got louder. Tossed my pants on the bathroom floor — louder, closer, and when I went into the living room I saw red lights slicing through the blinds.”

• Tomato on Board by Ross Gay

Opening line: “What you don’t know until you carry a tomato seedling through the airport and onto a plane is that carrying a tomato seedling through the airport and onto a plane will make people smile at you almost like you’re carrying a baby.”

• A Stirring Story by Melanie Dale

Opening lines: I stare laser beams into my phone. I don’t know if it will be a call or an email or a Hogwarts owl swooping down with news. Caw! 

Great beginnings do a lot of work, and there is so much we could say about each of those previous sentences. For our purposes today, here are three simple things I think great beginnings do: 

1.) Great beginnings set something into motion.

They kick off the action of the piece. Take those sample essays. Megan Stielstra manages to build suspense about the near sirens with the rhythm of four sentences. Ross Gay wastes no time telling us about a tomato plant on a plane. Melanie Dale makes sure we know she is waiting on an important call right from the top.

If we wait until the bottom of the page to introduce whatever is going to move our story forward or immediately get bogged down by the details of a scene, we will have already lost our readers, who generally have the attention span of a goldfish. We don’t want to turn to click-bait or cheap tricks, but we do want to consider how we can help a reader care or feel invested within the first few sentences. 

What are you trying to set into motion? Point your reader toward that sooner than later.

2.) Great beginnings establish your voice and set the tone. 

Read through those sample openings again. Don’t you have such a clear sense of each writer’s voice and tone?

Melanie's is my favorite example of this. You get a sense immediately that this is a serious story (I stare laser beams into my phone.), but then it immediately turns toward her trademark humor (I don’t know if it will be a call or an email or a Hogwarts owl swooping down with news. Caw!). 

Consider the tone of your scene: Is it reflective? Funny? Irreverent? Wistful? Deeply sad? Choose words that will help you convey that tone immediately and write it in a way that is unequivocally you.

3.) Great beginnings are held with slack hands.

In order to write a rough draft, you have to write a first sentence. Sometimes though, and I’m going to quote Marion Roach Smith here, “that first sentence, if you cleave to it, will act like a bad lighthouse and beckon you toward it in the copy that follows.” Meaning: Sometimes, by the time we are done writing our way through something, those well-thought out beginnings no longer have anything to do with the piece as a whole. 

So what can we do? We can hold our opening lines with “slack hands, that loose grip, knowing full well that the opening sentence [might] change.” Once the essay is finished, take a look back at the beginning. Did you set your reader down the right path? Are those first sentences the best launching point for the rest of the piece? 

A few final things…

Notice what I didn’t do here: I didn’t tell you exactly how to begin because there isn’t, of course, one single entry point into an essay or a scene. My best advice there? Read like a writer. Try a few openings out. Trust your reader when you throw her into the deep end of a story. 

The key is to begin. From there, the possibilities are delightfully endless. 

A related resource: Introduction Progression